by K. S. Thomas
His words destroy what little hope I had left for keeping it even remotely together. Anger and hurt funnel together, rising up through my chest in a painful twist and turn of emotions so physical, every breath in and out aches with the pressure.
“Yes, I fell in love with him in an instant. I fell in love with him fast and beautifully and without fear. I fell in love with Reed. Not because he was everything I always wanted, or because it was fate or even because we were soulmates. I fell in love with him, because he let me.” My hands fly up and pummel him hard in the chest, pounding into him as if it will somehow help me break through and reach the one part of him he’s always kept out of my reach. His heart. “I have spent a lifetime trying to love you.” I break down, gasping and stammering and barely forming audible words anymore. “Why. Won’t. You. Let. Me?”
He doesn’t answer. Doesn’t fight me. Just wraps his arms around my body, steadying me because it’s all he’s ever known how to do. Hold me up. Keep me standing. Be my rock.
My stare is glued to him, searching, waiting for the moment he can no longer avoid my gaze. Finally, his chin rises, and his fiery glare has nowhere to go but meet mine.
Gun’s eyes claim me like the current of the sea. Pulling me in so deep and so far, all I see is the endless ocean of his soul, and then, just like that, pushing me right back out, until all I have left of him is the sand running through my fingers.
Then, he makes a heart shattering confession. “I wanted you to love Reed.”
“Why?” I press on.
“Because he makes you forget all the things I make you remember,” he growls. I’m shaking. He’s shaking. I don’t know which one of us is causing it. I don’t care.
“I never wanted to forget!” My hands curl around the collar of his shirt, gripping it tight and forcing him to focus all of his attention on me. “For every bad memory I’ve ever made, I have a good one to go with it. Because of you.” My chest is pressed to his, the thunder of our joint emotions vibrating between us. It’s an intensity beyond anything I’ve ever experienced. It’s like I can feel everything he’s feeling. All of his emotions are running through me, physically leaving their mark as they race through me in a rampage for my heart. “I always want to remember,” I push out through chattering teeth. This adrenaline is all consuming. “All of it.”
The fierceness in his eyes breaks, and everything inside them spills out, pouring all over me. He doesn’t speak, but I don’t need him to. His wall is gone. The invisible barrier I thought I’d never get passed has melted away, allowing me in. Showing me every thought, every word he’s ever kept to himself. And the words I came here to say to him have no choice but to spill out.
“I’m pregnant.” Breathless, I wait.
He blinks and for a second it seems the wall returns. Then, it crumbles and the flood of feelings surges through.
“Choose me.” His hands move up along my waist, along my back and around my neck until they’re cupping my face with a tender force. “Choose me, Cooper. I should have asked you to a million times over. I was stupid. And scared. But I’m not now. Please, I don’t care about blood or DNA or any of that stupid shit. You and I know that’s not what makes a family. You have to know I can love this baby better than any father has ever loved their child because I love its mother more than any man has ever loved a woman. I swear to you, Cooper, I can do this. I want to do this. More than I’ve ever wanted anything.” He kisses me, softly. Desperately. “Please. Choose me.”
“Don’t you get it yet?” I ask, gently brushing the hair out of his tragically dark and beautiful eyes. “I already did.”
Relief washes over him in a way I can visibly see, and then profoundly feel as he wraps me up in his tall frame, folding me into his chest, close to his heart, where I’ve always belonged.
“And,” I add quietly, still crying from sheer overwhelm, “you better love this baby.”
“I will,” he promises, “I will.”
“Good.” I smile as a new, almost excruciating happiness swells within me. “Because it’s yours.”
Epilogue
Cooper
“Good God, woman...put that down, you don't know where it's been!” Mags yells at me from across the room and I nearly drop the pearl earring I was about to put in my lobe.
“I just now took it out of the little velvet box it came in. Between here and the jewelers, how many places could it have been?” I ask, more amused than curious.
She shakes her head and holds out her hand, adamant I release the earrings to her. “That’s better.” She slides them into her purse and I can’t help but wonder how I’m going to explain their disappearance to Gun who spent a pretty penny on them. Before I can voice my concerns however, she’s holding out her other hand, turning it over and revealing the most stunning sapphire studs I’ve ever laid eyes on. “Wear these instead,” she says, smiling a Mags smile I’ve only ever seen on three other occasions in my life. The day I woke up at the hospital after the accident. The moment she first held my daughter, Daphne, and then again when she was there to see Gun drop down on one knee and ask me to be his. Forever. Officially. Legally. She saves these smiles up, she does.
“I don’t know if I can take these, Mags.” I’m afraid to even touch them, they’re so beautiful.
“Well, you’re going to have to.” She undoes the first one and starts to put it in for me. “The way I see it, they’re old. Really old. Antiques Brighton gave me the Christmas before he died.” I can feel her press the butterfly back into place. “But, they’re new to you because you’ve never even seen them before today. They’re obviously blue,” she points out, holding the second stud up in my line of vision before she continues on with it to my other lobe, “and, I think we both know I’m gonna need them back, so they’re borrowed.”
“Mags.” I don’t even know what else to say.
“White chocolate?” she says, Hershey’s Hugs in her palm.
I laugh. “Seriously?”
“What? Even if it melts, it won’t mess up your dress.”
“That’s not it.” Time starts to slow down as it all becomes real, this moment between us, the moments that will follow. “I’m not going to need chocolate today, Mags.”
“I know.” She shrugs, glancing down at her hand and unwrapping the candy. “It’s for me. Not every day your collected crack-whore baby daughter gets married, you know?” If it weren’t for the fact I can hear the tears about to ambush her announcing themselves in her trembling voice, I might have missed the sentimentality of that statement. Except it’s Mags, so I wouldn’t have.
“You never call me that,” I whisper, fighting back emotions myself.
“I call you a crack-whore baby all the time,” she teases, sniffing.
“You know what I meant.” I wipe my eyes as carefully as I can. Cammie will kill me if I destroy the makeup she spent all morning painting on my face.
Mags rolls her eyes, just in case I’m making too much of her monumental statement. “I call you my daughter all the time, too, doofus. I just don’t do it when you can hear me.”
I don’t know if I can take much more of this before I start bawling. “What are you talking about? Why would you hide that from me?”
Mags sighs, takes my hand and leads me over to the sofa in the corner of my dressing room where we both have a seat. “B and I made a deal, a long time ago, that we would never cross that line. We didn’t like it, but we felt like it would be best in the long run, not to muddle up the family tree.”
“Huh?” I don’t even know what that means, and all I can think is, of all the family trees, Mags and B aren’t exactly dangling from the most traditional, or balanced, looking one.
“Wasn’t long after you came to live with me, that I went to see B. To tell him that I wanted to adopt you, wanted to make it official. You and me were family and I wanted you to know that turning eighteen and eliminating my legal responsibilities wasn’t going to change that.”
I gasp. I had
no idea.
“But, it turned out, B had similar plans for Gun and Ed. He and Marie were already filing the paperwork.”
“But neither of them were ever adopted either,” I whisper, my voice hoarse with emotion.
“No.” She shakes her head, sadness reeling in her eyes. “We decided that given your connection, it would complicate things for you if we both pursued adopting you. Legally, you would have been cousins. You both had plenty of burdens to bear where your relationship was concerned, neither B nor I wanted to add any more turmoil to the mix. So, we agreed. We wouldn’t adopt. Not legally. But it never changed what we both felt. That we were your parents. However strange or unconventional, you were stuck with us.”
“I always thought it was the other way around,” I admit, starting to laugh.
“Crazy goes both ways, kid. That’s what makes it fit.” She smooths out the skirt of her dress with her hands. “But, enough about the past.” She stands, taking my hands and pulling me to my feet as well. “You have a future.” Her eyes widen with excitement as she spins me around to face the full-length mirror. “And it looks spectacular on you.”
There’s a knock and the door cracks open. “Are we ready?” Cammie asks in a hushed voice.
“Yes,” I answer, mimicking her tone. “Why are we whispering?”
Cammie lets herself into the room and closes the door behind her. “Daphne is sleeping and we all just got in trouble with Grandma Dini for nearly waking her up.”
“Well, we can’t do this while she’s asleep.” I mean, we could. She’s seven months old. It’s not like she’ll remember being at her parents’ wedding. And frankly, she’ll probably enjoy the ceremony a lot more if she’s napping through it. Still feels wrong though.
“Trust me, by the time we get everyone into place and this show rolling down the sandy aisle, sleeping beauty will be all bright eyed and bushy tailed, all smiles for your wedding pictures,” Mags reasons. She’s good at that. Though it still surprises me.
“Are the guys ready?” I ask Cammie, my one and only bridesmaid. It works though, since Gun only has Ed standing up with him.
“Last time I saw them, Ed was giving your guy a really solid pep talk. Should be good by now.”
“Wait, what? Why did he need a pep talk?” He better not be having second thoughts. Seems sort of anticlimactic given the road we took to get here. If he can’t commit now when life is easy, I can’t help him.
“Relax. It wasn’t cold feet. He was freaking out about his vows.” She giggles. “Kind of messed up you made him write his own, if you ask me. What with Gun always being so forthcoming with his feelings and all.”
“Hey, he’s gotten a lot better at that.” I smirk. “Besides, the practice will do him good.” Not that I need him to verbalize much of anything anymore these days. Open book, that guy. At least, for me.
“Alright girls,” Mags grips the side of my waist and smacks a loud kiss on my cheek. “I’m going out there to find my seat. I’ll catch you both on the flipside.” She squeezes Cammie in a tight hug on her way to the door, and then, she’s gone and it’s just us.
“You ready?” Cammie asks, a tentative smile on her rosy lips. It’s the perfect shade to compliment the petal pink gown she’s wearing. I let her choose. And I was right to, her taste is always impeccable.
I’m about to answer yes, when I catch a glimmer of worry, growing in her eyes the longer I stay silent.
“Cammie,” I say quietly, “you can’t really still wonder. Not after everything that’s happened.”
She musters a smile. “I thought I was okay with it, but somehow today is stirring everything up. Seeing you in this dress. Knowing Reed is here. I just keep having this horrible flash of him standing up in the middle of the ceremony to object.” She laughs, but it’s drenched in doubt and a lingering sorrow. “I hate that I feel this way.”
I take her hand and hold it tight. “Cammie, Reed McAllister is so completely head over heels in love with you, the only person he’s going to be looking at when we go walking down that aisle, is you. He’s not going to object to anything because he’ll be far too busy imagining the day you two are standing up there, exchanging your own vows.”
She wipes her eyes with her free hand. “How can you be so sure?”
“Because. I know what love looks like now. I can recognize it when I see it on someone else.” I take one of her long braids, twined with pink for the occasion, and gently drape it back over her shoulder. “Meeting Reed was fate. I’ll always believe that for as long as I live. But whatever silly ideas we had about being soulmates, they were just that, Cammie. And I know that, because I’m about to marry mine.”
“What made it fate? You think it took believing it was Reed to finally see that it was Gun?”
I nod. “Yeah. But that’s not the only thing I think was destined to happen.” I smile, thinking about all the amazing things that have unfolded in the last year and a half.
“No?”
“No.” I release her hand and start to walk toward the long table along the wall where our bouquets are waiting. I love this room. It’s ours. Mine and Gun’s. In our house. The perfect house. For three...and maybe more down the road. Unlike all the other houses that came before it, we found this one together. Fixed it up, together. And, even though it wasn’t easy being right on the beach, we created a little oasis for a backyard together. The only task Gun took upon himself this time, was planting pansies, right up front. Softly, my fingertips dance over the soft petals of my favorite flower, picked from my own garden and providing the perfect touch of color in an otherwise white bouquet. I smile, thinking how obvious it all seems now. Gun. Me. Even Reed.
“I think,” I continue my train of thought out loud, “the real reason Reed came to find me, was ultimately to get to you.” I give her the banded flowers, ribbons draping over my hand and spilling nearly down to the floor. I love everything about today. Every conversation, every beautiful detail in the decorations. All of it is damn near magical.
“Thank you,” Cammie breathes, relief and joy pooling together in her golden eyes, making them sparkle.
“Wow. Did the tables just get turned or what?! That was some seriously solid therapy I just dished out there.” I tap her shoulder playfully with my bouquet.
“That was pretty good,” she admits, laughing. “I can’t believe that happened. You’re the bride. You’re supposed to need talking down or talking up or talking something. Don’t you have any last-minute fears? Any sudden concerns? A run in your hose? Anything?”
I lift my dress enough to show off my bare legs and bare feet, perfect for a beach wedding. “Nope. I’m good.” I giggle, wiggling my toes.
“You really are.” Cammie smile swells to fill her face. “You’re glowing.”
“Love will do that.” I take a deep breath and reach for the door. I can’t wait to go meet Gun outside in the sand, under the setting sun, the limitless ocean dancing behind us, reminding us how easy it is to get caught in the waves, how hard things get when you fight them and how perfectly you can wind up on course when you just go with the flow.
I’m ready. Ready to make promises I learned to keep a lifetime ago. Because we’ve been in this together from the first moment we met. We just didn’t always understand that, didn’t always have words for it. And maybe we still don’t need them. Maybe I won’t call him my husband any more than I’ve ever called him my boyfriend. Because he’s more than any sort of label can contain. He’s mine.
Gun
“You have the ring?” I ask Ed for the hundredth time. He’s said yes during every one of my previous ring interrogations, but I’m anxious, so I’m asking again.
“No, man. It’s gone. I threw it out,” he deadpans. “Only way I could see to make this madness stop.” His hand retrieves a small velvet box from his pocket. “Got it right here. Now stop it. She’ll be out any second and then you’ll feel really stupid you let your nerves get to you.”
“I just want i
t to be perfect.” I tug at my vest. It fit perfectly when the tailor was working on it, now it seems tight and awkward. But I don’t have time to worry about that any more. The music just began to play. It’s starting.
“It is perfect. Every last thing happening here today, is perfect,” Ed assures me under his breath.
I nod, turning my attention to the gate leading to our backyard. Our backyard. Our home. We’re getting married just a few feet away from the place we’re going to live, where we’re going to raise our family and where I’m going to wake up every morning next to my best friend, the most beautiful woman in the world, for the rest of my life. I can’t think of a better place to promise her a life together, than the place we’re going to live it.
Then I see her. Ed was right. Perfect. Everything about her. Her long, copper curls swept up off her shoulders, single strands of wavy hair framing her face. Her stunning face. Every freckle, every sweet dimple, permanently with me, emblazoned in my mind. Just like every moment of our lives together, entangled memories of heartache and pure bliss. Forever a part of who I am. With her. Always with her. And after every painful step we took to get here, that’s not something I’ll ever forget.
The End.
Acknowledgements
I have without doubt, some of the most amazing people in my life. From my family to my friends, to the fabulous readers I’ve become so close to over the years, I am one of the luckiest girls around.
To write a book, is so much more than just sitting your ass in one spot long enough to type out the words.
It’s the dance teacher, who puts a coffeemaker in the waiting room because she knows you’ll be sitting there all class, with your tablet and keyboard ready to go.
It’s the friends who ask you how the story is going and then listen while you ramble on trying to work out the twists and turns for yourself.
It’s the mom who reminds you to get some sleep even when she knows you want to stay up and write.