Epilogue

EPILOGUE

One Year Later…

“Why are you doing this to me?” Cayley mumbled weakly against her pillow.

“It’s Christmas,” the sick bastard that had made her life a living hell for the past month said.

“Go away,” Cayley muttered, curling more tightly into a ball and-

Quickly decided that now was a great time to get up when her stomach suddenly turned, leaving her with no other choice but to open her eyes and move her ass, praying that she made it to the bathroom in time. Within seconds, she was racing across their large bedroom and…slowly coming to a stop as she tried to make sense out of what she was seeing.

“Is…is he dressed like a reindeer?” Cayley found herself asking as she stared down at their baby boy, dressed in a brown onesie with antlers to match, only to wonder why their son was glaring at her.

“Rudolph,” Bryce said with a satisfied sigh as he stepped up behind her and wrapped his arms around her so that he could place his hands over the soft curve of her belly and did his best to calm her queasy stomach, something that they’d learned worked early on during her first pregnancy.

“Ummm, and is there a reason why you’ve dressed our son like a reindeer?” Cayley found herself asking as she took in the small red circle on Drew’s nose.

“He wanted to dress up for Christmas,” Bryce said with a satisfied sigh as Drew’s eyes narrowed dangerously on her.

“He’s only three months old. I don’t think he really had a preference,” Cayley pointed out, only to feel her lips twitch when Bryce said, “He peed on the Frosty outfit I showed him.”

“I see,” Cayley murmured as she cleared her throat and pointed at their son’s blanket. “And is there a reason why you switched out the blanket your father gave him?”

“It wasn’t festive enough,” the man that had taken her by surprise the day after Thanksgiving by taking her Christmas tree shopping said.

At first, Cayley thought that he was just being the incredibly sweet, adoring husband that he was, but that all changed when she tried to choose a Christmas tree. That’s when the glaring began. It was probably one of the most deeply disturbing moments of her life and she was including the incident where Sean broke into the delivery room so that he could glare at her and tell her to hurry the hell up so that he could hold his godson.

For a moment, Bryce glared at her before narrowing his eyes on her and informing her that she wasn’t about to wreck their son’s first Christmas by picking out a tree that wasn’t worthy of all the new Christmas decorations that he’d bought. That had been quickly followed by him banning her to the hot cocoa booth while he took Drew around the lot, taking his time picking out the perfect tree and after that…

Cayley really didn’t like to think about all the deeply disturbing things that had occurred over the past month, but somehow, her husband, who’d once hated Christmas with a passion, had found the Christmas spirit. He’d decorated the house, inside and out, created a winter wonderland on their front yard for the neighborhood kids, somehow made his father dress up like Santa and read A Christmas Carol to Drew, who hadn’t looked any happier about it than his grandfather had, baked every Christmas treat known to man, dragged her to everything even slightly Christmas related over the past month, went nuts Christmas shopping, took a week to decide on the perfect Christmas wrapping paper, watched every Christmas movie ever made, twice, and because that apparently wasn’t enough, he’d somehow bullied the rest of the fathers in the neighborhood into going Christmas caroling, and…

“Is that a matching Rudolph costume?” Cayley found herself asking when she spotted the brown footie pajamas hanging on the back of their door.

“Mmmhmmm,” Bryce murmured as he pressed a kiss against the side of her neck, “and I’m going to need you to change into it before we open presents.”

Swallowing hard, Cayley glanced back at the alarm clock on their nightstand and weakly mumbled, “It’s barely five in the morning.”

There was a heavy sigh, and then, “You don’t want to keep Santa waiting, do you?”

“I want to go back to sleep,” Cayley mumbled, throwing their bed a wistful look.

“You can do that later,” Bryce said, pressing one last kiss against her neck before he released her and picked up their son, who, for some reason, was still glaring at her.

“But sleep…” Cayley mumbled sadly as she gestured weakly to the bed behind her.

“Don’t you want to find out what Santa brought you?” Bryce asked, kissing the top of Drew’s head.

“I would rather go back to bed,” Cayley said, only to grumble when Bryce went back to glaring.

Knowing that she really didn’t have a choice, Cayley pouted as she made her way over to the footie pajamas waiting for her and grabbed them before turning around and made her way to the bathroom, where she grumbled the entire time. Ten minutes later, her stomach was settled, she was wearing the deeply disturbing reindeer pajamas, and she was making her way downstairs to find her husband waiting for her in the living room and felt her heart melt when his expression softened.

Wondering if he had any idea how much she loved him, Cayley moved to pull him into her arms so that she could show him, only to find herself frowning in confusion when she saw the Christmas tree. All of the new ornaments and lights that Bryce picked out were gone and in their place were worn and somewhat familiar-looking ornaments that had her moving closer to the tree and-

“Oh, my God,” Cayley mumbled weakly as she reached over with a trembling hand when she spotted the Christmas ornament that she’d made for her mother when she was little.

Swallowing hard, she moved to run her fingertips over the Christmas ball with the word, “Mommy” crudely written in black magic marker as she took in all the Christmas ornaments that she’d made when she was a little girl, only to forget how to breathe when she spotted the hand carved wreathe that looked brand new with a picture of her mother smiling down at her when she was a baby.

“Where did you find this?” Cayley asked, running her fingertips reverently over the ornament.

“Your father found an old camera in the attic. When he had the pictures developed, he found this one and I convinced him to let me have it,” Bryce said, wrapping his arms around her.

“Do you like it?” he asked, gently caressing her belly.

“I love it,” Cayley whispered. “I can’t believe you did this.”

“And I can’t believe just how unbelievably happy you make me.”

* * *

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