Epilogue One

EPILOGUE ONE

Britt

(Six months later...)

"You know, Silas, if you wanted to get kinky with blindfolds, we could have done that at home," I tell him, adjusting the folded bandana tied over my eyes.

"Hush. It's a surprise. We're almost there," he says.

"Fine," I concede and just sit there in the passenger seat of his truck, humming along with the radio. We turn off the main road and onto a gravel drive. Then he slows down and I can feel him shifting the gears into park.

"Okay. You can take it off."

I raise the blindfold, slipping it over my head and dropping it on the seat. I have no fucking clue where we are. There's a house, two story, white picket fence. In the yard, there's a swing set. "What's this place?"

"Ours if you want it," he says.

My heart is pounding furiously in my chest. "You're buying a house."

"I'm buying us a house... if it's the one you want. If it isn't, we'll keep looking. But it checks all my boxes. Plenty of room for Karli to play. Extra bedrooms in case we decide to have another kid someday."

"Another?"

"Yeah," he says putting his hands on the wheel and gripping it tightly. I can tell he's nervous. "Karli's mine. Maybe not by blood, but in every way that matters. I love her, Britt. I love her and I want her to be mine for real. It would mean getting Dakota to give up his parental rights, but since he's literally thousands of dollars behind on child support, I don't think it would be that difficult. He's not even seen Karlin in more than six months. No visits. No phone calls. Nothing."

"You don't have to convince me. You probably won't even have to convince her. But he can be a spiteful prick." Just last night, when I tucked her into bed while he was at work, she confessed how much she loved him and how much she wished Silas was her daddy.

"Well, if I'm going to make Karli legally mine, there's something else we need to take care of."

I cock my head to the side. I think I know where this is going. My heart is pounding in my chest and I'm desperately attempting to play it cool. "What's that?"

He reaches into the pocket of his jacket. What I expected was a little velvet box. Instead, it's a set of keys. "Silas?"

"Let's go inside first. Take a look around."

He gets out and walks around to open the door for me. More than six months in and he's still doing that. We walk through the gate and he takes my hand, holding it in his as we walk up the wide steps to the front porch that runs the length of the house. He unlocks the door and we step inside.

It's not a new house. It's got some age on it. Some character. From the transoms over the door to the sidelights in the entryway, it's a house that screams for a family. This isn't just a house. This is a home. And it could be ours.

"You want the tour?"

I turn back to him. "I don't need it. This place is perfect. It's like you poked around in my head to see what I was dreaming of, then just went out and found it."

"I want to give you all your dreams," he says softly. Then, before I can even reply, he drops down on one knee. "If we do this, Britt, I want to do it right. I want you to be my wife. I want you and Karli both to have my last name."

He takes my hand and slides the very traditional and very perfect diamond ring onto my finger. The weight of it feels so right there. "I want that. I want it more than anything." I can feel tears welling up, my eyes burning as I try not to become a hot, emotional mess. So I do what I always do and make a joke out of it. "I've been married and divorced, but I've never had a fiancé before," I tell him. "When I married Dakota, we just had a conversation about it and got in the car... I kind of like the idea of having a big wedding with you, with my dad walking me down the aisle. Can we do that?"

"I don't care. As long as you're standing beside me in front of the preacher, we can do it however you want."

"Let's go look at our house, Silas. I want to pick which room is going to be Karli's... then I want to look at ours."

"You might hate it," he says.

"No, I won't. Because it's a place for us to start... a place to be just ours. I want to be Mrs. Silas Blake. And I want Karli to be a Blake. But about having other kids, Silas–."

"You don't have to," he says. "If it's not what you want, Karli is enough. The three of us together, Britt, will always be enough."

"I'm late. Two weeks late. And I am never late, Silas. Never."

He laughs. "Apparently, I've got great timing in more ways than one.... I still want Karli to be mine, but let's wait until after we get this one born."

I trust him. Whatever his reasons are, I know they're good ones. But I am curious. "Why?"

He shrugs. "Because I want her to know that I'm choosing her. I want her to know that no matter how many other kids we have, she will always be my first born—even if I wasn't there for it."

"I love you. I love you so much that I'd have a dozen babies with you if you want," I tell him. Then I lean into him, my hand on his chest, just over his pounding heart, and I whisper, "But right now, we're going to christen this house."

It's not an invitation I'll need to issue twice. He just scoops me up over his shoulder and heads for the stairs.