Epilogue

EPILOGUE

" T ime flies. I can't believe it's been a year since the twins' birth." Dunne sighed, leaning back into her chair.

"Me neither," Ingrid agreed with a smile.

In the end, Caedmon's ploy had worked. Less than a month after the night he'd offered to make her with child, she had missed her courses. For the first time in ten years she'd seen the new moon rise up and not felt any suffocating sadness or pain in her stomach. It had been a revelation, like she had been given a new lease on life.

Grateful beyond words for his help and understanding, she had spent the night making love to him with slow tenderness. Usually, and despite her best intentions, she ended up getting carried away by desire. But that night she had taken them both to unprecedented levels of ecstasy. At dawn, as they lay exhausted on the pallet, she had whispered in his ear that she was going to give him the family he craved. She would never forget the way he'd engulfed her into his arms and cried into the crook of her neck.

Eight months later the twins had been born.

Ingrid had gotten both her wishes that night, giving birth not just to a little boy with her husband's smile but also to a little girl with his amazing eyes. And now, for almost two years, as Caedmon had promised, she'd been free of pain. Her courses had returned in due time, when she had started to wean the babes, but without the pain accompanying them. It was as if pregnancy had altered something inside her womb and now she suffered no more than other women did when her time came.

It had been nothing short of a miracle.

"You changed my life for the better, Saxon, you know that?" she'd whispered in his ear as they lay in bed the night she'd bled for the first time after the babes' birth. "In all the ways that matter."

"And you, mine."

Tonight the children were under the supervision of Bee and her eldest cousin Elwyn, who were looking after them while the whole village gathered to celebrate the winter solstice around a mighty fire.

Suddenly a warm hand settled on her shoulder.

Caedmon.

"If you don't mind, I will take my wife home now," he said in Norse, his accent causing all the hairs at the back of her neck to tingle. How she loved it when he used her language. "I'm afraid she didn't get enough sleep last night."

Sympathetic nods answered him. Ingrid thanked the darkness preventing her friends from seeing the flush on her cheeks. They all assumed the babes had been the ones to keep her up all night, when in fact it had been a demanding Saxon.

"Ah, girl, your husband is such a good man," Helga enthused, patting Caedmon lightly on the forearm.

"That he is," his grandmother concurred with a smile. After their wedding, the old woman had left her house in town to come to live in the village. She and the healer had created a strong bond in the past year. "He's always been my favorite grandson."

"Thank you, Gran, but you know full well I am your only grandson, so that is hardly an endorsement."

Caedmon gave a benevolent smile, the very image of graciousness. Ingrid's lips quivered. He'd hated it once when people called him good, thinking it was all there was to him. But thanks to her, he'd started to make his peace with it. Because he was a good man. The only difference was, it was not all he was.

Making their apologies, they disappeared into the star-studded night. Around them the village had gone silent. Ingrid had never felt so happy, so at peace with her life. Before they could enter, she took Caedmon by the hand to lead him to the back of the hut, and into the shadows.

There she pushed him against the wall and gave him a long, lingering kiss, grinding herself against him. It was all thanks to him that she felt so good.

"I thought you would be tired after last night, love," he growled. "That's why I took you home."

"Ah, husband," she moaned while he nibbled at the tender flesh of her throat. Right now she felt anything but tired. Could she persuade him to give in and make love to her, here in the shadows, as if they didn't have two children already but were two young people courting in secret? A smile stretched her lips. Perhaps. And she knew just how. "Helga is right. You're taking such good care of me, you're such a good man."

Heat flared in Caedmon's eyes. That sentence had become a signal between them. Every time she wanted him to revert to the assertive lover she craved, she only had to say those words. To her delight, he complied every time.

"I am a good man, who aims to please his wife." White teeth flashed in the moonlight. "So drop to your knees."