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EPILOGUE - AMON

EPILOGUE – AMON

It's been a few weeks now since Cross had his little adventure in the secret underground city beneath Trinity County and I've spent most of that time thinking about Rosie and her doubts.

I guess everyone gets to this point in their life where self-assurance suddenly morphs into uncertainty. Some, like me, get to this place young. And these people do rash things like join the marines the day they turn eighteen, and learn to do things they really shouldn't know how to do, and then a bunch of friends die, and you end up gulping fruit drinks delivered by military courier every Monday while pondering all your bad life choices.

So I get it.

I don't mean this casually, either. I totally get it. I get her , actually. I've got a solution for her problem, but before I do that, I gotta take care of a different kind of problem.

It's three twenty-three a.m. when I walk into Cross's room and shake him awake. "Cross. Get up. We got things to do."

He rubs his eyes, looking at me. "What?"

"You've got two minutes to meet me on the porch."

I leave his room and go outside on the porch to wait.

The day after I brought Cross up out of that tunnel, I gave him a job. It has been my experience that a job is a necessary part of life. So I told Cross that his job was to train Collin's dog, Mercy, during the day because Collin and I don't see eye to eye on the whole job thing when it comes to canines. He thinks she should be allowed to sleep on the porch all day like a good-for-nothing layabout. But I'm the dog expert here, and I don't agree.

So every day Cross gets up, goes next door to Collin's house, snaps a lead on Mercy, and takes her to the a.m. training session with all the other men.

Even if Cross wasn't smitten by the dog, he would be smitten by training with the men. He's living his dream.

This morning, though, he's gettin' a new dream.

The screen door bangs open and I catch it as Cross comes out of the house so it doesn't bang closed and wake up Rosie.

Cross is mad. "What the hell?" He has taken to swearin' when his mama's not around and I don't correct him because the last thing he needs from me is a reminder that he's still a boy. "It's the middle of the night, Amon." His eyes are all half-closed with anger. "What are we doing?"

"You've been fired." I jump down the porch steps and shove my hands into my pockets as I stride across the grass towards the kennel.

He jumps down the steps too, then runs to catch up with me. "What? What do you mean? Fired from what? Don't say Mercy."

I stop and look at him, recognizing the look in his eyes. It's fear, but with way more than just a tinge of sadness hooked up with it. "I'm sorry, Cross, but you can't train Mercy no more."

Then I start walking again.

He doesn't follow me. So when I get to the door of the kennel and look over my shoulder I find him standing in the grass under the moonlight. But in my mind's eye I see myself too. The last day I was in the marines as a legitimate soldier.

I had a dog. She was called Angel. She was an all-black German shepherd, just like Mercy, and she was the first dog I ever worked with. That dog didn't belong to me—not legally, at least—but in my heart, she and I were partners.

So, when I left the marines, I left her too and it just about killed me.

"Come on," I tell Cross. "Hurry up."

"Hurry up for what? You said I can't train Mercy no more."

"Ya can't." I pause to shoot him a smile. "Because she's not yours, Cross. And you never wanna give your heart to something that's not yours, because it hurts real bad when that something gets taken away, doesn't it?"

I'm talking about dogs here, of course. But I'm talking about daddies too.

Cross lets out a long breath that I can hear even from fifty feet away. But he nods his head. "Yeah. I guess."

"So that means you gotta have your own dog then, right?"

His eyes go big. "What?"

"Ya need your own dog, right?"

I think he's afraid to really hear what I'm saying because he gets this look on his face like he might cry.

"Come on, then. Let's go choose you a dog." I open the door and hold it open for him.

"What dog? We don't have any extra dogs."

"We didn't have any extras… until about an hour ago."

Now he gets it and his smile is so big, he laughs out loud as he runs towards me. "The puppies were born!" He doesn't even pause when he gets to me, just flies past and turns left in the kennel, back to where the whelping room is.

By the time I get back there with him, he's down on his knees, leaning into the box where the puppies are squirming and whining as they fight for position.

Cross looks up at me. "I thought you said they were all taken? I thought you said there weren't enough for me to get one?"

"Well, that was true. The vet said there were twelve puppies coming, but it looks like we got ourselves a lucky thirteen."

Now Cross really does start crying. But it's the happy kind. The kind when you just can't believe that something this good just happened to you.

So I kneel down next to him and I say, "Which one is yours?"

Then I watch, and listen, and be there for him as he points to each puppy and starts trying to figure them out. It takes him hours to choose. It's well past daylight by the time he points to the big sable male—the literal pick of the litter in my eyes—and says, "That one. That one right there is mine."

So I get up, and cut off a piece of red satin ribbon, and hand it to Cross so he can put it on his puppy.

I leave the kennel alone. Cross stays behind. And this was the plan.

Because that boy is mine now too. And there ain't no way in hell I'm gonna take any chances with this kid. When he turns eighteen this little puppy of his will have had six years of professional training and it will be something very, very special.

This puppy will grow up to be his partner. His first love.

He's never gonna join the marines now because if he joins the marines, he's gotta walk away from the dog.

And he's never gonna walk away from this dog.

Having ticked Cross off my list, my attention returns to the love of my life, who I find in the kitchen. She's making coffee, looking a little sleepy—which is more than a little sexy—and sighing as she does this.

But when she turns and sees me, her face lights up.

I make her happy. I know this. She likes it here, I know this too.

But my woman is not quite satisfied with her life at the moment. Every weekend since she made her decision to step away from Disciple she gets up and doesn't know what to do with herself. It's even worse during the week because she has quit her part-time lives as well as her full-time one.

She packed up the entire print shop and she packed up all those dresses in the cottage and she's got both those places up for sale on the private Trinity County market.

I tried to talk her into easing into a new life. She should take it slow. It's a lot of change, after all.

But my Rosie was dead set on going cold turkey.

The problem is, she can't quite figure out what to replace it all with and she's going stir crazy in the house. Especially since I'm doing something in her old stomping grounds every single day because Trinity County has replaced the US government as our number one client.

I do not share her problem because I know exactly what is missing from her life.

"Why are you smiling at me like that, Amon Parrish? You look like a canary-eatin' cat."

"Well, I just gave our son a puppy so I'm feeling pretty damn pleased with myself."

"Oh, they were born! How happy is he?"

"Rosie, that boy isn't going anywhere without that dog. They are gonna be partners in crime for a decade or more."

She slips her hands around my hips and leans into my chest. "Thank you."

I kiss her head and hug her back. "It was my pleasure. And now that Cross is taken care of, it's your turn."

She pushes me back a little so she can look up at my face. "Oh, Amon. I don't want no puppy."

"Silly woman, I'm not talking about a puppy. Dogs are the salve for the wounds of men. But ladies such as yourself require something different." I walk a few paces, but take hold of her hand. "Come with me."

Rosie sends me a sexy look like we're gonna go upstairs and have ourselves a good old time, which I would not mind doin', to be honest. But that's not where I take her. I take her down the hallway to the spare room and stop at the closed door.

She's shootin' me a confused look now. "What are you up to?"

"Open the door and find out."

She lets out a little huff of a laugh, then turns the handle and opens the door. For a moment she doesn't say nothing, just looks around with wide eyes.

I see it through her eyes as well. It's an office, but not just any office. Lowyn decorated it. I told Low, "I'm lookin' for somethin' that says ‘eighteenth-century printshop, diner waitress, flower child'. Can you pull that together?" And Lowyn McBride nodded her head and said, "Consider it done."

So this room has been transformed into a mixture of a printshop and a dressing room, with a side of biker and genuine 1970's accents. With a desk and laptop, of course. Because those two things were the entire point of the whole redecoration.

Rosie turns to me. "What is this?"

"This is your office, of course."

She laughs again. "But… why do I need an office?"

"So you can write books."

Rosie looks bewildered. "But… how did you know that I wanted to write books?"

She's so silly. "Because we're on the same page, Rosie. We're on the same page."

And from this day forward, that's where we'll stay.

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