Epilogue

Epilogue

Layla

2 years later

I came home to something rare—a quiet house.

When I’d left this morning to have breakfast with my dad and half-sister, the house was already chaotic. Gray and Ella were out in the yard by 8AM, working on the garden from hell. Freckles had rolled in the pile of manure they’d planned to spread on one side of the yard today and then dashed through the sprinkler on the other.

Nothing like having coffee with the smell of wet dog and cow shit right before going to share a meal with two people who still made me jittery.

A few months ago, I’d been out with Ella and run into my half-sister, Kristen, again. She’d invited herself to join us for lunch, and when we were done, I realized I’d actually had a good time. It had opened a door I’d thought was permanently closed, and we’d been taking things slowly ever since.

I dropped my purse on the living room coffee table and went out back. No one was in the yard either, but I couldn’t help laughing at the craziness I saw.

The house we’d bought in Brooklyn six months ago was a few blocks from where Ella had lived with her mother. I’d fallen in love with the neighborhood over the year and a half we’d frequently visited when picking up Ella. Max had surprised everyone, including the doctors, and lived for eighteen more months, rather than the three to six they’d told her was likely. Parts of that extended ride were paved with rough road—frequent hospital stays and heartache for Ella as she got older and really started to realize what was happening.

Ella had experienced so much change; it just seemed like one less thing she’d have to deal with if we stayed in the neighborhood she was already familiar with.

So, we bought a beautiful old brownstone with a small yard on a tree-lined street and decided to call Brooklyn home. Ella had shut down for a while after her mother passed, and Gray was desperate to connect with her. We both were. I’d suggested that maybe the two of them should come up with a project to work on, which would give them a reason to spend time together. Gray had broken out the blueprints for his mother’s garden, the one they’d never had the chance to plant together, and that he’d flown out to California to plant around her burial plot.

I looked around our yard. In one corner was his mother’s garden—complete to her specs with all of the trees, flowers, and plantings she’d designed twenty-five years ago. That project had drawn Ella back out, and Gray wanted to keep going. So, the two of them had decided to design their own garden—just like he’d done with his mother when he was little.

They’d spent most nights for more than a month designing it. On weekends, we’d walked around nurseries and garden shows, which frequently led to plan redesigns. Now they were on phase three of the planting. I didn’t even want to know the value of everything planted in this crazy yard. I was pretty sure we had at least a car back here. But what it had given Gray and Ella, you couldn’t put a price tag on. Her healing and their bonding was worth any amount of money.

I took one more look at the jungle and headed back inside. Where was everyone? I realized even Freckles wasn’t around. His trusty shoe sat on his doggy bed—not his original one, of course. His former owner’s worn loafer, which he’d carried around for the better part of two years, was now buried in our yard. About a week after Ella had moved in, Gray and I caught him putting his loafer to rest near the big tree in the middle of the yard. That night, he’d stolen one of Ella’s light-up sneakers, and that was that. His old master had finally been replaced. These days he seldom traveled without Ella’s little shoe.

I went upstairs to get changed and stopped at Ella’s doorway to turn the light off. The white walls with a huge rainbow never ceased to make me smile. A few months ago, I’d been reading Stuart Little to her in bed for at least the hundredth time, and she’d asked me if her mom could see the rainbow from up above. I’d told her I thought she could. God only puts rainbows in the sky after a storm, and I’d always thought it was to remind us that things will get brighter again.

I flicked off the light in Ella’s room and headed to our bedroom. The second floor of the house could get hot during the day, especially our room since my crazy boyfriend had double-insulated all four walls with soundproof insulation when we’d redone the upstairs. Just because we were full-time parents now didn’t mean Gray took it easy in the bedroom at night.

I went into our walk-in closet and stripped off my clothes in favor of a tank top and shorts. On my way out, I noticed something in the middle of the bed.

A red spiral notebook. On the cover, in Gray’s masculine, slashy handwriting, he’d written Gray’s Yeahway Notebook. I laughed and sat down to see what he was up to.

Just like my books, the page was divided into pros and cons with a pen line down the middle. His list didn’t have a heading at the top, so I tried to unravel the mystery.

The pros list was huge, and the first entry cracked me up.

Big dick.

I couldn’t decipher what the next few were about.

Remote control

Programmed coffee

Fresh cherry tomatoes

Rip and Etta. Really?

What the hell was this crazy man up to? I kept scanning the list.

Magic tongue

Love of my life

Rainbows

The list went on and on and took up nearly the entire front and back of a page. The last entry made my heart sigh.

Because she has the other half of my heart, and together our souls beat as one.

I’d been so engrossed in figuring out the list that I hadn’t heard anyone come in. Gray’s deep voice made me leap from the bed, and the notebook went flying into the air.

“Snooping?”

“God, Gray.” I held my hand across my heart, which felt like it might beat out of my chest. “You scared the living crap out of me.”

He stayed in the doorway, filling it with his imposing frame. His arms reached over his head, holding onto the top. All it took was one look at the sexy half-smirk on his face, and I knew he was up to no good. The throb between my legs hoped whatever it was, it happened in this room.

His eyes pointed to the notebook on the floor. “Figure it out?”

“Yes, I think so. The title of the list is Gray is insane.”

His lip twitched, and he stepped into the room. He picked up the notebook and handed it to me.

“Why don’t we go through it together?”

I realized Ella hadn’t run into the room. “Where’s Ella?”

“Grandma and Grandpa’s for the night.”

Translation: Etta and Rip’s.

Ella had started to call them Grandma and Grandpa about a year ago. They’d taken her overnight a few times for us—once when we had to go out of town for a business meeting together, and again on the night Gray had asked me to move in with him.

“Did you tell me they were taking her and I forgot?”

He shook his head. “Nope. Thought we could talk without interruptions. They have Freckles, too.”

My body really loved the thought of an entire night alone with Gray. “What do you want to talk about?”

His eyes pointed to the list again. “Start reading.”

I was intrigued, to say the least. Looking down, I read the first one. “Big dick?”

“I’d say it was above average, wouldn’t you?”

“So this refers to your anatomy then?”

“Of course.”

I chuckled. “Remote control?”

He sat down on the bed. “Do you know how to work it?”

“No.”

“Well, I do.”

My brows furrowed. “Okay….”

He eyed the list again. “Keep going.”

“Programmed coffee?”

“How important is coffee to you when you wake up?”

“How important is number one on your list to you?” I said.

That sexy lip twitched again. “Keep going.”

I looked down. “Fresh cherry tomatoes?”

“They’re good from the garden from hell, aren’t they?”

“Mmmm. Like eating balls of sugar.”

Continuing with the puzzle. “Rip and Etta?”

“How long have they been married now?”

“I don’t know. A few months?”

Rip and Etta had secretly gotten together as a couple within a few weeks of Rip moving in. That part hadn’t shocked us. They were two peas in a pod. But we had been surprised when Rip proposed. He stood to lose some of the survivor benefits he received from his deceased wife’s pension if he got remarried. When we’d mentioned that, he’d said he was fully aware, and he’d rather be broke and make an honest woman out of Etta than have some cash in his pocket—although they didn’t have to worry about cash anymore.

Gray had gifted them the house they lived in as a wedding gift. Well, that and the other surprise gift he’d arranged. Somehow Gray had talked Rip’s daughter into coming to their wedding. Rip had cried like a baby when he saw her walk in. And the rest of us couldn’t help but follow suit.

Gray peeked at the list. “The next one better be self-explanatory.”

Magic tongue

I shifted in my seat and smiled.

Next up was Love of my life.

“Do you love me?” he said.

“Of course. More than anything.”

“Keep going.”

“Rainbow?”

“What did you say to me after we finished painting Ella’s room with that giant rainbow as a surprise?”

I remembered. “I said you were the rainbow of my life. You cleared the way for the rain to stop.”

He took my hand and squeezed it. Together we ran through the remainder of the pro list.

“Figure it out yet?” he asked.

“Maybe I need to read the cons.”

There was only one thing listed on the con list. I read it out loud.

“Stuck with me forever.”

Gray stood. And then he got down on one knee and took my hand.

“I wanted to be prepared in case you needed to debate it before answering me. Knowledge of how to use the remote and program the coffeemaker, magic tongue, Rip and Etta beating us to the altar…they’re just some of a never-ending list of reasons you should marry me.”

He reached into his pocket and took out a beautiful box. Opening it, he revealed the most amazing engagement ring I’d ever seen. The center stone had to be three or four carats, and there were two stones on either side, each big enough to be an engagement ring on its own.

“When I told Etta I planned on asking you to marry me, and that I wanted to incorporate the stone from my mother’s ring into the setting, she insisted I also take her original wedding ring and use that stone in the design, too. So this ring is made of three stones from the most amazing women from my life. The big stone in the center is just for you. And the ones on the sides are my mother’s and Etta’s. While I was working with the jeweler on designing it, I realized it was also symbolic to have three stones—because you’re getting two of us, me and Ella.”

Tears streamed down my face. I looked down at our joined hands and noticed Gray’s were shaking. The man never showed his nerves.

“It’s beautiful, Gray. I don’t even know what to say.”

“I might have padded the pro list in my favor a little. And the one con, being stuck with me forever, might outweigh the two pages of pros. But if you agree to be my wife, I promise that every day I’ll work on adding a new thing to that pro list. I could say that you restored my faith in love, but you did more than that, Layla. You brought me back to life. So please marry me. Please tell me you’ll spend the rest of your life as my wife.”

I was so choked up, I could barely get out the words. “Yes. Yes. God, yes.”

Gray took my face in his hands, cupped my cheeks, and kissed me gently on the lips. “I almost forgot. I told Ella I was going to ask you to be my wife today, and she told me to tell you something.”

“What?”

Gray leaned back and placed his thumb against his hand, spreading his fingers wide. “Mommy,” he said. “She’s going to stop calling you Layla and call you Mommy, if that’s okay with you.”

Tears of happiness flooded after that. I grabbed Gray in a hug and didn’t let him go for the longest time. It was a good thing he’d made the list for me, because listing all the reasons I should marry this man could have taken years and many notebooks. But in the end, I only needed one truth on the pro list: Every piece of me loved every piece of him.

I sniffled back tears. “You made one mistake on your yeahway list, Mr. Westbrook.”

He pushed a piece of hair off my cheek and smiled. “Oh yeah? What’s that, Freckles?”

“Stuck with you forever is on the wrong side of the page.”