EPILOGUE

SIX YEARS LATER...

Tiny, six-year-old fingers crept up the side of the dessert table. Each one stretched and strained against the royal blue tablecloth for the plate of cupcakes with the swirl of buttercream frosting. Her tiny, red slippers teetered as high as they would go on tiptoes.

Adamant and stubborn, she was ever her father's daughter, right down to the wild tangle of black curls and amber eyes. But she had my nose and lips, and my fear of the dark. Though Thoran assured me she would outgrow hers.

She was the embodiment of our love in a four-foot package.

I excused myself from a cluster of women from the village to catch my daughter red-handed having pilfered her treat.

"What do you think you're doing, missy?"

Big, amber eyes popped up to me. Icing already smeared her tiny chin and coated her fingers. She was as red-handed as one could get.

I glanced over at the sea of people loitering all across the grounds, enjoying the beautiful summer afternoon and Abigal's birthday. Kids ran wild through the games and their parents' legs and their laughter filled the space, tangling with the chatter from the adults.

I liked that no one was afraid of the monster who lived in the house by the swamps, but I already missed the silence and only two hours had passed. I knew the parties were a nightmare for Cyrus, and Thoran agreed to them reluctantly, but Abby needed the socializing. She needed to see what people were like and how to communicate with them. She needed friends, even though she was far more like Thoran and me than I liked and enjoyed her solitude.

I turned back to peer down into my daughter's beautiful eyes and grinned. I put a finger to my lips and snatched up two muffins with pink frosting. Abby beamed and took the free hand I offered her. The yellow frosting on her hand smeared across mine as we walked away from the guests to our favorite spot — Grandma's roses.

The garden was gone. Torn to the ground years ago before Abby was even born. Thoran demolished the walls and filled the well. It was just the roses now in the center of a beautiful gazebo tucked out of view behind a neat wall of bushes. I never did hear that man again, nor felt the ominous presence following me. Since being destroyed and rebuilt, everything about it felt warm and welcoming. It was the one place I felt Abby — Thoran's mother's — presence the strongest and so did little Abby. It was her favorite place and we visited often.

"Hey Grandma," I said, greeting the silver roses. "Hope you don't mind company."

"We brought you a cupcake!" Abby declared, taking one of the pink ones from me and placing it under the bush. It toppled over but was quickly righted. The bits of dirt and grass clinging to the frosting ignored.

Abby and I took our spots on the stone bench Thoran built just for us. I had to adjust my weight before lowering myself down. The seven-month bump made sitting, standing, walking, basically existing impossible.

"How are you enjoying your party, Abby?" I asked the little girl already tearing into her cupcake with the gusto of a starved, feral cat.

"Hate it." She wiped frosting off her face with the back of her hand and squinted up at me. "Why do they have to come to our house?"

I bit the inside of my lip to keep from laughing at the question. "Well, that's how parties work. They come see you."

Abby rolled her eyes. "They should stay at their house and just send the presents."

I did laugh, long and hard.

"There you two are." As beautiful as the day I first saw him in that very spot, Thoran stepped around the stone walls and stopped when he was at my shoulder. He bent to kiss the top of Abby's head, then my lips. "Are we hiding?"

Abby nodded immediately. "I can't people anymore. Sitting with Grandma is better."

Thoran was biting back his own laughter as he scooped our daughter up and claimed her seat with her on his thigh.

"I agree. Let's just hide here."

I lightly swatted his arm. "Stop that. We're trying to help her socialize."

Abby looked up at her father. "Am I in trouble? Why am I being punished?"

Thoran snorted a laugh that he tucked behind a cough when I glowered at him. He cleared his throat. "Your mom's right, Buttons. You need friends."

"I have friends!" she wailed. "I have Uncle Mal and Cyrus, and Grumpy Uncle Vance. That's a million people."

"That's three people and they don't count. You need kids your age," I protested.

"I have Grandma. She talks to me all the time."

Thoran pressed his lips to her brow. "What do you guys talk about?"

"Everything. I tell her about my day, and she listens and says she loves us so much."

He gave her a slight smile that barely covered the pain I could see in his eyes. "Tell her we love her, too."

Abby nodded. "I do. It makes her smile."

We sat in our comfortable silence as the rest of the world continued on without us.

Much later that evening, after Abby'd had her bath, three glasses of water, two bedtime stories, and twenty goodnight kisses each, I stood in her doorway and watched her sleep in my old room, in the bed I woke up in all those years ago with a hulk of a man sitting at the end ready to change my whole world.

My fingers grazed the bump pushing up the front of my dress and thought how different my life had turned out from what I'd expected and I regretted nothing. I had everything. I had more than everything. I had more than I deserved, and I would fight with my last breath to keep all of it.

"Blue?"

Strong, familiar arms circled me from behind and tugged me back into a chest I still needed to sleep fully at night. His soft lips brushed the side of my neck, and I smiled.

"I love you," I told him, my eyes still on our daughter.

He nuzzled the curve of my jaw with the tip of his nose. "Even if I told you I want another one?" His large palm glided along the bump pressing down on my bladder.

I tilted my head back onto his shoulder and was rewarded with a kiss. "As many as you want."

He hummed softly against my mouth. "Fifty it is."

I laughed and he smiled. "My poor vagina."

It was his turn to snort a chuckle before taking my hand and tugging me away for our evening walk. I kept my arm looped through his, my head on his arm as we wandered the corridors. I spared a glance at the wall where his family portraits used to hang. There was only one now. A photo of Thoran and his parents I'd found in one of the storage boxes and had blown up and framed. Thoran was a little older than Abby in the picture, but his father had his fingers buried in Thoran's sides and his mother was kissing his cheek as he laughed into the camera. It was my favorite photo.

I kept the others. They were still a part of him, and they deserved to be seen and remembered, despite the tragedies that ended their lives. They were just moved to the conservatory corridor. Still visible and visited, but not too much. Even the painting of Hael Lacroix was put away ... in storage. The mantel above the fireplace in the office was now displaying our wedding photo. The one of me in a beautiful white gown and Thoran in a gorgeous tux. Abby was there, too, just not as visible yet.

"Malcolm is visiting next week," I remembered. "He's flying back from ... Prague? I think?"

Thoran nodded. "Good. I have a few clients who need new IDs made."

"He's doing so well with that," I admitted, slightly proud, a whole lot concerned.

"He definitely has a talent for it, but he's also smart so you don't have to worry."

I smiled up at him. "You know me too well."

The tip of my nose was met by his lips. "Six years, sweetheart, and you're still my favorite obsession."

"And you're mine."

We continued in silence for a full heartbeat when Thoran said, "You do know he's not coming to see you or me, right?"

I raised my head to blink at him. "Who? Malcolm? What do you mean? Of course he is."

A ghost of a smile tugged up the corner of his lips. "He's coming to see Cyrus, sweetheart."

I stopped walking and faced my husband. "No! Wait. How do you know? What did you hear?"

He shrugged haughtily. "Just me walking in on them getting pretty comfortable in the dining room."

I gasped, then grimaced. "Not on the table, right?"

"Pretty close. I think if I'd been another five minutes..."

"Oh ... oh! Oh!" I bounced a little on my toes. "Do you think...?"

"That Cyrus will finally stop being so serious and get that stick out of his ass? One can hope."

Heart fluttering with excitement, I looped my arm back through his and continued forward. "This makes me so happy. They deserve each other."

Thoran kissed the top of my head. "You know what we deserve?" He grinned down into my upturned face. "Ice cream."

THE END