Where We Left Off
: Epilogue

“Look what’s here!” I flung open the front door and the pewter handle smashed into the drywall. I cringed. “Sorry—I’ll fix that, but did you see what the mailman left on the porch?”

Mallory was sitting cross-legged on the floor in a flowing purple dress while Corbin ran circles around her. The dizzying scene made my head spin and I raced as quickly as I could to interrupt his current lap, scooping him up in my arms. I’d been walking for nearly a year now, but I still wasn’t as proficient as I’d hoped to be. Mallory said I was being too hard on myself, but sometimes I figured it was her job to talk me down. It was a job she was infinitely good at.

“What are you all excited about?” I said to my son, who tried hard to wriggle free from my grasp. “Hmm?”

“I could ask you the same,” Mallory grunted as she pushed off the ground, using her belly as momentum with a hand to her arched back. “What’s in the package?”

I’d written him only a week ago and did not expect such a quick response, or even one at all. That it had just been a few days was insanely impressive. I was dying to rip it open.

“Just a little surprise for you.”

“Heath.” Mallory smiled and it pushed her full cheeks to her eyes. “You know it’s not a good idea to surprise a pregnant woman, right? You want to send me into early labor? How comfortable are you with home births?”

“This is one you’re really going to like. Much better than the last one.”

“Why you would think an obscenely pregnant would want a striped magenta bikini is beyond me.”

“Because, umm, have you seen your preggo boobs?” I scratched at the back of my neck and smirked. “And yeah, because boobs.”

Mallory swatted me with her hand. “You are too much, you know that?”

“Back to my surprise.” I brought the package from where I’d settled it in the entryway and propped it up against the family room wall. I stared at it for a moment, wanting to savor the anticipation a bit longer. This was going to be so good.

“Are we going to open it, or just admire the wrapping?”

“Admire.” My fingers rubbed my chin and then I let out a satisfied sigh. “Okay, done admiring. Have at it.”

Her brow raised. “You want me to open it?”

“Yep. Go for it. Just rip right in.”

Waddling adorably to the package, Mallory tossed a wary glance over her shoulder before taking the edge of the paper into her hands. With a synchronized one, two, three, she peeled back the parchment and let out the loudest, sharpest squeal. “Oh my God, Heath! We’re having a girl?”

There, on the canvas, was a smattering of pink paint, strokes and splatters of peaches and corals.

“I thought you wanted to wait to replace out?”

I shrugged and came up behind my wife, wrapping my hands under her belly and bringing my chin to her shoulder. “In case you haven’t caught on yet, I’m really bad at waiting.”

“I think there are plenty of people who would disagree with you on that. Remember those twelve, long years?”

“I’m good at waiting when I have no other choice. But we had a choice here. I honestly couldn’t wait any longer to replace out more about that baby of mine growing in your belly, so I sent your dad the envelope with the ultrasound and asked him to let us know the verdict.” I pressed a slow kiss to Mallory’s neck. “I want to know everything there is to know about our baby. Her likes, her dislikes. The sound of her voice. The way her tiny hand is going to fit in mine. Would you hurry up and finish with this whole pregnancy thing so I can finally meet her?”

Mallory’s round stomach tightened with the laugh. “Only a few more months. You’ll just have to be patient with this.”

“If I have to,” I relented. “But only because you asked so nicely.”

“Oh really?” I loved that even though we’d been married ten months and pregnant for six, Mallory still had the energy and desire to flirt. It was a huge turn-on, though everything she did turned me on. “Only because I asked nicely?”

“Mallory, have you not realized that you can ask me for anything and it’s yours? This really isn’t a big secret, you know.”

“I don’t need to ask for anything else. I have you and Corbin, and now our daughter.” Her eyes rounded and she turned in my arms to look at me with an awestruck expression. “Wow. We’re having a daughter, Heath.”

“I know.” I was still processing it; how incredible our lives had turned out to be. “It’s pretty damn amazing, right?”

She rested her head on my chest, turning her belly sideways to fit deeper into my arms. “Did you ever think way back when you stood on my front porch that this is where we’d end up?”

I nodded my head and my chin pressed into her soft, red hair. “Yes. This is exactly where I wanted to end up. Remember when you asked how on earth we weren’t a thing already and I said that I was working on it?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, it took me over a decade to get there, but that was me working on it.”

“Determined.” She laughed.

“I’d say.” I pulled her closer. “It wasn’t easy, but it was so unbelievably worth the wait.” I rubbed circles on her stomach and said, “And this little one is going to be worth the long wait, too.”

“Good things come to those who wait,” Mallory recited, fitting her small hand over mine.

“Great things,” I agreed. “Letting my heart wait on you was the best decision I ever made. I’m not even sure it was an actual decision. I could never let go of you, no matter how hard I’d tried. I just couldn’t shake my love for you, Mallory.”

“I’m glad.” She held me tighter. “And I love that we were able to pick up right where we left off.”

“There was no doubt in my mind that we wouldn’t. We just had to wait for life to give us another chance,” I said. “But remember, you are the girl that does seem to love everything, so of course you would love that fact.”

With her lips pressed to mine, Mallory kissed me tenderly. Our gaze connected as she said, “I might love everything, Heath, but I love you more than anything, and there’s a difference.”

I just smiled down at the woman who so wholly possessed me it made it hard to breathe. “I know there is, Mallory. I feel it. I’ve always felt that difference with you.”

It was the reason that—after all those years, and for all the years to come—Mallory would forever own my heart.

She made all the difference, and I wouldn’t have had it happen in any different way.