Sixteen years later…
Cash eased open the hotel room door and leaned a shoulder against the doorframe. He almost dared not breathe in case she heard him before he was ready.
Don’t see me yet. Not yet. Let me take a mental snapshot of this moment because after today, everything will change.
She turned around, her beaming smile lighting up his heart.
“Dad! How long have you been standing there?”
“Not long enough. You look beautiful, Darcey.”
She smoothed her hands over the delicate-lace fabric of her wedding dress. “Really? It looks okay?”
Cash closed the door behind him and walked towards the woman standing before him. She wasn’t his little girl any longer. As soon as she took her vows, Ryan would become the most important man in her life, not him. He withheld a wince. All kids grew up eventually, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.
He didn’t fucking like it.
His arms went around his daughter and he pulled her to him, being careful not to crease anything, or disturb her hair or makeup.
“No, it’s not okay, my darling girl, it’s perfect – just like you.” He reached into his trouser pocket and withdrew a key.
“What’s that, Dad?” Darcey asked.
“The key to the plantation house in Barbados. I thought you and Ryan might like to spend your honeymoon there.”
“Oh, Dad.”
Darcey clung to him for a few seconds, and he could feel her trembling. She withdrew, but only so she could look up at him, her blue eyes shining, reminding him so much of his beloved Natalia.
“Thanks for everything, Dad. I’m the luckiest girl in the world to have had you and Mum as parents. I love you both, so very much.”
A fist closed around his heart and squeezed, and all the air punched from his lungs. He took a deep breath in, hanging on to the dregs of his emotions. “Love you more. I couldn’t have wished for a better daughter.”
She laughed. “I guarantee you weren’t thinking that during my teenage years.”
Cash flicked her affectionately on the end of her nose. “True, we almost had you adopted then.”
“I would’ve had me adopted,” she said with the sort of smile that meant she’d always been able to wrap him around her little finger. “Seriously though, Dad, if Ryan and I are even half as happy as you and Mum, our marriage will be damn near perfect.”
A wave of nostalgia washed over him. Where had all the years gone? It didn’t seem like five minutes since he’d first met Natalia, and now there he was, about to walk his daughter down the aisle and give her away.
“Well, at least Ryan knows what I expect of him after our man-to-man chat last night.”
Darcey’s eyes widened in horror. “Dad, you didn’t?”
“Of course I did. Don’t worry, he took it pretty well. You’re my baby girl and, while no one will ever be able to take care of you, or love you, as much as I do, I think Ryan will do a fine job.”
She clouted him on the arm. “You are terrible, Dad. Does Mum know?”
“Yeah.” Cash pulled a face. “Not sure how long I’m going to be in the dog house for.”
Darcey laughed. “I’d say about five minutes flat. Mum has never been able to stay mad at you for long.”
Cash raised an eyebrow. “Don’t bet on it.”
He shared another hug with his daughter, breaking apart only when a tap came at the door. Natalia poked her head inside the hotel room.
“Look who I found wandering around downstairs.” She pushed the door all the way open.
“Cian!” Darcey squealed and tottered across the room to greet her brother.
Cash shot a grateful look at Natalia and mouthed, “He made it.”
She crossed over to where he was standing and slipped her arm around his waist. “He just got in. How are you doing?”
He brushed a kiss against her temple. “Barely holding it together.”
Natalia tilted back her head for a kiss and he gladly obliged, his lips touching hers, lightly, all too briefly. “We created something pretty amazing, Cash.”
He nodded as he watched Darcey walk towards them, holding hands with her brother. “We did.”
“Jeez, you two are looking a bit maudlin,” Cian said. “It’s a wedding, not a bloody funeral.”
“Language,” Natalia chastised.
Cian choked out a laugh. “Mum, firstly, I’m twenty-three. Secondly, I learned from the cursing master.”
Cash glared at his son. “Throw me under the bus, why don’t you?”
Cian chuckled. “Love you too, Dad.”
Cash clapped Cian on the back. “I’m sorry we couldn’t be there for the finale knew you’d smash it, though.”
“I got a bit lucky in the third.”
“Rubbish. I watched the live feed on my phone. You just needed the fear to give you a kick up the arse.”
Cian laughed. “You’re probably right. Okay, sis, we’d better leave you too it, otherwise we’ll be walking down the aisle after the bride, and that wouldn’t do at all.”
After the three of them shared kisses, Cash found himself alone with his daughter once more. He kept having to take shallow breaths as a mixture of emotions swirled around his insides—intense joy that his daughter had found love with a good man, but also sadness that he’d no longer come downstairs on a Sunday morning to find her making waffles because she knew he loved them.
“Ready, Dad?”
He swallowed past an enormous lump that took up half of his airway. He stuck out his elbow. “As I’ll ever be.”
* * *
Cash gave his daughter’s hand in marriage before fading into the background. No one told him it would be this painful to let his little girl go. He fumbled for Natalia’s hand and held on tight to the lifeboat she’d always been. She didn’t say a word, just squeezed his fingers and stood an inch or two closer.
When Darcey and Ryan started making their vows, Tally removed her hand from his and fumbled in her bag for a tissue. Cash wrapped an arm around her shoulders as she wiped away the tears from her face, but it was when the vicar pronounced his daughter and new son-in-law as husband and wife that Cash couldn’t stop his own tears from falling.
She might not be a Gallagher any longer, but she’d always be his baby girl.
Darcey sought them out as she walked down the aisle, arm in arm with her new husband, her eyes full of love and gratitude. She mouthed, “I love you,” and then she was gone. Maia beamed at them all, so proud to be a bridesmaid. She stopped to kiss Emmalee and David on the cheek, then scampered after Darcey.
“Time for champagne,” Rupe said, linking arms with Emmalee and Jayne. “And seeing as Cash has shook the moths out of his wallet and organised an open bar, I say we all get shit-faced, hey, David?”
The four of them set off down the aisle with Ethan sullenly trailing behind. Poor sod – weddings and sixteen-year-old boys didn’t really mix.
“Coming, Dad, Mum?” Cian asked.
“We’ll follow you in a minute,” Natalia said.
“Okay,” Cian said.
Cash gave her a questioning look, but when she didn’t enlighten him, he waited until they were alone and then raised an eyebrow. “Wanted me all to yourself did you, sweetness?”
She curved her hands around his waist and nestled her cheek against his chest. “Always.”
His heart clenched, and he rubbed her back tenderly. “You okay?”
She nodded and then leaned away so she could look up at him. “You held me back at a wedding once.”
He nodded. “Kinga’s.”
Sadness crossed her face. “She’d have loved this.”
“Yep, for sure.”
She sighed softly, and then her whole face lit up. “Maia made a beautiful bridesmaid, don’t you think?”
“She did. I wasn’t sure Emmalee would be able to hold it together.”
“Me neither.”
Something about her melancholy behaviour had his instincts firing. “What’s the matter, sweetness?”
“Do you ever regret not having another baby after the surrogacy with Em fell through?”
“No,” he answered instantly. “You were right, that day in Barbados after I bawled you out over the whole surrogacy thing. If we’d gone ahead and had a third child, I wouldn’t have been able to give Cian the time he needed to fulfil his dream of playing tennis professionally.”
She hugged him tighter. “The house is going to feel so empty. Both our kids gone now.”
Ah, now he understood. Natalia was suffering from empty nest syndrome. His heart swelled with love for this amazing woman with whom he’d spent the best years of his life. He curved his hands around the back of her neck and caressed her cheeks with his thumbs.
“I’ll miss them too, but look on the bright side. I get to chase you around the house naked again.”
She chuckled. “What would I do without you?”
He bent his head and kissed her. “I’ll tell you the same thing I did all those years ago. You’ll never have to find out, sweetness.”
THE END