EPILOGUE
One Year Later
Danny
“All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire,
but my heart is all my own.”
-Goethe
They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, and for a long time, I thought that was true.
Forced to be away from Sam so much while we were growing up, I loved her more every time our separation ended and I could finally hold her in my arms again.
But after a year of marriage and constant togetherness—working and playing and healing together—I know it wasn’t absence making my heart grow fonder, it was just Sam. It’s how things are when something is meant to be. I still love her more every day, treasuring the fact that I get to go to bed with her every night and wake up to her every morning.
And today, I got to marry her all over again, on a cliff beside the Croatian sea, with our family and friends all here to help us celebrate. They don’t know this was our second wedding or that we eloped in Thailand a year ago, but we thought it was best to keep that our secret.
They wouldn’t have understood the two of us making such a major decision after Sam had spent a year in seclusion. They wouldn’t have understood that a love like ours doesn’t need long to fix the things that are broken, or that we needed to be married, just in case we were ever asked to testify against each other in court.
We haven’t told a soul what we did, and even when the news came out about Todd’s murder, no one asked if we were in Costa Rica at the same time as the SBE brothers. Not the authorities and not our family though I would bet my hands that Caitlin and Gabe know. The way my sister hugged me, the day Sam and I showed up on her front porch with everything we owned in the bags at our feet, made it clear how worried she’d been.
And how happy she was to have us both home safe.
“That was so beautiful,” Caitlin says now, dabbing at her face with a tissue as she wraps her free arm around my waist. “You guys just about broke my heart with the vows.”
“We’ve had a long time to plan them,” I say, looking over my sister’s head to where Sam is talking to her parents by the railing at the edge of the cliff overlooking the ocean.
In a white, flapper style dress, with her chin-length brown curls wild around her face and flowers in her hair, she is stunning. But it isn’t just the dress or the flowers; it’s the way she smiles when she looks over to see me watching and starts toward me across the grass.
It’s her Sam the Shark smile, the one so big and wide one of her meaner friends used to make fun of her for it. I’ve always loved that smile, but I love it even more now because it means she’s whole again.
There are scars on her heart that will never heal, and both of us lost what little innocence we had left last summer. But scars remind us to be grateful for beautiful days without any pain in them and innocence is overrated.
Our younger, innocent selves loved purely, but not as fiercely or selflessly as we do now. Now we know that there is nothing more precious than this. We were stripped bare, brought low, and met each other in the darkness where there was nothing but our love to lead us back to the light.
And it was enough.
More than enough.
Now, there is nothing left to be afraid of.
Let the world bring its worst. We’re ready because there is no end to a love like this. Whatever comes after this life, I will be with Sam and she will be with me. We’re not two trees with a fused trunk anymore, we are one heart, for now and always.
“No more crying,” Sam says, pulling Caitlin in for a hug. “If you don’t stop, I’ll start again and I wasn’t smart enough to wear waterproof mascara.”
Caitlin laughs as she pulls away to wipe her eyes. “Okay. I’ll stop. I’m just so happy for you both. No two people have ever deserved happiness more.”
I reach for Sam, but she’s already wrapping her arms around my waist, sensing what I need before I have the chance to ask, the way she does.
“I don’t know about that,” she says, “but we’re certainly grateful for it.”
“We are.” I hug her closer. “And I’m going to be even more grateful after we have cake.”
Caitlin rolls her eyes. “You and Juliet. She’s been trying to get her little arms elbows deep in that cake since she laid eyes on it.” She turns, scanning the crowd for her daughter, laughing when she sees the two-year-old dashing across the grass toward the cake with her daddy not far behind. “I’d better go give Gabe a break before she runs him ragged.”
“Tell her we’ll be right over to cut her a big piece,” Sam says. “We don’t want to keep our favorite tyrant waiting.”
“She is a tyrant,” Caitlin agrees affectionately. “Good thing she’s cute.”
“Crazy cute,” Sam agrees, smiling as Caitlin runs across the grass to scoop Juliet up in her arms, blowing kisses against her daughter’s cheek until Juliet giggles.
Sam has grown closer to all my family in the past year, but she and Juliet have a special bond. They are kindred spirits, strong girls who know what they want and aren’t afraid to let the world know about it. Though Sam has more patience. Most of the time.
“You didn’t tell her did you?” she asks, tilting her head to look up at me, the setting sun making her eyes sparkle, taking my breath away.
“You look like a movie star right now. I swear you do.”
Her smile shifts to the right. “That means you didn’t tell her.”
“I figured it could wait,” I say, kissing her forehead. “I don’t want to ruin the day for her. She’s going to be sad to see us leave, even if it is only for four months.”
“I know.” Sam lifts her chin, bringing her lips closer to mine. “But if we don’t have our adventure now, we’ll have to put it off for another twenty years.”
“Not true,” I say, kissing her, loving that she tastes like sunshine and happiness, exactly the way a bride should taste on her wedding day. “When they’re teenagers, we could leave the kids with Caitlin and Gabe for a few months and sneak off. Teenagers suck anyway.”
Sam smiles. “That’s why they need parents around, to keep them from sucking. And I’m sure Caitlin and Gabe will be busy enough with their own obnoxious kids.”
I bring my hand to her flat stomach, still finding it hard to believe our baby is in there, growing bigger every day. “I can’t wait until I can feel her kick.”
“Or him,” Sam says. “It might be a boy, a boy as gorgeous and wonderful as his daddy.”
I shake my head. “Trying to butter me up so you’ll get laid tonight?”
“Oh, I’m getting laid tonight,” she says, eyes narrowing as she grins. “I have a letter from the doctor saying it is completely fine for us to have sex. I went to her office this morning and made her write it out, even though she thought you were crazy for worrying.”
“I’m not crazy,” I say though I’m secretly relieved. It’s been hell keeping my hands to myself the past week since we found out. Unexpectedly, knowing Sam is pregnant with our baby has given me a hard-on that won’t quit.
“You are crazy,” she says, hand drifting down to pat my ass. “But also very, very sweet.”
“Are you fondling my ass in public?”
“Yes,” she says, still grinning. “I’m allowed to do that now that everyone knows we’re married. It’s one of the perks. At least for the first year. Public butt fondling is forgiven if you’re a newlywed.”
I slide my hand around from her belly to her bottom, fighting to keep my body from responding too obviously to her closeness. “I didn’t know that. I like that perk.”
“I thought you might, but I—”
Sam doesn’t get to finish her sentence before Juliet collides with our knees, wraps her chubby arms around our calves, and howls, “Cake, pease cake, pease cake!” in such a pitiful way you would think the kid hadn’t been fed in a month.
“Yes, Jules, I’m so sorry,” Sam says, scooping Juliet into her arms with a laugh. “It is past time for cake. Let’s go get some. Right now.”
“Yay! Cake!” Juliet’s tears vanish, replaced by a big grin that makes her blue eyes sparkle just like Sam’s.
I stay where I am for a minute, watching my wife carry my niece across the grass to the small tent where our wedding cake sits waiting to be cut. The way Sam holds Juliet so naturally, slung low on her hip with a hand cradling Jules’ diaper-clad bottom, she looks like she was made to be an aunt, a mama.
She looks soft and sweet, but I know she is also a fighter and a survivor. I know she is as strong as she is tender and that I don’t have to be afraid that life will break her again, not as long as we’re together. And there is nothing I need in the world aside from that.
Aside from the one I love.
Halfway across the lawn overlooking the ocean, where the sun is setting slow, as if it hates to miss a moment of this perfect day, Sam stops and turns back to look at me and mouths, “I love you, too,” like she knows what I was thinking.
And I’m sure she does.
The End
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