Ten years later
Sweat rolled down my temple, the summer heat that filled the barn to the rafters made even the smallest of tasks hard to bear. I wouldn’t change it for the world, though.
It felt like I was right where I was meant to be.
Standing back from the workbench, I eyed the gate I’d been reconstructing all afternoon. Almost done.
I put my tools away and grabbed a rag, swiping it over my hairline and neck as I glanced out the door. Twilight had come to visit once again. Days out here felt infinite with the rise of the sun, yet never long enough by the time you saw it fade from existence for the night.
Tossing the rag on the bench, I locked up and made my way to my truck.
“Quinn!” My dad’s voice had me stopping inside the opened door.
He walked down the steps, his gait a little slower nowadays, but otherwise, for a man in his fifties, he was pretty damn fit. Farm life had a way of ensuring that, no matter how much I told him he needed to take it easy now that I was home.
“You called Rutley’s back?”
The livestock courier we sometimes used. “Sure did.” I closed the door, leaning against it. “Did it first thing this morning. She’s halfway to the border by now.”
His posture eased, and I smirked. Slowly, but surely, he was letting go of the proverbial reins and handing them over to me. “Good. Oh, and here.” He handed over a bag, and I opened it to find some clothes. “Y’all left them here yesterday. Your mom’s gone and washed them already. You know what she’s like.”
Smiling, I lifted my gaze to the house, where Mom was probably in the kitchen cooking dinner. “Thanks, we seem to always be forgetting stuff.”
“Part of the territory.” He slapped me on the shoulder and walked back to the house.
The headlights illuminated the bugs and grasshoppers, jumping out of the way on the short dirt road home.
Home. It wasn’t the house I grew up in, but it was the next best thing.
The blue and white sea theme had been restored back to its white and yellow. Brightly painted pots overflowing with even brighter flowers nestled along the pathway and on the porch. Parking behind Daisy’s SUV, I turned the truck off, watching through the window as Daisy walked by, oblivious to me sitting here as she rocked our son in her arms.
A warmth made from love and contentment washed over me.
We’d moved back here almost nine months ago after I’d torn my ACL for the second time playing for the Bears.
I was drafted in my third year of college but chose to stay and wait it out. I couldn’t leave. Not until she could. But despite our fears of being separated, and at Daisy’s urging, I went straight from Gray Springs to Chicago as soon as I graduated.
I wasn’t happy that I’d made it. Sure, I’d dreamed about playing ball until I could head home and spend my days on the farm.
No, I was happy that we’d made it instead.
Perhaps, the hard lessons we’d learned years ago helped, or maybe it was just our time. Every chance I got, I flew Daisy out to see me until she graduated and joined me in Chicago.
She didn’t give me a chance to feel bad for squandering any of her dreams. I was her dream, and anything else was just a bonus, she’d said.
And what a bonus she got.
Her art was in museums within months of her arriving in the Windy City. She got so overwhelmed that she didn’t create a thing for anyone for years, not until the offers finally stopped coming in and she felt the pressure roll off her slim shoulders.
Now, she had her sights set on teaching art at the same elementary school we’d attended as kids, despite having earned almost half of the large sum of money that sat in our savings account.
Grabbing the bag from the passenger seat, I jumped out and made my way inside before she discovered me sitting out here like some creeper.
Life sometimes called for that, though—not being creepy, but appreciative. I had a lot to be appreciative for, and I damn well knew it.
As soon as the door shut behind me, arms wrapped around my legs. “Daddy!”
I kept walking, and she clung on as she usually did until we reached the kitchen. I set the clothes on the counter and picked her up. “Did you draw me something today?”
Ivy nodded, her tiny four-year-old hands lifting to clasp my cheeks. “It’s a super-special secret.”
“Is it?” I made my eyes widen.
She giggled, then unknowingly ruined her secret. “The cow is supposed to be dancing, but it just looks like he’s walking real fast. Lemme go gets it.”
I set her down and watched as she ran out and down the hallway to her room, dumping my keys on the counter just as Daisy walked in. “He’s finally asleep.”
Even looking like she hadn’t slept in a month, she was the most breathtaking thing I’d ever seen. I tore my eyes from her rumpled hair and the baby puke covering the neckline of her shirt, shifting them to our son, Ben.
Stepping forward, I ran a finger down his feather soft cheek. At four months old, he was a chunker and liked to party at night. Ivy had slept through the night after only a few months, so we were unaccustomed to the late nights.
“Want me to take him to bed?”
“You’re covered in sawdust.”
Grinning, I tugged off my shirt, tossing it on the floor and loving the way her brown eyes went from tired to instantly alert. “All right, wise guy. No need to show off.”
Washing my hands, I chuckled quietly, then took our boy from her and gently situated him against my chest. He stirred but shoved his fist into his mouth and resettled as I walked down the hall to our room.
I set him in his crib by the end of our bed and carefully pulled his light blue sheet over his tiny body.
“Daddy,” Ivy hissed from the doorway.
I glanced up, and she waved a sheet of paper in the air.
Looking back down at Ben one last time, I smoothed my palm over the light blond fuzz on the top of his head before closing the door halfway behind me.
“Come on, then.” I took Ivy’s picture and her hand in my free one, moving to the living room where Daisy was cleaning up Ivy’s pencils.
The picture kind of resembled a penguin, not a cow, but I didn’t dare tell her that. “He looks like he’s dancing, all right,” I said, tapping the paper. “I think we should put it on the fridge.”
Ivy gasped, jumping up and down excitedly on the couch. “Really? It’s good enough for the fridge?”
I bit back my laughter. The fridge got so overloaded with Ivy’s artwork that we had to cut it back. So now, only a select few made the cut, while the rest went into a special folder Daisy had gotten her.
“What do you think, Mommy?” I asked, leaning against the couch.
Daisy put down Ivy’s pencil case, tapping her chin thoughtfully as she eyed the paper I was holding up. “Hmm, I dunno.”
“Please, oh, please!”
“You know what?” Daisy said after keeping Ivy in suspense a moment longer. “I think it might even deserve a prime piece of real estate.”
I followed them into the kitchen, where Daisy had rearranged the thirty odd pieces of paper that already covered the fridge and were clinging on for dear life, thanks to a hundred magnets.
Grabbing a magnet to attach it in the middle, Daisy stood back with her hands on her hips. “There.”
Ivy clapped her hands, and I scooped her up. “Time for bath and bed, little Miss Picasso.”
Once she was tucked in bed, her star night light setting a soft glow in her rainbow painted room, I pulled the door closed halfway and went to the bathroom to take a shower.
I’d just stripped out of my jeans and worked my briefs over my ass when the door opened, and I turned around to find Daisy watching me.
She closed it and immediately stripped out of her clothes while I stood there, growing rock hard with my jaw hanging open.
I snapped it shut as she sauntered slowly toward me, her nipples hardening with every step. “Aren’t you getting in?”
I kicked off my briefs, still eyeing her perky tits, which had grown a little bigger due to breastfeeding. “That depends.”
“On?”
I turned on the water, testing it while keeping my eyes on her body. Her hips flared slightly, another change since having kids. One that I loved to run my hands over and grip as I drove into her from behind. “On where I’m getting in to.”
She ducked her head, trying to hide her smile.
I stepped into the shower, wishing it was a little bigger but knowing we’d make do. We always found a way with what little time or space we had these days.
Her wedding ring glinted as she followed me into the shower, her hands reaching for my waist. I shivered, not only from her touch and having her pressed against me, but from also simply remembering she was mine. Forever. I’d made sure of that when we came home for summer break in her junior year, and we’d married a few weeks later. Just us, our parents, and close friends under our willow tree.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked, her hands moving up my back. “Your eyes are swirling.”
“You.”
“Just me?” She kissed my chest, and I wrapped my arms around her, moving us under the spray as I hovered my lips over hers. “Just you.”
Lifting her, her legs wound around my waist, her neck arching as the water sprayed down on our faces, my lips and tongue roaming over her fluttering pulse.
“One day,” I said, testing her entrance. I moved myself into position before grabbing her ass cheeks. “I’m gonna put another baby in you, Daisy June.”
Her gasp was loud, and I wasn’t sure if it was from my words or the friction of my cock sliding inside her, but either way, I absorbed it. My hips stilled, her thighs clenching around me as we breathed heavily into each other’s mouths. “Really?” she asked, trying and failing to sound defiant as I pulled out of her and slid back in.
“Really.”
Her brown eyes glazed, her breath coming in tiny pants that mixed with my own. “Forever, I’ll love you.”
My chest expanded, my mouth diving on hers.
Forever was a term often thrown around with too much ease and little thought for what it really meant. I was an idiot to lose hope once our forever had been interrupted. To think that what we had couldn’t endure anything that came our way.
Some things were simply irrefutable and inescapable. The stars, the moon, and the way my heart would always beat in sync with hers.
And with enough forgiveness, love, and trust, not even forever could stop us.
The end.