Eden’s smile is small, but happy. “Of course.”
I breathe a sigh of relief. In my mind, I make a list of all the things I want to tell her, all the things I want to say. Like that I told Brooke that it was over. Like that I want to start over with her and Emmy. Like that I just ask for one day at a time, so we can learn and grow and do this the right way. So that I don’t screw it up. I feel like I’ve got a second chance at life and I want to make this work. For Emmy. For Eden. For me. For my daughter. She’d want me to be a better person for Emmy. She was amazingly generous like that. Nothing will ever make me stop loving her. Or missing her. Or wishing that things could’ve been different. But she will always be alive in my heart. In my soul. I’ll never let her go or replace her. I can only prove to her, every single day, that she made me a better man. That knowing her and loving her made me the kind of man who could deserve her. If I had her back again.
And all that starts tonight.
Eden starts to go around me to check the bread. I stop her with fingers lightly gripping her upper arm. “Eden?”
She looks up at me, those big hazel-gray eyes melting me all the way through. This is right. She is right. For me. For my life. She’s beauty for my ashes. And I’m hope for her heartache. We fit. Like we were made for each other.
“I’m going to make you fall more and more in love with me. Every single day. I promise.”
She grins at me, a different kind of grin, and I know I’ll remember it for the rest of my days. “I don’t doubt that one bit.”
EPILOGUE
Eden
Five months later
AS LONG AS I live, I don’t think the beach will ever look the same. Especially this one. I look down the long expanse that stretches out to the left, the way we walk to go to our little cottage, and I remember the first time Emmy and I stepped onto that sand. It was the day we moved here. The third time we’d moved hoping to find “home.” It was the day we met someone who would change our lives forever.
At the time, I had no idea that I’d meet someone so broken. Or that he’d be the man who could heal us. Or that this sand could threaten life as well as sustain it. I still feel a thin thread of fear when Emmy gets near the surf. She’s declared to me on more than one occasion that she’s now seven years old. She knows how to be safe. I never take my eyes off her, though. It’ll probably be years before I feel safe doing that. If ever. But there’s someone else watching over her now, too.
I glance back to where Cole is talking to Cody and Jordan as Emmy and her two little friends get buckets of water to fill up the mote she and Cole dug. He watches her closely even as he chats with our friends. I feel perfectly safe in his care, and I feel like Emmy is perfectly safe, too.
His eyes follow the girls as they run to the surf and carefully collect sea water. Cole and Emmy made an enormous, very elaborate sandcastle for today’s festivities–a beach barbecue out in front of Cole’s cabin. I know that if I were to go and pat the pocket of Cole’s swimming trunks, I’d feel a lump of sand. He still does that. Still brings daisies for his daughter. But he’s now included Emmy. They do it together, the three of them, I suppose.
We invited Cody and Jordan, who are now a very happy couple, as well as Cody’s two little girls who have become good friends to Emmy over the winter. Ryan is in prison for child molestation, rape, sexual assault and battery. Lucy is free, but she’s paying in her own way, not only with the money she gave me, but in the public eye. I feel like that part of my life, of my past, truly can’t hurt me or Emmy anymore.
Brooke signed Cole’s divorce papers a few days after Emmy came home from the hospital. It’ll be final next month. All in all, it seems that life is pretty close to perfect. Finally. It’s like we had to pay our dues up front, a down payment on happiness. As hard as it was, I can say now that it was worth it. The only thing I would change is the scares with Emmy–both with Ryan and the beach. She’ll always carry those emotional scars with her, but she’s healing more and more every day. I’m just going to do everything within my power to make sure that her life is as smooth as I can make it from here on out.
Emmy and her friends come back to pour their water into the nearly-full mote and I hear Cole tell her to stay put for a few minutes. When he stands and tells Jordan to watch them, I know he’s coming to me. We are never far from each other. It seems the longer we are together, the closer we need to be. To touch, to reaffirm. He spends every night at my house and “comes back” right after Emmy gets up. Time apart feels almost unbearable, but we make up for it when we are together. Doubly so after Emmy has gone to bed, when we can touch and taste and memorize every tiny detail of each other. I’ve never met a more perfect man.
I scan his long, lean body as he jogs down the beach toward me. I can see him in pads and a jersey, chasing a football down the field. Wide, wide shoulders, trim, trim waist, long, powerful legs and arms. That ripped stomach that disappears into his shorts and the magic that hides just inside them.
My stomach flutters thinking about that.
His smile is crooked and cocky when he stops in front of me. “I would ask what you’re thinking, but I don’t want to get myself into trouble.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I deny as he wraps his arms around me, presses his chest to mine and lifts me off my feet. I’d like nothing more than to wind my legs around him, but I know that’d be asking for an embarrassing situation to arise.
“Yes, you do, you vicious tease,” he says, nipping the skin on my throat with his teeth. “What I wouldn’t give for twenty minutes alone with you right now.”
His hot breath brings chills to my arms and I can feel my nipples tighten accordingly. “How did you not get enough last night?”
He leans back to look at me. “I could never, ever get enough. I thought you’d figured that out by now. But I’ll be happy to prove it to you. Over. And over. And over.”
His voice has dropped low, into that sensual sandpaper of his. But it’s his eyes…God! I don’t think I’ll ever get used to them. They’re so deep and intense and…sexy. He can make me feel a million things without ever opening his mouth.
“I love the sound of that,” I admit breathlessly.
“And I love you.”
My heart swells. I can’t hide the smile that spreads across my face. “I’ll never get tired of hearing you say that.”
“Well, it just so happens that I love telling you, so we’re a good fit.”
“I never thought I could love someone this way,” I tell him, dragging my finger along his full bottom lip.
“I’m glad you picked me,” he says gruffly, kissing my fingertip.
“I don’t think I had much choice.”
“No, but I’m glad you didn’t put up too much of a fight.”