“Dani, I love you. Would you do me the honour of becoming my wife?”
I opened my mouth to speak but I couldn’t find the words. Instead I slid my legs over the bed so I was sitting. I nodded my head, eventually uttering the words he wanted to hear.
“Yes, I’ll marry you,” I said, just as his lips closed on mine.
Epilogue
I thought I’d found my soul mate in Trey, I’d been so very wrong. Just a few months later, as I walked up the aisle of the church towards Miller, I knew the man standing nervously in front of me was the one I was always destined to be with. Daniel presided and he smiled at us both as he gave the service. In fact, he looked more like the proverbial Cheshire cat than a vicar about to marry his brother and his friend.
We’d decided on a very small ceremony, just family and a handful of his friends. It was perfect: more so when Patricia flew over to act as mother of the bride. I’d called her when Miller had asked me to marry him, and at first I thought her silence was disapproval. However, the tears in her voice when she told me how happy she was for me brought a lump to my throat.
My relationship with Christian was still a little fractured and that saddened us both. He was a proud man, too proud to admit he’d caused the rift. However, he was at my wedding, sitting with his new partner, Jennifer. She’d been instrumental in making sure Christian had booked therapy to cope with his level of anger. She’d also made sure he and I sat and talked through how we felt. I had high hopes for their relationship, she was tough, considerate, and I thought we’d become good friends.
We’d decided to live in the barn, the planning permission had come through and with some minor adjustments; it was going to be perfect. We were to create our perfect home. Miller built Dad a garage for Mertle, and a workshop for himself. He put his cottage up for sale but kept hold of the one at Harlson Falls.
We visited that cottage regularly; we made love on the dusty floor many times. We never got around to start its renovation, though. One day, maybe, but for now, that cottage was where it all started, when we were children. We didn’t want to disturb that memory or erase the fantasy that had occurred there.
“How do you feel?” Miller asked, as we walked hand in hand to Hannah’s grave. I wanted to lay my wedding flowers there for her to share.
“Amazing. I can’t believe we’re actually married, if I’m honest,” I said with a laugh.
“I feel annoyed we don’t get to honeymoon just yet,” he said.
“I want the house done, then we can lock the door, close the curtains, and pretend we are anywhere in the world.”
“Mmm, that doesn’t sound too bad.”
“Anyway, I don’t want to holiday just yet. I want our first holiday to be as a family.”
I had knelt down beside Hannah’s grave, I no longer thought of Trey being there with her. I kissed my fingertips and placed it over her name before looking back up at Miller. He held a frown on his forehead.
I stood and took his hand. I placed his hand on my stomach.
“Our first holiday will be in about a year, when our baby is a few months old.”
He cocked his head to one side.
I sighed. “I’m pregnant, Miller.”
He didn’t speak, and I watched the tears roll down his cheeks. He knelt and held my hips. He placed a kiss on my stomach, through my wedding dress.
“My baby is in here,” he whispered. “Hey, baby, Daddy here.”
He stood so abruptly he startled me. He grabbed my shoulders and turned towards our guests that were leaving the church.
“I’m going to be a dad!” he shouted.
At first there wasn’t a response, but then the whooping and cheering began.
“I’m going to be a dad?” he said quietly to me.
I nodded.
“Not just any old dad. You’re going to be the most amazing father any child could ever wish for,” I said.
“Fuck me,” he said before laughing out loud.
Miller was the worst expectant parent I could have ever wished for. I wasn’t allowed to do anything for myself. He worked, and he finished our house. He panicked at every single wince I made and he rubbed the soles of my feet when they hurt. He read every book, argued with the useless doctors who, in his opinion, knew nothing about childbirth, and I banned him from antenatal classes after he lay on the mat that should have been for me, and fell asleep.
A week before my due date, he led me into the spare bedroom that he’d begged me to stay away from. Standing in the middle of a soft cream painted room was an ornately carved oak cot, a matching crib stood beside it. To one side was a large dresser with a changing mat on the top. Miller had made them all.
“You’re not cross I wanted to do this myself, are you?” he asked. I guessed my silence had worried him.
I shook my head slowly. “Miller, it’s absolutely perfect.” There were many other words I wanted to say but I was just so choked they wouldn’t form.
Or perhaps it was the pain that ripped through my stomach and stole my ability to speak.
“Dani?”
I panted to quell the pain and pointed to the bag that had been packed for the past month, silently thanking that Miller had been so bloody anal about being prepared.
“It’s time?” he asked.
I nodded, biting down on my lower lip.
“Holy fuck. Oh my God.”
He ran around the house, placing the bag in the boot, grabbing coats and phones before escorting me to the sensible car we’d had to buy on his insistence.
Isabelle Hannah Copeland was born a few hours later by C-section.
She was a healthy and very cross baby, and she brought Miller to his knees. He cried when he held her and the love that poured from every part of him brought tears to not only my eyes, but the midwife and nurses as well.
“Hey, Izzie,” he whispered. “It’s so good to finally meet you.”
He sat on the edge of the bed and placed her on my chest. I kissed her head and we both cried gentle tears as we welcomed our baby into the world.
“That is everything. More than I ever dreamed possible,” Miller said, echoing the words he’d told me the very first time he’d kissed me.
My family was complete. My husband and my daughter were my world, but I’d never forget the angel that I was desperate to visit.
On the day we were allowed to take Izzie home, we made a detour to the cemetery. I wanted Izzie to meet her sister, Hannah, as soon as possible. We sat on the grass and I winced at the pull across my stomach as I did. We placed Izzie, in her car seat, beside the headstone, and not that it was deliberate of course, but Izzie stretched out her arm, her tiny fingers just touching the headstone beside Hannah’s name.
I cried at that moment.
Hannah’s photograph sat on a shelf in Izzie’s bedroom, not that she was ready to use that room, of course. It comforted me to know she’d be there, looking after her baby sister.
Miller would sit with Izzie in a chair in her bedroom and I’d overhear him talking to his daughter. He always included Hannah in those conversations.
Lincoln Miller Copeland was truly the most amazing man I’d ever encountered. He was a doting father, an annoying father at times. He was the husband I could have only wished for, had my life not taken the turns it had. And for that reason, I was able to reconcile my feelings towards Trey. Silently, I even thanked him for his betrayal. Had he not had the affair, I would not have been standing at the partially open bedroom door, concealed, but listening to my amazing man whispering all the things he planned for his daughter and me.
I never heard back from Helen’s solicitor. However, I did set up a trust for Alistair, using part of the settlement I’d received and after gaining confirmation that Trey was the father. It opened those old wounds but not enough that Miller couldn’t soothe them closed again. Patricia had formed a ‘relationship’ with Helen, albeit a very strained one. I was pleased, though. She got to meet her grandson, and when she came to visit us, she got to meet her ‘granddaughter’ as well.
The End