Bonus Epilogue
EMMA
“I still have a hard time believing you’re about to be a mom,” Justin says. He’s endearingly out of place in his navy pin-stripe suit and wingtip shoes. A cloud of dust rises around us as I smack my khaki pants and wipe the dirt from my hands with an old handkerchief.
“Well, catch up already, he’s almost here,” I tease. We’re at the settlement dig site, it’s late spring, the snow is gone, the ground has thawed, and I want to get as much work done before I take a few months of maternity leave. Although, Andrew suspects, and I suspect he’s right, I’ll be back here with our baby in a wrap or in a buggy, within a few short weeks of giving birth. Not for long work days, but just because I won’t be able to stay away. And I won’t be able to keep our baby away either. This boy has adventuring in his blood.
I put my hands on my back and knead the tense knots. We’ve started excavation and 3D modeling and hired an excavation director, a site manager, site supervisor, assistants, a finds manager, finds specialists, and science manager. Sol’s Cavern is becoming everything that Andrew and I ever dreamed of. Soon, we’ll have our living museum and visitors center, summer camps, and a field school for kids and volunteers.
It’s late Friday evening, and most everyone has already gone home, but there are still two grad students left on site. Andrew is at the opposite end of the meadow, talking with them. I look toward him when I hear his laughter, the bright, uninhibited laugh that he used to give freely, and now slips out more and more, much to his surprise. Every time I hear his laugh, my heart feels as if it can’t hold anymore happiness. For years, I thought I’d never hear it again, and then when he came back, he didn’t laugh at all. Now he does, every day.
Andrew must sense me looking at him, because he glances up from his crouched position, and grazes me with a heated gaze. His eyes stroke me, like an excavation brush dragging over the coarse surface of a find. I bite my lip and he grins in response, even fifty meters away, he knows what he does to me.
“He’s changed,” Justin says, pulling my attention back to him. He rubs the back of his neck uncomfortably.
“Not really,” I say, “he’s exactly who he’s always been.”
Justin nods. “You don’t have to convince me. I’m happy for you Em.”
I reach out and clasp his hand, “Thank you. You’re a good friend.”
He smiles, that charming, golden boy courtroom smile that he uses to magic his way to winning longshot legal battles. And that’s when I know. He’s lonely. Lonelier than I ever realized.
“What have you been doing since I don’t darken your door every other night after visiting the natural history museum?” I ask, maybe prying more than I should.
He shrugs. “The usual. Long nights at the office. Take-out eaten at my desk,” he lifts an eyebrow, “are you feeling sorry for me Em? It is your fault you know. I counted on your friendship keeping me from becoming a scrooge, chained to my desk, lacking humor, wizened soul and all.”
I laugh. “I’ll bet. You could come up here more often you know. Your uncle’s love shack is empty.”
“It’s a hunting shack,” he pretends offense.
“Uh huh. I’ve heard the stories. Nothing gets by the people in this town.”
He snorts. “No thanks. I’ll stick with the comforts of the city.”
My shoulders drop a bit, and I rub my abdomen, a sharp tight pain has lodged there. “Then do me a favor,” I say.
“Depends on the favor,” he says, cagey as always.
“Get yourself another friend. Somebody outside your work. Somebody that’ll have dinner with you, make you walk in the park, somebody to get coffee with. Somebody to replace…” I stop, look at him in silence.
“Replace my best friend?” he asks.
“Not replace. I’ll always be your friend. I mean…I just don’t like thinking of you at your desk, at one o’clock in the morning, for the fifteenth night in a row, not having spoken to a single person outside of your work for days on end.”
“Andrew’s my friend,” Justin argues.
I give him a skeptical look. “That doesn’t count.”
“Fine. How about Will Williams? Will’s my friend.”
I shake my head. “You see him less than you see me. And when you do, you only talk about work, because…newsflash, you’re his lawyer.”
His smile acknowledges that I’m right and he knows it. “Alright. I’ll find a friend.”
“Good.”
We smile at each other, nine years of museum trips, long dinners, and frank conversations between us.
“I’m happy for you,” he says again.
Then I smile, because Andrew has come up behind me, tugged me into him and wrapped his arms around me, his hands resting protectively over my belly. “Happy why?” he asks.
Justin smirks at my husband, “Because she has you, you sod.”
The rumble of Andrew’s laugh warms me. His laughter tickles the back of my neck and I lean into him. “Get your own,” he says.
Justin snorts. Then, “Aren’t we going to dinner? I drove four hours to get here, I’m hungry.”
We’re heading to Boden Café, the best farm-to-table restaurant I’ve ever been to. It’s Justin’s favorite place to eat when he comes to town.
“Sure, let me just clean up my gear and-”
I cut off, and turn around in Andrew’s arms, my eyes wide.
“What is it?” he looks around, searching for what alarmed me.
“On second thought, I think we should head to the hospital.”
“Why? What? Is it-”
“My water broke,” I whisper.
My obstetrician told me I’d have contractions first, but I know, in some cases, you don’t. Your water just breaks. But once it does, labor is sure to follow.
“He’s coming?” Andrew asks, his face paling.
I nod.
Andrew takes my face in his hands and covers my mouth with a firm, reassuring kiss. Then he grabs my hands and starts dragging me to the car.
“Van Cleeve,” he calls, “Sorry to cut this short, but I’m taking my wife to the hospital.”
I wave at Justin, suppressing a laugh at Andrew tugging me across the grassy meadow. Once we’re in the car, Andrew straps me in, and I see his hands shaking on the wheel as he hurries down the fire access road toward town.
“Are you okay?” he asks. “Do you feel okay?”
I rest one reassuring hand on his arm, the other on my belly. “Of course I’m okay. I’m about to meet our baby. You’ll get to hold him soon.”
He flashes me a surprised look. Then he nods and grips my hand, “Thank you.”
I shake my head, “Don’t thank me. Thank whoever it was out there that decided to give us to each other.”
He turns to me and gives me the look that I’ve come to love, and says, “I do. Every day.”
***
ANDREW
“And that is how your papa found a heart, your mom found a treasure, and we got you. The end.” I place a kiss on the soft, downy head of our newborn son, Oscar Rigo Carmichael. I just spent the last half hour telling him his first bedtime story, the tale of how his mom and I met, how we fell in love, how we lost each other, and how we found each other again.
For most of the story he watched me with curious muddy gray-brown eyes, that drifted between sleepy and awake. He’s swaddled tight in a newborn blanket, there’s a cap on his head, and he lets out another sleepy yawn.
Emma’s asleep in the hospital bed, exhausted after twenty hours of labor, the skin under her eyes shadowed, her hair tangled, but to me, she’s more beautiful than ever.
Oscar gives a tiny, mewling cry and I rock him close, “Shh,” I whisper, “Your mom’s tired. She worked hard today. We’ll let her sleep a little longer.”
I stand and walk back and forth in the hospital room, rocking our son to sleep. “Later I’ll tell you another story. You’ll like this one, it’s about all the amazing things you’re going to do.”
Oscar’s eyes close, his small body, that fits so snuggly in my arms relaxes, and he falls asleep. I sit in the chair next to Emma, hold our son in my arms, lean my head back and close my eyes.
All those years ago, I never imagined that when I wished for Emma, when I wished for more, that this is what I would find. The love I feel is more than I ever dreamed of, more than I ever hoped for, more.
Emma shifts in the bed, reaches over and rests her hand on my arm. “I liked your story,” she whispers.
I open my eyes. She’s looking at me with a drowsy, happy expression. I hadn’t realized she was awake for it. “Don’t worry,” I tell her, “There’s more, the story’s not over yet, and it will keep getting better.”
“I know,” she says. “You wouldn’t allow anything else.”
The trust in her eyes, the love in her voice, our baby in my arms, all of it fills me with the light of a thousand suns.
And now, I’m grateful, that a long time ago, in a place far away, I wished for more and someone, somewhere, heard me and gave me love.
***
If you love the Soul Mates in Romeo Romance series and want more, check out the other books at my series page on Amazon.
