waiting for.
She slowly collapsed on top of him, groaning at the movement.
He pulled her close. “That was so good,” he whispered.
She chuckled as she stretched out fully on top of him. “It just feels so very good after the stress and the horror of the last few days.”
“While we’ve been through hell,” he said, “you have come out the other side as a strong and wonderful woman.” He stared into her beautiful eyes, his fingertips grazing her face. “It’ll be tough for a while, but you can survive this.”
“I will,” she said. “But I want to do more than survive. I want to thrive.”
He looked at her and raised an eyebrow. “Are you in any doubt over that outcome?”
She smiled and shook her head. “No, not really. I just suspect that we’ll have some rough times.”
“I’m not planning on ditching you,” he said. “So I’ll be at your side when the rough patches arrive.”
She smiled and looked at him. “Really?”
“Really,” he said. “I don’t have to look at somebody like your sister to realize what’s precious in you, and, once I found you, no way I’ll let you go. So, not to worry. We’re in this together.” And he wrapped her up close, holding her tight.
They didn’t have long because the rest of the world would intrude, but, for the moment, it was pretty hard to imagine anything interrupting this perfect moment.
She curled up in his arms and kissed him gently on the cheek. “Thank you,” she whispered.
His chuckle rumbled up his chest. “No, thank you.”
She flushed as she realized what he meant. “It’s your turn next.”
He slid a hand around her backside. “Oh, I’m not done,” he said. He flipped them over, him atop her now. “I just don’t know how much time we have.”
Even in the distance, Gemma could hear the little girl’s voice. “Apparently we don’t have any time at all.” She giggled, hopping off the bed and quickly redressing. She leaned over and kissed him hard. “Save it for later.”
She went out to greet Tim and Becky, who were still laughing over the kittens. As she reached the front door, the little girl turned to her with a big smile on her face.
“Auntie Gemma, can we come back here next summer?” She looked up at Tim hopefully.
“Honey, you know what? We might just have to come for a week every year. I know some of my best memories were created here.”
Tim chuckled. “So the three of you would be welcome to visit us.”
Epilogue
Zack Higgins walked into the coffee shop, took a look around, and realized neither Levi nor Ice were here yet. So he walked to the front counter and ordered himself the largest darkest coffee he could. With that in hand, he turned to look for the most isolated table and found it in the far back right corner of the coffee shop. He headed there and sat down. He tried to get here a few minutes early just because he refused to be late for meetings. He knew the last job had been only okay as far as he was concerned, having dealt with Rebecca. And the case itself had turned out all right, but the end results left him feeling very wounded in many ways.
Even now he still felt stupid, since he hadn’t had a sexual relationship with Rebecca in a very long time, and the one that they had been left with for the last many years had been platonic and friendly at best. But because he’d always been hanging on to the wonderment that maybe her daughter was his, his emotional entanglements with Rebecca hadn’t been severed. And that was too damned bad because he was sitting here now feeling more than a little sorry for himself, and that was as unacceptable as anything.
“There you are.” Ice’s warm voice broke through his musings.
He looked up and smiled. “Aren’t you a picture,” he said, nodding toward her obviously pregnant belly.
“Wow, thanks, I think,” she said, sitting down with a hard thump. “One day the baby turned, and all of a sudden I look very pregnant. And yet the baby is somehow poking all my organs. So any jokes now are not amusing.” But her bright laugh that followed belied her words.
He smiled at the two of them, noting that Levi had come up behind him. He stood, shook Levi’s hand, and asked, “Are you ready to be a father?”
“Probably not,” Levi said amiably. “But, like everything, we learn as we go.”
“That’s a