Lucky Forever - Cee Bowerman Page 0,67

on the floor. You rubbed her scalp and played with her hair until she fell asleep and then you let her head rest on your knee while you finished your movie. I watched you pick her up and carry her to her room. I followed you in there and leaned against the door as you tucked her in and made sure the blanket was wrapped around her feet so the monster under her bed wouldn’t pull her under. Then you kissed her on the forehead and brushed her hair away from her face like it was something you did for her every single night since the day she was born. Not like she was just a little girl you’d recently met - you did it like she was your own kid.”

I knew I was crying, I could feel the tears streaming down my cheeks, but I needed to tell him all the ways that he had made me love him so much that I couldn’t imagine breathing without him on this earth beside me.

“And when you helped her pick out her first pair of boots. You were so gentle with her, even though she insisted that she try on every single color of that same style in her size so she could look at each one in the mirror. Leia and I were falling off the couch in boredom and I think I actually fell asleep at one point, but you stayed focused on Lexi until she was perfectly happy with her ‘very special, very first pair, fit just right and totally awesome’ pair of cowboy boots. And then you gave us horses.”

Rowdy smiled.

“At some point in their lives, almost every little girl wants a horse, I think. It’s almost a rite of passage. I was one of those girls, oddly enough, but my parents wouldn’t hear of it. But you got our girls one and you got one for me so I could learn to enjoy riding right along with them. You spent the money you had been saving on us just to make us happy. And you married me! When we danced at our wedding, the two of us were the only ones in the world. You held me tight against you and told me with the song you chose that you loved me already. I knew then, but there was no way in hell I would admit it.”

Rowdy had been rubbing his hands on one of the towels he kept close by and he threw it up on the edge of his work bench and stood up. I watched my gorgeous husband walk toward me and then get down on his knees in front of me before he rested his head against my chest and held me tight.

I ran my fingers through his hair, just like I’d watched him do to my girl when she was hurting, and I cried. For all the years I had gone without love from my parents, for the loss of my first love before I even knew I held a part of him inside me, for the years I had spent looking over my shoulder in fear of them finding me. I cried for all the times I had to gently tell my daughter that she couldn’t go somewhere or have something because I couldn’t afford it. And I cried for all the times that I had to uproot her from the life we had built to run again.

I cried the most for the hurt she had felt at the hands of a man who should have loved her and the healing she was getting from this man who did.

“I love you, Rowdy Lincoln, and I’m proud to be your wife. If you’ll have me, I plan to die beside you after having a multi-orgasmic, marathon sex session in our nursing home and have a smile on my face even the coroner can’t get rid of.”

Rowdy chuckled and pulled back to look at my face.

“I’ll take you up on that.”

◆◆◆

“Remember three months ago when we got married, I said that the girls would have a honeymoon period just like we did? And I told you at some point shit will get real around here and the games would begin.”

The girls arguing got even louder.

“I remember that,” Rowdy said as he stood up from the couch. “Do they have to be so fucking shrill? Jesus.”

I laughed as Rowdy left the living room and walked down the hall to our daughters’ rooms. The