“I don’t want to ruin your night. If you want to stay, we can stay however long you want.”
She grabs my hand and threads our fingers together. “Oh, but don’t you know? You’re my fun, Mr. Reed. You’re my everything.”
She says it lightly, but she has no idea how much her words mean to me. I’m going to spend my life loving this woman. I bring our hands up and kiss her knuckles. “You’re mine, too.”
She nods. “I know.”
I follow behind her through the crowd back to our friends. They’re all watching us, no doubt wondering about our new relationship. I sit down on the chair and pull her into my lap. I expect her to struggle, but she doesn’t. She curls up in my lap like she’s meant to be there. Maybe it’s because she is. She’s right where I need her, right where I want her to be.
Epilogue 2
Emily
One Year Later
“I don’t know if I can do this, Dawson.” His body tenses against mine, and immediately I know where his mind goes. We’ve worked hard this past year to forget about past hurts. We’ve both come a long way. He eventually told me about his mom and how she left him. Every day, I show him how much I love him and how much I need him in my life, but I know he’s not going to be able to completely forget his past.
His voice is gruff in my ear. “That’s tough, darlin’, cause you’re stuck with me.”
I lean back against him, his whole body surrounding me. More times than not, when we’re somewhere out and about or even at home, I’m in his arms. We’re on the back porch and sitting on the large couch here. His back is to the side arm of the couch, and I’m fitted against his long, hard body.
I lean my head back and cup my belly. “I don’t mean that, and you know it. I mean motherhood. What if I suck at it?”
He laughs, his chest rumbling against my back. When I don’t say anything, he leans to the side and studies my face. “You’re serious?”
I nod, still not smiling. “Some people are good at it. Like Katie and her son. And Gracie with little Jessica. I mean they’re so good at it. I don’t have a clue.” I pause and then whisper loudly, “Actually, kids kind of scare me.”
Dawson moves his hands down to cup my growing belly. It took us a while to conceive, but I’m happy about it now. It gave Dawson and me more time together. We got married two weeks after we spent the first night together. And he was right; he’s still an ass sometimes, and he messes up, but so do I. Yet, in this last year, I’ve never doubted how he feels about me. I hope he hasn’t doubted me either.
“You’re going to be a great mom, Emily.”
I close my eyes. “You sort of have to say that.”
He leans his head next to mine, the scruff of his jaw against my cheek. “Do you love him?”
“Our baby?”
He nods. “Yeah, do you love DJ?”
I turn in his arms and cup his cheek. “Yes, I love Dawson Junior. How could I not? He’s a part of us.”
He searches my face. “Okay, and could you leave him? Could you ever imagine just walking away from him?”
I almost am offended, but I know how important this question is to him. “Never. I would never leave him, Dawson. As long as I’m alive, I’ll be here for him.”
He lets out a slow breath and cups my face. “You’re going to be a good mom, Em. That’s all a kid needs. Forget all the other stuff. They just need to know you love them and you’ll always be there for them. That’s it.”
“Oh Dawson,” I say, my voice thick with emotion. I hate what he went through as a child. I hate that it still affects him today and makes him sometimes doubt my love for him.
I search his face. “You know, the same goes for you.”
His forehead creases in confusion.
“I love you, and as long as I have a breath in me, I’ll be here for you.”
His heart pounds erratically under my palm. “Fuck, I love you, woman.”
I can’t stop the smile. He may not be the most romantic, but man he has a way with words. “I love you too, Dawson.”
He kisses me and spends the rest of the day—the rest of our lives—showing me just how much he loves me.