After the shooting, I’d given in to the pressure from DB and my brother to take my Basic Criminal Investigation course so that I could perform both patrol and investigative functions for P.V.P.D. With what I’d done in the USAF, my brain was just wired to do that kind of job, so I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t happy with the new duties.
Tamsin had eventually forgiven me for calling her a big wetty panda, especially after her parents arrived and her dad busted a gut when he heard the story. The man reminded me of Hurst mentally but looked scarily like Eric Roberts, Julia Roberts's brother. The resemblance was uncanny, and her mom looked like Blythe Danner. It was strange but awesome when people saw them taking part in one of the reenactments and went nuts!
Apparently, Tamsin’s coloring came from her maternal grandfather, who had Italian heritage. Seeing them all together and how close they were, it was hard to fathom how they’d managed to spend two years apart with zero contact, but it was like it never happened with how chilled the family was. They just picked up where they left off, and that was it.
Her dad had explained it a couple of days after I was released when I’d mentioned it to him.
“Son, seen a whole lot of shit in my time.”—Being an NYPD detective, I had zero doubts he had—“And I’m going to tell you this, and I want you to take it onboard. Life is way too fucking short to regret yesterday. You need to hold onto tomorrow so that you can make it to the day after. Fucking right we’ve been through some shit because of that dickwad, but if we hold onto what we didn’t have, we’re not going to see what we do have. Am I right?”
He was fucking right, and those words would be my mantra for the rest of my life.
My dad had been with us when Will had said it, and he’d nodded furiously beside him. Then, he just couldn’t help himself. “Personally, his mom and I are just shocked he’s got a woman, Will.”
“Really? I’ve just been shot, Dad, and you’re saying that?”
He shrugged and apologized, but I don’t think he meant it. Well, at least until he leaned forward and held out a ring in his hand. “It was your great-grandmother’s engagement ring. She married an Earl who died after three years, but they were lucky to have your grandad before he did. He had a title, but he wasn’t a rich man, so she worked hard to support her son after losing her husband. My dad was at war when her house was bombed during World War II, and when he came home, this was what he found in the rubble.”
I knew the story, and looking at the ring, I knew it was perfect for Tamsin. Small diamonds made a spiral at the top of it with about a half-carat of diamond in the middle, nestled on a gold band—unique, with history, and perfect.
Will whistled when he saw it. “Man, that is beautiful. When I asked Lea to marry me, all I could afford was a diamond the size of a mouse fart.”
“My grandad bartered pretty much half of what he had to get it for her, but he knew my grandmother would love it.”
Wrapping it up in my fist, I almost jumped up to give it to her then and there, but I knew I had to do it properly.
What I didn’t expect was to not get the chance until after I’d been wrangled onto a boat to re-enact Jaws and had spent a day at sea puking over the edge with only one arm to balance myself when waves hit us because of my shoulder.
In the end, I did it by sticking my hand through the model of a huge shark’s jaws, which was hanging in the bar we ended up in, begging her to take it and marry me. Granted, I’d drunk a lot of whisky to recover from the boat trip, which had a lot to do with it, but the videos and photos that went viral on the internet made it unforgettable.
According to the Townsend women, that’s what every bride wanted, an unforgettable proposal and wedding. I just wished it hadn’t been like that. I was never getting away from it for the rest of my life. There were even memes made out of it.
And four years later, she’d graduated from college, was now a guidance counselor at the high school, and loved every second of it.
Until she got pregnant six months into it. My bad!
We were days away from welcoming our kid into the world, and neither of us knew what we were having, except that he or she was a great white shark sized baby. She’d gone for a scan last week to check on the little guy, and even the technicians and doctor had winced when they’d seen him or her. I felt for my poor wife’s vagina.