I stared into those steady bright blue eyes. “I’ll have you. You can sleep on my other side, and when I’m feeding the baby, you can hold me from behind.” Tears fell onto the baby’s dark hair. “I don’t want to be alone, Noah. I . . . love you. I want you to stay with me. With us. Please.”
“Sweetheart.” Noah bent and swept me—baby and all—into his arms. He dropped backward onto the sofa, holding me in his lap while Evangeline never missed a beat in the rhythm of her suckling. Her wide, alert blue eyes watched her father with interest.
“Alison, my love. My life. I love you. I’m staying forever. You don’t have to believe me now. You have the rest of your life to decide if you trust me.”
I snuggled closer to Noah, holding our daughter close to me as his arms tightened around us—our little family.
“Do you really think it’ll take me until I’m eighty to understand this love between us?” I murmured.
He laughed softly. “No, sweetheart. You’re a fast learner. If I’m any good at what I do, you’ll catch on . . . before you’re sixty.” He winked. “And baby . . . trust me. I’m very good at what I do.”
I smiled, closing my eyes and melting into the man I loved.
“Oh, yes, you are, Noah. Yes, you are.”
Epilogue
Noah
It was a beautiful day for a wedding.
We gathered at mid-morning under the covenant oak on Jimmy and Anna Girard’s farm. Alison and I had decided that since Emma and Deacon’s wedding had been the start of our love story, we should say our vows under the canopied branches of that same steadfast tree.
We hadn’t wanted anything grand or involved, but it was important to us that the special people in our lives were present. So when Alison and I joined hands and made our vows, among those surrounding us were Emma and Deacon, Darcy and Jackson, Jenny and Nico, Mira Hoskins, and all of the people who worked with Alison in her practice. Maggie Corning, the midwife, and Brooke Slater, Alison’s therapist, were there, too.
My family had flown downen massfrom Wisconsin and other key points around the country. My mother couldn’t stop smiling, and my dad looked proud. Even my brothers and sisters and their families were behaving themselves.
And then of course, there was the Tampa football team contingent. Coach Briars and the rest of the offensive line coaches sat together, along with a few of the players who I knew best. My job with the team had worked out to be exactly what I needed: I was still involved in the game I loved, and although it had taken some careful maneuvering and negotiating, I had worked it out so that I was never away from home very long—and I was able to take Alison and Evangeline with me on almost all of our road trips.
I was sorry that Zeke wasn’t there, but I understood. I’d kept my distance from Juliet and him over the past year. Zeke and I were civil, polite in an uncomfortable way. He seemed to respect me as a coach, but there was none of the easy friendliness we’d had before. Whatever had transpired between Juliet and him . . . it was none of my business. I couldn’t imagine that Juliet would want her husband at the wedding of her ex-lover, even if the two of us had been friends for years.
All during the brief ceremony, our daughter chattered away as she toddled around under the watchful eyes of her two grandmothers: my mom, and Anna, who had declared herself Evangeline’s honorary Nana.
And when Father George invited me to kiss my bride, you better believe I did it with gusto.
Afterward, we greeted our friends and family. Anna and Emma served a simple brunch from the front porch, and we all sat at picnic tables.
“Hey, dork.” Emma dropped onto the bench next to me. She was fairly glowing with happiness, which I knew came not only from her own happy marriage but also from the small baby bump she was proudly displaying. “You did good. You did real good.” She wrapped one slender arm around my neck and hugged me.
“Thanks, Em. Couldn’t have made any of this happen if it wasn’t for you.” I smiled, and I knew she understood all the nuances of what I’d just said.
“Do you remember the day we met, Noah?” Emma shaded her eyes and looked over to where her husband was talking to my father. “It was outside the hospital, and I was so mad at Mira . . .”
“And I asked if you were leading a yoga class.” I grinned, remembering.
“You listened to me rant and rave, and you gave me good advice. If it hadn’t been for you that day, I might not have stayed at St. Agnes. I might have gotten in my car and driven back to Philadelphia.”
“Then you’d never have met Deacon.” I paused. “And Alison wouldn’t have moved down here. I wouldn’t have her or Evangeline.”
Emma smiled. “That was a very important conversation, wasn’t it? You and I became friends that day.”
I nodded. “We talked about Ang. Remember? I told you about us.”
“Yes,” Emma said softly. She sighed. “I know she’s here today, Noah. And I believe she’s so happy for you. So very happy that you found love again.”
I nodded. “She is. Angela will always be part of who I am.” I turned my head to follow the sound of my daughter’s laughter and smiled as I watched Alison scoop her up and nuzzle her neck with joyful abandon. “But she’s my past. She would understand that.” Again, as often happened, I had that odd sense of a recalled conversation in a lovely garden, of sweet reunion and a blessing given. I shook my head a little.
“Alison’s my present and my future. She and Evangeline are my life—the life I’m going to keep living as a testament to what came before and a promise to what comes next.”
