And then he kisses me, palms splayed across my belly like he’s holding the future—his future—I know one thing with absolute, tinsel-tangled certainty.
I’ll never want a different kind of life.
Second Epilogue
Nash
Five Years Later
The baby’s eating snow again.
Not the fresh kind either—the weird gray slush clumped near the bait bucket. I think it’s mostly minnows and dirt. I make a mental note to Google “effects of river ice on toddler digestion” later.
“Mack, don’t lick the fishing pole,” I bark, not looking up from the tangled line I’m re-threading for our middle kid. “Hooks don’t taste like popsicles, bud.”
He giggles.
Which means he already licked it.
“Did you hear what your son just said?” Noel calls from behind me.
Your son.
She only ever says that when someone’s about to get grounded or end up in the ER.
I glance over my shoulder.
Our oldest, Jack—named after Noel’s father—is building what appears to be a snowwoman with boobs. Real shapely ones. Strategic icicles. A pinecone bikini top.
Noel raises her eyebrows. “I see your decorating style has rubbed off.”
I smirk. “Gotta teach ’em young.”
She trudges closer, heat-warmed boots crunching over the ice, cocoa thermos in one hand and our youngest balanced on her hip like it’s nothing.
Five years and three kids later, and I still get winded when I look at her.
Maybe it’s the snow-glow. The wild curls tucked under her knit beanie. The smear of red lipstick she insists on wearing even when we’re ice fishing.
Or maybe it’s the part where my brain short-circuits every time she bends over in those damn red leggings.
Either way?—
I’d marry her all over again. Right here on the Phantom River. Shirtless. In minus-fifteen windchill.
“You’re staring,” she says, eyes narrowed.
“You’re bending.”
She grins. “Thinking dirty Christmas thoughts again, sugar daddy?”
“Always.”
Her lips part. She leans in. The wind howls. The kids scream. The dog leaps across the hole and lands in the bait bucket.
Chaos.
And it’sperfect.
