My heart lightened when an actual smile, or something akin to it—Aaron didn’t particularly smile—appeared on his face and he leaned down, pressing a kiss to my cheek.
“I’m fine, Mother. He’s dead and I’m not. He can’t hurt me anymore.”
I blinked, taking his hand in both of mine and squeezing it. I’d said those same words to Aaron not long before he’d gotten out of the hospital following the car accident that killed his parents, and we brought him home to raise as our own.
“Out of my four boys, you are always the one to make me tear up the most,” I told him, patting my eyes with the silk handkerchief I’d pulled from the back pocket of the jeans I wore. “I need to get back to the girls.”
I gave Aaron one last look and then glanced over at my handsome husband. His eyes were already on me. Those same butterflies started flapping in my belly when he winked at me. For another moment, I stood there admiring how his dark brown locks were now much shorter than they’d been in the spring of 1974, and instead of brown they were grey. But he still had a head full of beautiful tresses, the wrinkle lines around his eyes more apparent, but I much preferred the distinguished look they gave him over the boyish, youthful appeal of our younger years. Truth be told, I’d enjoyed every stage of life with this man.
“When are you going to tell us the rest of your story?” Destiny questioned as soon as I entered the conference room with the rest of the women.
Grinning, I took Annalise from Destiny’s arms, admiring her wheat-colored skin against the red curls of her hair and brown eyes. She got her hair color from her father, Tyler. I pressed a kiss to Annalise’s nose, causing her to pull back and give me a funny look. I laughed at her expression, so much like her mother, before turning back to the rest of the women.
“Later.” I glanced around. “I’m so proud to be finally building this place,” I sighed out loud.
“We’re even more proud to be building it with you,” Patience added. “I can’t wait to start with the literacy classes here. We’ve already got around fifty books donated. I expect we’ll have much more by the time we open. As our resident librarian, literacy teacher, and grant writer, I am ecstatic for those doors to finally open,” Patience stated excitedly.
It thrilled me to hear her excitement. I’d spent years wanting to open a location like this. A place to aid women, young and older, who were down on their luck, lost, and had nowhere to turn. After years of planning it finally came about, and thanks to the dynamic, intelligent, and competent women each one of my sons had married, I now had a team to help me bring it all together. This would be a family affair. The Williamsport Women’s Shelter was the name we were going with for now.
“We really could’ve used a place like this on the mountain,” I stated out loud.
“The mountain?” Michelle questioned, curious.
I smiled, still bouncing a giggling Annalise on my hip. “It’s how I refer to home.”
Michelle nodded. “Appalachia, right?”
I tilted my head. “More specifically, eastern Kentucky, Beattyville.”
“Do you ever miss it?” Destiny asked.
Twisting my lips, I considered the question. “Honestly? Sometimes. Not often, but at times. Despite all of its problems, and trust me, there are many problems, there is a certain beauty about Appalachia. The natural rivers, streams, mountaintop views. Unfortunately, all that gets lost in the crushing poverty. We had our problems when I was a kid, but now with the opioid epidemic … I wouldn’t wish that life on my worst enemy.”
I hadn’t been back to the town I grew up in well over two decades but I’d heard a few cousins of mine had either overdosed or ended up in jail for some horrific crimes committed while trying to get their next fix.
“I left Beattyville just before my senior year of high school, to complete my high school education in a different town, and never looked back, mainly because my mother had told me if I ever did come back she would kick my ass.”
“Seriously?” Michelle blurted out.
I looked her in the eyes and nodded. “She wasn’t kidding either. My mother worked her fingers to the bone to make a better life for me. Both of my parents had but only she’d lived to see it through.”
I sighed, my heart aching as it always did when I thought about my parents. Looking down into the big, bright eyes of my youngest granddaughter had me realizing, not for the first time, that their sacrifices had been worth it.
I didn’t have time to get too lost in my thoughts when the guys piled back in to inform us that the computers were all set up. The ladies and I would be staying around for another couple of hours to get things like scheduling and administrative tasks figured out, but the men were headed home to the kids.
“You’re thinking about home,” Robert’s deep vocal chords drowned out my thoughts.
I turned to him, smiling. “Now, I’m thinking about you,” I responded as he wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me into him.
“Kiss me.”
I raised my lips to meet his and he didn’t disappoint.
“I’m proud as hell of you. You know that, right?”
I did but it still felt great to hear him say it.
I lifted my arms to his shoulders. “When I get home, I’ll show you precisely what your words mean to me,” I purred just before pulling him in for another kiss.
