‘Miss Amore,’ she burst out.
‘Beth?’ There was alarm in his voice. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Miss Amore!’ Half laughing, half crying, she said, ‘I love you, Xavi. I love, love, love you. I love you to the edges of the universe! I love you, and you love me, and we’ve lost so many years, and I can’t bear to spend another second without you! Please, come back and take me home. Come back and get me,please.’
She heard him shout for his driver to turn the car around, and though she knew he would be with her in minutes, still she ran and still she laughed, her heart pounding, overwhelmed with a joy she’d never believed she would feel again, a joy so pure she felt it in the tips of her toes.
A black SUV appeared in the distance.
She ran even faster.
A figure threw himself out and ran towards her.
She threw herself into his arms.
He caught her, just as she knew he would, just as he would be there to catch her, always, for the rest of her life.
Epilogue
XAVI ROLLED OVERin his sleep. Instinctively, he reached for Beth and pulled himself awake when he found the bed empty. He craned his ears, even though he knew he wouldn’t hear her. She woke in the twilight hours every night and was unable to fall back to sleep until she’d satisfied herself that their children were sleeping safely. She would check on three-year-old Javier first because his room was closest to theirs, and then five-year-old Lorena, and then she would slip back into their bedroom and slide back beneath the sheets, as quiet as a mouse.
The moonlight pouring through their window showed the swell of her pregnant belly as she shrugged her robe off. Moments later, she was back in his arms with her head on his chest and her ear resting right above where his heart beat.
He was just dozing back off when she gently pressed his palm to the spot on her belly their baby was playing football against.
Smiling, he drifted back into sleep.
Life was wonderful.
THE END
