Epilogue
Doug
“Doug, is that you?”
I closed the front door behind me and walked to the kitchen where Willa was dancing her heart out to a big band number, occasionally stopping to stir something on the stove.
“Were you expecting someone else?” I asked as I took her hand and pulled her in before twirling her out.
“Not unless you’ve been cloned.” She pointed to the computer screen in the corner showing the driveway camera image.
Darn, that meant she saw the roses. I’d planned to drop the petals across our sheets. At least she didn’t see what was in the bag I’d brought in with them. She’d freak out when she saw her vintage, never-opened Electronic Dream Phone. It was one of the few things she’d mentioned as a good memory of playing with her sisters as a kid. Maybe we’d take it with us when we flew out to see them at Christmas.
“Happy anniversary,” she said, coming in to kiss me. “You definitely get the husband of the year award.”
I swayed her back and forth, enjoying the feel of her arms around me and the warmth of her lips against mine.
Something on the stove began to angrily bubble and she dashed away to go check on it, dodging the pops of liquid escaping. She turned off the heat and pushed the pan to the back burner.
I turned down the music and wet a rag in the sink so I could wipe up the spots on the stove top. “Are you sure you want to stay in tonight? I could make a few calls and get us into a nice restaurant.”
“Is that a crack at my cooking?” she asked with a laugh. “Because I may deserve that, but I was kind of looking forward to hanging out here.” She glanced at the pot of soup or stew or whatever it was she’d attempted. “But if you want to go out—”
I wrapped her in a hug, noting the vulnerability I saw flash across her face. “You know I’d rather curl up here with you. It just felt like the obligatory anniversary thing, to go out and make a big production of it, so I thought I’d ask.”
We tended to keep a low profile, because going out these days meant stares and cameras aimed at us. Neither of us enjoyed that. If she was happy to stay in, it didn’t matter what we ate. Peanut butter and jelly would be a feast with the right company.
“Oh, I didn’t ask how today went.” She looked up at me expectantly.
I couldn’t help the big goofy smile that crossed my face. “It was awesome. I got to hear the chapters from yesterday, and we finished recording almost all of book three today.”
Book narration wasn’t as high paying as some of the other things I’d been working on, but it was my absolute favorite. Willa and I read through the books at night and I practiced the different voices. I knew I had the right ones when she stopped laughing at them and just listened, her beautiful eyes glowing against the light from the nightstand lamp.
“And, I have an early copy of book five.”
“Heck yes. We get to find out if Aryllis is joining the dragons or settling for Prince Thorst.”
“You were biased the second I pulled out the cover with the oiled-up dragon warrior on the cover.”
Willa turned bright red. “That had nothing to do with it. I actually prefer the UK cover with the dragon symbol.”
“Sure, babe.”
She pulled on my hand and dragged me down the hall. “I’ve been working on something today. You have to come see, and tell me what you think.”
We headed into our office, which no longer looked like the scary second bedroom she’d once locked us into. Dot was snoozing in her dog bed in the corner. Tiger was on top of the bookshelf opposite, where he could keep an eye on things and look imperiously indignant. The small escape window was now twice as big, with plantation shutters and lots of light coming in. We’d trimmed back the overhanging branches that used to block the view.
Willa got her wish. We’d kept the scary house, though it was only a nickname these days. Everything about it had changed, including us. We were still trying to get along with our families, but now we had each other. And Willa was still the fiercest warrior I knew, but she definitely had a soft spot for me. After all, it was her idea to run off and elope last year.
The media went crazy trying to find pictures of it.
Willa still thought we should retire from Hollywood and buy a ranch someday, but for now she was content with dreaming up crazy reality TV projects and pitching them. As long as they didn’t involve fake boyfriends, I was totally okay with that.
“What am I looking at?” I asked, studying her computer screen once she’d woken it up. She sat in the office chair, and I leaned in to read over her shoulder.
She pointed to the title of the pitch she’d typed up:Last Regret. “I want to produce this one. Alan would be about as subtle as a sledgehammer with something like this. He can’t have it.”
“I can’t believe we’re still doing business with him at all.”
