Page 101 of His to Seduce
Epilogue
Camden
My tiny house was cramped. Between presents and a much-too-large Christmas tree David had insisted on, plus Grant and Lindsay and Grant Jr. and Leia and our two moms, there was hardly space to walk around without stepping on someone. Or something.
My grin couldn’t get larger if I forced it.
Christmas morning atourhouse. David had moved in a week ago and we’d barely unpacked his things, moving some of them into storage. TheFOR SALEsign would go up outside my house in March.
Then we’d find something new. Something larger.
Something that was grand enough to house the future president of McGregor Motors.
He’d gone back to work and was currently learning everything he needed to know from Grant.
I’d gotten a job working in their accounting and finance department. Not by using his name…but by my own résumé and merit. Most people knew we were together, but we spent most of the day on separate floors of the building and rarely saw each other.
His hand settled on my lower back, fingers pressed into the dip just above my backside, and my whole body fluttered. I’d spent months with him, and every morning I woke up thinkingthank youandmoreandforever.
How I got so lucky to find a good man like David, I didn’t know. I didn’t ask. I took my hope and clung to it in tightly made fists so I would never be afraid again. Only good things ahead.
The best.
His lips brushed against the top of my head and he handed me a glass of orange juice. “Merry Christmas.”
I smiled and tilted my head up to him. “You’ve already said that today.” A thousand times. I wanted to hear it a million more times. “Think the kids are ready to open presents?”
They’d come over early for breakfast. Lindsay had insisted we do Christmas here…our first Christmas together in our first home together. She said it was tradition and important. I learned from that first meeting not to argue with her. We were all still in pajamas because I’d insisted. If they wanted to do Christmas at our place, it would be done naturally. No makeup and dresses and fanciness, just us…messy and bedraggled and happy.
We gorged on eggs and bacon as soon as they arrived. The smell of grease and coffee and fresh fruit brought tears to my eyes.
I never imagined a life like this. Never imagined I could have someone like this.
I wasn’t giving any of it back. Ever.
My mom walked into the room, her hands now devoid of the dishrag she’d been using because she’d insisted on washing plates before everything congealed on them. Jim followed her. Wearing jeans and a flannel shirt, he was the only one who’d gotten dressed. He had a slight beer gut, a receding hairline, and crooked teeth, the bottom ones stained from years of smoking. He wasn’t attractive, but damn, he was happy and nice. He treated my mom like a queen and I loved him for it. They’d been dating for months, something my mom didn’t share with me until I’d made things right with David.
Now they lived together, in a small townhouse not far from David’s old apartment.
I’d wanted to burn the trailer when she moved out. She’d been responsible and sold it. Then she gave me all the proceeds, and said Jim would take care of her. Of everything.
I donated the meager amount to a volunteer organization for survivors of sexual abuse.
“Papa Jim! Papa Jim! What’d you git me?” Grant Jr.’s voice made everyone smile. The kid had two volumes…sleeping and shouting. And every time he called Jim “Papa,” my mom and I got teary-eyed. They called my mom Grandma, something that made her cry harder. If they wanted an extra grandma and grandpa, who were we to argue?
Grant’s parents lived in Texas and they weren’t close. Papa Jim was the only grandpa the kids knew, and so far, he’d exceeded all expectations.
“How about we dish out the presents and take turns, and then you can find out for yourself?” Jim’s voice was booming and happy. He kissed my mom on the top of her head and then guided her to a clean spot on the floor, at his feet. When she sat down in front of him, he wrapped his arms around her shoulders.
Everyone needed a protector like the kind she’d found.
As wrapping paper began flying, the kids shouted, and Lindsay and Betty tried fruitlessly to get them to use indoor voices, I turned and smiled at David through my tears. “I love you. More every day, forever.”
“I’m so glad you said that,” he said. A small box, wrapped in red and green and topped with a gold bow, slid into his hands. I turned wide eyes to Grant, who stepped back and pulled Lindsay to her feet. “Because it means, then, that I’m pretty certain I know the answer to my question.”
Oh God.He was doing this. With family in flannel pajamas and strips of messy paper at our feet.
I tore off the paper, dropped the bow, and popped open the box. Who knew I was so impatient? So desperate to behis?
