Today, Tomorrow and Always

by Bailey, Tessa

  “The one she loves is my son,” whispered a voice from the rear of the assembled fae.

  Murmurs went up around the hall of the manor as a graceful, golden-haired fairy glided forward, her eyes full of sorrow when looking down on Tucker. On Mary. She was about to speak when a hoarse cry went up. “Farah?” The golden-haired fae’s mouth parted, her eyes searching the congregation of immortals for the sound of the voice. And there, in the center of the audience, a human man removed his red cloak, tears leaking from his eyes. “Farah.”

  “Carl.” She pressed a row of knuckles to her lips, emotion swimming in her eyes. Several moments passed before she could speak again. “I must say,” she said in a watery voice. “You are an unlikely presence at this battle for immortal supremacy.”

  “You’re telling me,” he choked out, scanning her head to toe, completely oblivious to the shock he’d caused as a human in their midst. “You’re…a fairy? Were you always one?” He broke off, looking down at the stone floor. “Of course you were. I knew. I knew there was something.”

  Farah stood trembling. “You have done a wonderful job with our son. Better than I could have done if I’d been able to stay. I couldn’t.” Gravity laced each of her words. “Most of us have a choice between remaining in this realm or our own during an Exodus. I didn’t. I’d lost my sister, you see. I was grieving and wanted to be…gone from everything familiar. I’d made a promise to return in twenty years and claim our family’s council seat and…it couldn’t be negotiated. I tried.” She shook her head. “I was once directionless and you gave me hope, Carl. A family. I wanted to stay forever. Ironically, it was the love that grew inside me for you and Tucker, my understanding of duty and care, that made me all the more worthy to return home in the Exodus. I couldn’t break my promise. I couldn’t stay.”

  The human man nodded after a moment, seeming as if he might faint, of all the horrors. “I thought it was aliens,” he said in a burst of laughter and sorrow.

  Affection passed between the two very different beings, one immortal, one fragile. But both capable of the same depth of emotion. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be there to see Tucker grow and change.”

  An obstructed noise came from the human man. God almighty, the beautiful woman he’d married hadn’t aged a day and there he was with creases upon creases all over his face. “He made himself. He made his own choices and I’m damn proud of him.”

  “I checked in on you time to time, but I couldn’t reveal myself. I was on borrowed time from the day we met.” Her lips quivered. “You were right. I was taken in the middle of the night. Just not the way you thought.”

  He spread his hands out at his sides, dropping them. “Come back.”

  “I can’t.” She floated forward and held out her hand, smiling when Carl did the same and their fingers brushed. “I loved you. You made me happy, Carl, in the short time I was allowed. Now it’s time to make yourself happy.” She glanced down at Tucker. “And someone needs to take care of our son.”

  “But he’s gone,” the man managed. “Again.”

  “Oh…” Farah’s gathered herself up. “We can take care of that.”

  Anton stepped forward, looking slightly impatient over having the focus stolen. “I will reward their bravery by bringing them back exactly as they wish to be,” he said, holding his hands over the bodies of Mary and Tucker. A laugh escaped Anton when he their greatest desire came to him. “How interesting.” Several moments passed before the atmosphere started to hum, a thick, balmy wind traveling slowly through the manor’s ruins and twisting hair, cloaks and dresses in the air.

  As the congregation of immortals and humans watched, seizing or maintaining power no longer the most important thing in the face of such unselfish love, Tucker and Mary’s bodies slowly lost their death pallor, bones knitting back together and skin turning healthy once more.

  Tucker’s eyes opened first, betraying his confusion and then his panic as he searched for Mary, rolling over to grasp her by the shoulders and shake her, oblivious of their audience.

  He called Mary’s name hoarsely until she reached up and traced his features with the pads of her fingers, a smile gracing her mouth when she confirmed who it was. “Tucker.”

  “Mary.” He pulled her into his arms, tears streaking down both of their cheeks. “Mary.”

  There was something different about them, though.

  Jonas, Elias and Roksana were the first to notice it and they traded a smile at the front of the hall. Tucker had indeed come back exactly as he wanted to be.

  And Mary must have yearned for the same, because her radiance no longer stirred around her head or glowed from beneath her skin. She wore a different kind of radiance—that of a woman who would spend her life growing old with the man she loved. A woman who didn’t need her sight to be whole. That brilliance shone twice as bright and it always would.

  “You’re human,” Tucker breathed, his eyes tracking over her face frantically. “Is this what you wanted. Is this—”

  Mary stopped him with a kiss, pulling back. “More than anything. More than anything, I want the good and bad with you.” She mashed their foreheads together. “A messy house. Long road trips full of endless complaining. Little league games, trips to the emergency room, last-minute barbeques. As long as you’re there.”

  “Ah, honey. Try and keep me away.” He used her shoulder to swipe his eyes. “God, I love you so much. Are you sure? Your vision—”

  “I’ve seen you, Tucker. I’ve seen the most beautiful sight this world can offer me. And I don’t need working eyes to be grateful and happy. To feel the earth’s beauty. The beauty we make together. I love you.” She kissed his cheeks, his mouth, a laugh of pure happiness bubbling from her lips. “Let’s go live.”

  Tucker slid his arms beneath Mary and cradled her to his chest, a wealth of emotion crossing his face as he exchanged a nod with his father, mother and a trio of vampires standing at the front of their quiet audience, all while backing slowly toward the entrance. They stopped and took the world in which neither of them had ever truly belonged, left it all behind and went to go build their own. Together. Today, tomorrow and always.

  Epilogue

  Ten Years Later

  Tucker carried Mary on his back down the sandy pathway to the lake, her red hair whipping in the wind around both of their heads, her contented sigh filling his ear. It was sunset. Two boys and one girl dashed ahead of them, fading in and out of the horizon light. Oranges and pinks and yellows made up their world. Behind them, nestled among the trees, stood a blue split-level on the lake with a white fence. A fire pit out back. Their rambling green yard was a collection of baseball bats, puppy toys, shoes and bicycles. It was paradise.

  After the battle that fortified Jonas’s presence on the throne, Tucker and Mary spent a year completing every item on her bucket list. From fishing on the ocean to picking oranges from trees to holding a monkey, they’d done it all. Every second of it had been satisfying, magical, a true coming to life for both of them, but nothing compared to now. To the place they’d settled into for good, right there in their breathtaking corner of the earth.

  Carl stepped out into the open at the end of the path, waving enthusiastically at his grandchildren who nearly topped the man with hugs. “I was going to send out a search party for you!” he laughed, stooping forward slightly to wrap his arms around them, his snow-white hair ruffled by the wind. “Last one in the water has to clean up after the barbeque.”

  Mary buried her face in Tucker’s neck and laughed at the squealing that ensued, enjoying the taste of salt, both from the windy air and the beloved skin of her husband who’d just returned home from a long day at the auto body shop he owned in town. During the school year, Mary worked there, too, scheduling appointments and answering phones—and spending a lot of time in the break room making love to her husband—but it was summer now. Her hours were spent with the kids and Carl, who lived in their guest house, on the shores of their cherished lake, one da
y rolling into the next in a burnished haze.

  A breeze lifted the hair on Mary’s neck, her nose tingling enough that she lifted her head. She might be human, but her senses were still sharper than most. For instance, she could pinpoint the exact moment the sun dipped out of view, leaving their lake in a perfect purple twilight, as it was right now. “They’re here.”

  Tucker’s step slowed and he turned them in a circle, holding the breath that filled his lungs. “Are they now?” Slowly, he started to chuckle, his big shoulders shaking with mirth. “I guess they want a rematch.”

  “You are toast this time, humans,” Roksana’s voice said in the distance, though it advanced on them rapidly, bringing a blast of wind along with three other familiar beings. “Horseshoes is beneath me, but it is very addicting. I have been practicing, though. Not even the children are safe this night.”

  A cool hand clasped Mary’s where it rested on Tucker’s shoulder. “It’s good to see you again, Mary,” said Ginny, followed by Jonas’s low timbre. “Hello, Mary. You look…quite well.”

  Mary laughed, joy traveling through her without impediment, pressing her cheek to Tucker’s bristled one. “I know you can hear the baby’s heartbeat in my belly, Jonas. No need to pretend otherwise.”

  Elias’s laughter cracked in the evening air. “I thought you were stopping at three, Tucker.”

  “What can I say? I’m irresistible.” He turned his head and planted a reverent kiss on Mary’s cheek, whispering “I love you” in her ear. Looking at her like he’d done the very first time, with awe and astonishment. “The wife can’t keep her hands off me.”

  “Can she play horseshoes in her condition?” Roksana wanted to know.

  Mary hopped down from Tucker’s back and walked the familiar path toward the lake, feeling her husband’s adoring eyes on her the whole way. “Just try and stop me.”

  They sat around the bonfire and talked late into the evening, humans and vampires together, toes digging into the sand. Eventually Carl brought the kids up to the house and put them to sleep, along with one very drowsy puppy. Beneath the moon, old friends told stories and spoke of the past as smoke curled into the air. But most importantly they talked about the future—and it was vivid, joyful for all of them, no matter how differently they would live it.

  Humanity might not be eternal, but the love Tucker and Mary shared would live on—always. They wrote it into the fabric of the universe with every laugh, sigh and moan. Every brush of their children’s hair and burned pot roast and sunburn and home run.

  Every day was lived to the fullest with gratitude and full hearts.

  And they didn’t take a single one for granted.

  THE END

  Go back to the beginning of the Phenomenal Fate Series…

  REBORN YESTERDAY is available now!

  A timeless love story with bite.

  It was a night like any other for funeral home director Ginny Lynn, until the exceptionally handsome—and unfortunately deceased—young man on her embalming table sat up, opened his emerald eyes and changed the course of her life

  forever, making her feel quite fluttery while he was at it.

  Humans aren’t supposed to know Jonas Cantrell, or any vampire, exists. It’s kind of a major rule. Despite his instantaneous bond with perfectly peculiar Ginny, he has no choice but to erase her memories of their one and only meeting.

  That was the plan. Before a reluctant Jonas can wipe Ginny’s mind clean, she reveals a secret that brings their worlds crashing together. Human and vampire. Past and present. Darkness and light. And while their love is strictly forbidden, it might be the

  only thing that can save them…

  Get it here:

  https://bit.ly/3toLdBo

  Ready for a hot, new contemporary romantic comedy?

  IT HAPPENED ONE SUMMER releases in July 2021!

  Tessa Bailey is back with a Schitt’s Creek-inspired rom-com about a Hollywood “It Girl” who’s cut off from her wealthy family and exiled to a small Pacific Northwest beach town... where she butts heads with a surly, sexy local who thinks she doesn’t belong.

  Preorder here:

  https://bit.ly/3gfr4u2