I fished around beneath me for the ring I’d hidden in my pocket. Pulling it out I held it up so we could both see it. Next I got the magazine cutout and held them next to each other.
“Oh Nick, you found it. How…?” She looked at me with hope and tears in her eyes. I couldn’t resist kissing her.
“I never forgot anything about you, about us. This house, all the dreams, the love. It lived with me for the past thirteen and a half years, all of it. This was the last thing on the list, this and the I do’s.”
She threw her arms around me and kissed my face off. When she calmed down, I took her hand and slid the ring on; perfect fit. I’d had a hell of a time hunting it down but apparently these things never really go out of style. The look on her face was worth it anyway.
“I know you’re gonna want a big wedding, but we have an appointment down at the courthouse first thing tomorrow morning. After that you can do whatever you want but I’m not waiting.” She studied her ring and nodded before jumping up and heading inside. I don’t think she heard a word I said.
“I have to call my mom and yours and the wedding plans are already in the works.” I grinned at her back as she disappeared through the door. I should’ve known. My girl had got her spark back.
The first week or so she was still a bit shy, a bit unsure of herself. But once she got comfortable, the old Shelly was back in full force. More mature, a few years older, but still the same sweet, strong headed girl I’d fallen in love with.
I rested my head back against the swing and let my mind drift. I’d pulled it off. It had taken a while and I’d had to do things I never imagined myself capable of, but in the end I’d achieved what I’d set out to do.
It was all I could do to avenge the son I’d lost. But now it was time to move on, to look to the future. Shelly was so great that she brought Brandon up at least once a day so I knew his memory will never die and that I didn’t have to hide. Whenever the emotion got to be too much, she was there to hold me against her and say ‘tell me about him Nicky’. It was the best healing medicine.
The case was almost over and no matter his protest, the evidence against Rogers showed his guilt without a doubt. He was no longer seen as the super hero taking out drug dealers, but as a corrupt cop trying to cover his tracks. I guess I couldn’t give him even that though there was no way I could take the credit myself.
Savage had been a hero of sorts I guess. But my methods there would land my ass in jail. No, better he dies with Rogers. Everything all tied up in a neat little bow.
Everyone was against him, including the brothers in blue and no matter what hell-hole he ended up in, I was going to make it my duty to let the word slip that he was a dirty cop. Convicts love those.
As to the commissioner and the mayor, the evidence was still piling up against them. Their cases wouldn’t be tried for a while yet, but both men had been relieved of their services.
There were rumors of a promotion in my future and I had lawyers begging me to sue the city; but I wasn’t interested. I’d got all I wanted out of that whole mess. All I wanted now was for life to get back on an even keel.
No one except the asshole reporter today had even hinted that I may have had anything to do with anything. Rogers might be starting to suspect, but who was going to listen to him?
Even if he could convince a few that I’d set him up to take the fall for the murders, the evidence against him for the rest of it was strong enough that no one was gonna buy it.
She came flying out the door all but skipping and dropped into my lap. “I love my ring thank you.” I got plastered with even more kisses as I wrapped my arms around her and pushed the swing off with my feet.
The sun was setting, casting an orange tinged glow over the horizon and somewhere in the background the sound of birds singing faded as they bedded down for the night.
Epilogue
NICK
I ran my hands over her fat tummy and felt the babies roll around in there like gymnasts. “What are they doing in there baby?” I grinned up at her and flexed my cock which was still snug inside her.
“They’re saying hello to their daddy.” I lifted my hand to her hair, which she’d let grow down to her back just like she did when we were kids.
“You look beautiful.” She did, even though she griped and moaned at how much my children stretched her. She’d barely shown the first four months and then month five came around and her tummy jut out so much I thought we’d miscounted somewhere.
I was at every doctor’s appointment, heard, every heartbeat and enjoyed all the newness that came with her amazing body at work.
I didn’t remember the fear though, I guess I was too young the first time around to appreciate all that her poor body was now going through.
She on the other hand, was a blossoming dynamo of energy and excitement. As if I didn’t have enough to worry about with her morning sickness and swollen ankles, the ultra sound showed girls.
If I thought I was afraid before, nothing prepared me for the thought of having two little girls to protect for the rest of their lives. Every horror story I could imagine played out in my head at night, robbing me of sleep.
Her due date was around the corner, I had it marked off on the calendar, and each day I checked one more day off with a little red pen, my blood pressure went up.
I didn’t let on though; I wouldn’t tarnish her joy for anything. And when I wasn’t freaking the fuck out about what I was supposed to do with two little girls, I was happy, excited, all the things I was supposed to be, so that helped hide the fact that I was bitching-out inside.
I lifted up far enough to kiss the place right above her navel. “Hello babies, daddy loves you very much. I can’t wait to meet you.” She ran her hand through my hair and her pussy squeezed around me.
There was something primal about her pregnant body, it had unleashed some kind of freak in me. I can stay hard for hours just looking at her body; like now. We hadn’t moved in a good ten minutes and my rod hadn’t lost an inch.
This was our nightly ritual ever since the babies started moving around in there. Something about knowing that there was a part of me growing inside her made me hard and kept me that way until she was too tired or too sore to take me.
Tonight she shone. She’d had a girl’s day out with the moms and got her hair done and her body scrubbed.
I could’ve told her it was a wasted effort; you can’t improve on perfection. But she needed these little pick me ups since she’d convinced her self that I no longer find her attractive.
That had caused one of our only fights since the doctor confirmed her pregnancy three days after our first wedding. I didn’t like her putting herself down, and I hated even more her fear that I might stray.
I’d thought we were beyond that but apparently hormones really do make women lose all rationality. It also made them batshit crazy.
I’d spent that night inside her after the big blow up and that’s where our little ritual was born. Every evening as long as I wasn’t stuck at the precinct, I was here with her like this after dinner.
I’d accepted the promotion to captain and got my own station house. Some of the guys had transferred out to follow me and in the last few months we’d done a lot to clean up what was left of the gangs.
I didn’t fool myself that it was over; it will never be over. But at least for now the good guys were winning. Rogers, the mayor and the commissioner were given hundreds of years literally. They’d ended up with the hanging judge who seemed to have a hard on for dirty cops.
In the end I couldn’t resist letting Rogers know that it was me who’d set him up. Then again what I’d actually said to him could be interpreted in many ways.
The last day, after they’d passed down his sentence, I’d simply leaned over and whispered ‘Gotcha you son of a bitch’. The look he’d given me was comical as the light dawned.
With that behind me, I didn’t even attend the mayor or commissioner’s trials. I had no
doubt they’d get theirs too. Instead I’d put my all into my new marriage and making sure the woman I loved with all my heart knew just how much she meant to me.
Now I covered her stomach with one hand while pulling her head down to mine with the other so I could take her lips. “You feel so good sweetbaby. Before I forget, I have something for you.”
I maneuvered us over from the middle of the bed to the side where I’d hidden my surprise. “You have to help me out here baby. Lean over the side and grab that box I have there.”
I held her hips securely as she did what I asked. “Open it.” I held my breath and waited. It had been hard keeping her out of the basement where I’ d spent hours making them.
I wiped the tears as they fell from her eyes. “You never cease to amaze me. How did you remember this?”
“I told you, I never forgot anything about you, about us.” In her hand she held one of the two carousels I’d made. She’s always been fascinated by them for whatever reason. I think it was one of the books we had to read in High School that had set her on that path.
Whatever the reason, she always loved them and I’d promised her that one day I’d make one. “Turn the key in the bottom sweetheart.”
She did and a sweet lullaby floated through the air making her eyes light up and the tears flow freely. “I love you Nicholas Sheridan.”
“Not as much as I love you.”
“Nicky are you sure you’re okay?” I looked toward the hospital bed where she was holding our son and grinning at me. I looked down and the two little girls in my arms, still trying to make sense of what the hell had just happened in this room in the last few hours.
I remember getting the call while going over a case with my squad. The rush to the hospital with Rawlins telling me to breathe while he drove like a maniac to get to the hospital.
I even remember seeing my mom and hers, who was looking better and better as the days went by, and even our dads were there in the waiting room.
What I don’t remember is coming into the birthing room, or watching my kids being born. No that’s not true. I remember seeing the head of one of my girls coming out of her but then after that everything is a blur.
My throat was raw so I guess I had to believe her when she said I’d been screaming at everyone in the room every time she had a twinge. But most surprising of all, was the little bundle in her arms.
I knew about the two in mine, had been preparing for them for months, but… “Three?” How was she beaming after what she’d just been through? I can’t even feel my legs and all I did was hold her hand through the fog and tell her what a good job she was doing.
I felt slack jawed, like someone now waking up from a coma. Nothing seemed real, except the weight of the two precious little ones in my arms. I understood what the fog was, why it felt like I was seeing everything through a looking glass, when the first tear fell on one of the little pink blankets.
After that it was as if the floodgates opened up. “They look like me.” I looked from one to the other and knew we were gonna have trouble. There was no discerning difference between them. Only the nametags around their wrists told me who was who.
I had a moment of panic when I realized we didn’t have a name for my son. “What are we going to name him, wait did we name him already?” I couldn’t remember shit. The girls already had their names months ago. We’d decided on Hope and Grace for obvious reasons…
“Nicholas Brandon.” She had tears in her voice when she said it and I looked at her with all the love in my heart because I was too choked up to speak.
“Did you know? That he was in there I mean.” She shook her head and kissed our son’s head.
“No I didn’t, I was as surprised as you.”
“And he’s okay, there’s nothing wrong with him?”
“No he’s perfect, they’re all perfect. I told you I could do it.” Yeah, she’d fought like hell to take the babies to term even though the doctor had wanted to induce.
After learning that multiples hardly ever made it to full term and that they could be complications not least of all their birth weight, we’d both read everything we could get our hands on.
My Shelly had insisted from the beginning that if it had been done once then she could do it too. We’d found a few stories of women who’d been able to get close to the thirty-six week mark and that was our aim, though I had a heart attack everyday after we passed thirty-two weeks.
She’d wanted to carry on with life as usual until the end, but I couldn’t do it. I threatened her boss that if he didn’t block her from the damn building I would tear it down.
They all thought I was nuts, especially since she was the picture of health and energy. But they didn’t see her at the end of the day. When her ankles were swollen and her back ached, when her tummy itched and made her so miserable she cried.
I saw it all, and knew even though she thought she could do it all that I needed to rein her in. Life had taken a break from shitting all over me in the last few months, in fact since the day we got married.
We’d gone to the doctor a few days later and confirmed the news that she was indeed pregnant. I’ve never been so nervous and happy at the same time. I watched over her like a hawk until I rushed into this room last night.
My job wasn’t done though, it was only just beginning. I closed my eyes in a rare moment of Thanksgiving. Whatever life had done to me it had repaid me tenfold.
“Well can we come in now?” Mom popped her head around the door and the look she gave me told me that something had happened that I’d obviously missed, and when Shelly turned to me with a raised brow it was confirmed.
“What?” I looked back and forth between them.
“You told them all to get out.” What was she talking about?
“What when?” Mom thought it was safe enough since she made a beeline for me and the babies and a little bit of what happened earlier came back to me.
I almost turned my body so she couldn’t get to them. “Nicholas Sheridan let me hold my grandbabies.” It was like some kind of code word or some shit because as soon as she said that and snatched Gracie out of my hand, the door swung open and the whole damn family was there.
My arms were soon empty and I wasn’t too happy until my wife beckoned me over to her on the bed. “Come meet your son.” It felt as though the whole room stood still and no one even breathed. I wasn’t sure I was breathing myself as she lifted the little bundle out to me.
I hadn’t made room for him in my heart, hadn’t even known he was inside his mother with his sisters all this time. But the moment his little head hit the crook of my arm, my heart opened to let him in. “Hello little Nick. Daddy’s here.”
He opened his eyes and looked right into mine. Now I know the women in the room would have their own explanations for what passed between me, and my son. But when he looked at me, there was so much in those eyes. I felt…forgiveness, acceptance, love.
It wasn’t more than a split second but for as long as I live I would hold onto the feelings I had the first time I looked into my son’s eyes. “I will keep you safe.” I whispered the words to my boy as I lifted him to my chest.
“Thank you sweetbaby.” I held my son with one hand and reached out to my wife with the other, brushing my thumb along her cheek to her chin.
She was radiant; her face shone with happiness. It suddenly occurred to me that had we been together all along we probably would’ve had three children in fourteen years. I guess life had decided to stop fucking with me.
She made room for her guys on the hospital bed and I sat beside her so we could both look at our son. As if by silent agreement the moms brought our girls over and laid them between us before leaving the room and taking the horde with them.
I didn’t feel the fear I’d expected to last for a lifetime. Instead I felt whole, complete, excited. “I can’t wait to start this new adventure with you Shell. My Shelly.”
We spent the next half hour counting fingers
and toes and whispering to each other about all the great things we had to look forward to with our little family.
“How are you really feeling sweetheart?” I couldn’t stop kissing or touching her in some way. This whole experience has left me in awe of her, of them, of life.
“I feel amazing, like we’ve just erased all the bad that happened to us. Does that make any sense? I know we can’t rewrite the past, but right here, right now, I wouldn’t change anything we have for the world.”
My heart squeezed at her words, and though I wished that we’d never parted, I knew and understood what she was saying. Our love, like the Phoenix, had risen from the ashes. Strong, secure, forever. “I love you sweetbaby.” I smiled down at my son as he grabbed my finger, before kissing my wife’s forehead.
THE END
Also by Jordan Silver
Broken
Biker’s Law
Seal Team Seven Book 1 CONNOR
Savage: A Second Chance at Love Page 15
