She gave him a sly grin. “Maybe I should loan it to Kelsey for a while. She needs to find a man of her own.”
Pete laughed. “Something tells me she won’t welcome any help from us.”
Jo’s expression sobered. “You need to go back and tell her, Pete.”
He sighed. “I know, but can’t I stay here for a couple more minutes and hold you?”
“A few more minutes,” she agreed. “That’s it. Then you have to go inside and make things right for your son. After that, you and I will have the rest of our lives to hold on to each other.”
“That won’t be nearly long enough for me,” he said. “I’m holding out for eternity.” He pressed a kiss against her lips. “Did you walk over here?”
“At this time of night? No way.” She regarded him with chagrin. “I got so upset, I forgot all about my car.”
“I’ll walk you back to your car. Then I want you to go home and start a fire. Give me an hour and I’ll join you. We have a lot to celebrate and we have a wedding to plan.”
“Is it too much to hope that there will be more?” she asked wistfully.
Pete glanced at the house and knew the conversation awaiting him wouldn’t be as easy as he wished it would be. “I hope so. She’s not a bad person. She’s just a little lost.”
“Then show her the way,” Jo said. She touched his cheek, her eyes shining. “And then come home to me.”
“Ah, so you’re thinking of Rose Cottage as home?”
Jo laughed and this time the sound was filled with mischief and joy. “Only till that house of yours is finished. And then I’m moving in before you change your mind and sell it to someone else.”
“Never happen,” Pete promised. “It was meant for you from the day I nailed the first boards into place.”
“No,” she said. “It was meant for us.”
Epilogue
Jo’s mother finally had time to plan a proper wedding. Jo and Pete had set the date for June in Boston and, to her mother’s delight, in church, as Pete had gotten a religious annulment of his first marriage along with the divorce. Colleen D’Angelo was in her element making all the details come together. Jo hardly had to lift a finger, which was just as well since she was swamped with work in her new partnership with Mike. She’d been lucky to squeeze out a three-day weekend for the wedding and one night for a honeymoon. The real thing was going to have to be postponed for a while till things slowed down in both their lives.
She looked around the table at her family, all of whom had gathered for the rehearsal dinner, and felt contentment steal through her. Maybe it had always been meant to be this way. Maybe she and Pete had needed to endure a separation in order to know just how important this moment was.
She felt a tug on her arm and looked down at Davey. “What’s up, sweet pea?” she asked.
He made a face. “Don’t call me that.”
She regarded him with exaggerated dismay. “Something’s wrong with calling my new stepson sweet pea?”
“It’s dumb,” he said emphatically. “It’s what you’d call a girl.”
“Oh?” she said, giving that serious thought. “Okay, then, want me to call you macho man?”
Davey’s eyes lit up. “That’s a good one. Yeah, you can call me that, but what do I call you?”
She heard genuine concern in his voice, which told her to take the question very seriously. “You’ve been calling me Jo. Do you think that should change?”
“I don’t know. You’re sort of going to be my mom now, so it seems like it should.”
“I’m only going to be your mom some of the time,” she reminded him. “Nothing changes between you and your real mom. She will always be the most important mom you have, and you’re going to be living with her, same as always, just spending a little more time with your dad and me.”
In fact, the visitation arrangements were only slightly more liberal than they had been before. Pete and Kelsey had worked out a revised plan, but at least Kelsey was sticking to them. Once she had finally accepted that Pete was going to marry Jo, she’d grasped the positive benefits of having a few more weekends to herself so she could make a new life, hopefully with a new man. Right now, though, she was using the extra time to take some college classes. She’d finally made peace with Pete’s decision and started to think about what she could have, if only she worked for it. Maybe she’d eventually find that exciting life she’d always longed for.
“Still, you need a special name,” Davey insisted, then grinned impishly.
That expression reminded Jo why she’d fallen in love with his father and with him. With the two of them there would always be unexpected surprises.
Davey gave her a triumphant look. “Maybe I’ll call you sweet pea.”
“I don’t think so,” she said, laughing. “Try again.”
“But I can’t think of anything,” he complained, but then his expression brightened. “How about Mama Jo? Could I call you that?”
Tears stung Jo’s eyes. “Nothing would make me happier,” she told him, giving him a squeeze. “I love you, kiddo. I can’t wait for tomorrow to marry your dad.”
“Me, either,” Pete said, leaning in to steal a kiss. “It’s going to be the best wedding ever.”
Jo met his gaze. “It’s going to be my only wedding ever.”
He stroked a finger down her cheek and regarded her solemnly. “Guaranteed, darlin’. Guaranteed.”
The wedding was everything Jo had always dreamed about, everything she and Pete had talked about all those years ago. They were surrounded by her family and even Pete’s uncle, who’d insisted on coming despite the arthritis that made it increasingly difficult for him to get around.
“Glad to see the two of you together finally,” he told Jo right before the ceremony, when she paused to give him a kiss on her way to the altar. “It was too long coming. I knew way back that you were the best thing that could happen to this boy.”
“I knew it, too,” Pete said, giving him a wink right before he turned to stand by Jo’s side in front of the priest.
When it came Jo’s turn to say her vows, she looked deep into Pete’s eyes and saw all the love that had been shining there when she’d first met him years ago. It had only deepened and matured thanks to everything they’d been through.
She touched his cheek. “I promise in front of our families and friends and in the sight of God to love you all the days of my life. I know that my grandmother Lindsey is looking down on us today, and like your uncle, she’s saying, ‘It’s about time.’”
“Past time,” Pete said. He glanced heavenward. “I promise you that I will never let Jo down the way I did before.” His gaze sought Jo’s. “I make that same vow to you, to love you the way you deserve for all the rest of our days, to make a home with you, to share the joy of my son with you and to create a family of our own. I love you, Jo. Always have. Always will.”
Jo’s eyes stung with tears. There it was, the promise of eternity. And this time, she knew they wouldn’t let anything tear them apart.
“Keep your eyes closed,” Pete commanded.
“I’ve had ’em closed for what seems like hours. You blindfolded me in the car for the last two hours of the drive, which, I might add, you’ll never get away with again. Where are we?” Jo grumbled.
“In a minute,” he said. “Hold your horses.”
She grinned. “Is that the way it’s going to be now that we’re married? You’re going to be all bossy?”
He laughed. “Exactly how long do you think I’d get away with that?”
“Not long,” she confirmed. “So when can I open my eyes?”
“When everything’s ready.”
“It’s a hotel room. How much has to be done?”
To her increasing frustration, he ignored the question. She stood right where he’d set her down after carrying her across some threshold or another and waited, tapping her foot with mounting impatience.
“There,” Pete said at last. “Y
ou can open your eyes now.”
She scowled at him before she did. “It’s a real tribute to my love for you that I have not peeked even once.”
“It’s a tribute to my faith in you that I knew you wouldn’t,” he retorted. “Do you want to discuss trust is sues right now?”
“No,” she said, then slowly opened her eyes to a room lit with candles and filled with bouquets of white flowers. French doors were opened to a sea breeze and the familiar sound of the bay gently splashing on the sandy beach. Delight washed over her. “It’s our house. You brought us home. I had no idea it was ready.”
“Didn’t you wonder why I had you working so hard all over town? Mike and I taxed ourselves to come up with enough assignments that would keep you away from here. I didn’t want you to know about this.”
“I just thought Mike had made too many commitments and was really, really swamped,” she said, moving slowly around the room in disbelief. He’d accomplished so much, and it was all exactly right. “It’s beautiful, Pete. It’s exactly the way I imagined it.”
“I know you’re not supposed to do a honeymoon quite like this, but I figured our first night together ought to be the place we were going to spend the rest of our lives. We’ll make this house ours tonight.”
He studied her intently. “I didn’t do all the decorating. I just brought in enough furniture so we wouldn’t be sitting or sleeping on the floor tonight. You can change it all, if you want.”
“I’m not going to change a thing,” she told him firmly. “We’ll just add to it together, like the layers that come with time in a marriage.”
He reached for her then. “I love you, Jo.”
“And I love you.” She met his gaze. “You know, I realized something while we were in Boston.”
“What’s that?”
“That this was the way it was meant to be. All the time apart was a blessing, because now we know how much being together really matters.”
“That’s one of the things I love most about you,” he told her. “You’ve always been able to turn things around and find the blessings.”
Jo wound her arms around his neck and rested her cheek against his. “And from now on, I won’t have to look far.”
He slid his arms around her. “You talking about the view?”
“That, and your face,” she said quietly. “Being able to wake up and look into your eyes is the greatest gift I’ve ever been given.”
“Same here, darlin’, and I’ll never, ever take it for granted.”
And like the tides changing just a few hundred feet away, Jo knew what they were feeling right now would go on forever, steady and reliable and powerful.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-7561-8
RETURN TO ROSE COTTAGE
Copyright © 2010 by MIRA Books.
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THE LAWS OF ATTRACTION
Copyright © 2005 by Sherryl Woods
FOR THE LOVE OF PETE
Copyright © 2005 by Sherryl Woods
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