Chapter Nine
Who knewI’d make it in time? I sure didn’t. But I was going to do my darnedest to make it.
I’d been on my way to the car rental booth when Daniel’s phone call came. Not a text this time, but a phone call. And if there’s one thing about Daniel Drexel: he only calls when it’s urgent, like that time when Dyami was born and he needed updates because he was still in the air, or that day when I showed up along with tribal leaders at a controversial projected drill site on sacred land and violence broke out. Sarah had cried when she saw the two bruises on my body from the rubber bullets shot into the crowd.
I won’t ever pretend to understand your reasons for going there to support your people, Benny, and I have nothing but respect for your beliefs, he’d said in a very controlled voice. But I hope you understand that the last thing I want is to see my grandson without his father and my daughter without the man she loves.
And then there’s today, when he learns that his daughter’s longtime lover has managed to get everyone together only to find himself unable to make it to the place on time.
The pilot just submitted the new flight plan, he’d said on the phone when I answered. Can you make it to the private hangar in an hour? It’ll save you five hours of driving, at least. I’ll text you the address.
Daniel could have texted me the damn alphabet, for all I cared, I’d have gone anywhere he told me to go.
All for this, the sound of yes leaving Sarah’s lips. Yes to being mine. Yes to being my wife.
Nízhoní. My woman.
I don’t hear the applause that follows when I slip the ring around her finger. I don’t see anyone else but Sarah as she wraps her arms around my neck and I feel her lips on my mouth, soft and warm, the perfect fit. She’s always been the perfect fit for me, as if she was made only for me. I can smell the lotion on her skin mingling with the scent that’s all hers, ticking all the boxes that send my pulse racing and set my heart on fire.
“Ayóó anííníshní,” I murmur. I love you.
“And I love you right back, Benny Turner,” she says, giggling as I stand up. “I can’t believe you made me wait so long.”
“How does that saying go? Good things come to those who wait.”
She giggles, our noses touching. “Well, you’re going to have to learn your own lesson, big boy, because after all you put me through today, I’m going to make you wait.”
I gaze at her, a smirk on my lips. “You might regret that, shi'áád.”
“I just might.” She bites her lower lip, making me want to pull her into some dark corner so I can nibble it. Then she winks. “Show me just how much I’m going to regret it later?”
“Oh, don’t worry, shi'áád. I will.”
I let her go, watching her pull Dyami in a hug and probably threatening to ground him for not spilling the beans about the plan. When she lets him go so she can show off her ring to Harlow, Nana, and Alma, Dyami strides toward me, a proud grin on his face.
“I did it, Dad,” he says as we bump fists. “Mom sure was surprised by all this. You should have seen her face when we walked in and she saw everyone.”
“Thanks to you, my little warrior.” I wrap him in a bear hug, relief washing over me at how everything managed to fall into place at the last minute. Dax had planned most of it, with Alma copying my handwritten attempts at poetry Dax had printed out using carbon paper. And then there’s Dyami who had to hold his own against his mother’s questions. It was a long shot, but it worked. They’re all here. And thanks to Daniel, so am I.
To top it all off, she said yes.
As Daniel greets Nana with a kiss and a hug, Dax, Sawyer, Todd, and Gabe come over to congratulate me. With everyone else already hitched or getting hitched, we talk about who Gabe is dating now (no one since he’s too busy with his medical practice) and then Todd (who won’t tell).
And there’s Daniel, of course, although more than seven years after losing his wife to cancer, he doesn’t show signs of looking for love again. Sarah tells me he’s not celibate by any means. He goes out on dates back in New York and has quite a few lady friends, but his heart belongs here, to his late wife Pearl Anaya Drexel, his children and grandchildren—and Nana’s cooking. It’s why he upgraded her kitchen so she would have all the counter space she needed. She could hold cooking classes in that house if she wanted to.
Fifteen minutes later, we file into the restaurant on the first floor where we crowd into one of the private dining rooms. What I’d planned to be an intimate affair has become a full-on family gathering complete with loud adults talking about everything under the sun and cranky children still awake way past their bedtime entertained only by bright red balloons and being passed around.
But Sarah is beaming, her face taking on an inner glow that keeps me enthralled as I gaze at her. When she catches me staring, she winks at me, biting her lower lip, a subtle reminder that there’s more to come.
And she’s right. We’ve got all night to do the things we want to do to each other—even better, a whole lifetime.
* * *
An hour and a half later,the first of the children—Tyler—falls asleep on Sawyer’s shoulder as Alma with Drea snug in her baby wrap gathers her nursery bag and gets up from the table. Then the three-year-old twins follow suit, exhausted from running around the table. DJ is resting his head on Harlow’s shoulder while Ani-Pea, her thick lashes resting on pink cheeks, is out like a light in her grandfather’s arms.
The thought hits me hard, like a kick in the gut. I want a daughter, one with Sarah’s sky-blue eyes and mouth. When I turn to look at her, my arm draped across her chair next to me, I realize she’s been watching me, too.
“Everything okay?” she asks, her gaze shifting toward her father who’s gazing at his sleeping granddaughter. Earlier, I watched Sarah calm a fussing Drea so Alma could grab a bite to eat while Ani-Pea and I had played a game where I pretended to be a hungry lion and she tried to count my teeth.