Page 80 of Hideaway Whirlwind
Elliott lets loose a whimper, and when I press my front to his, I curl my palm around the nape of his neck, and our foreheads meet.
“I vow to hold close your flame and fan it, should anyone or anything try to dampen it. You’ve buried my demons, and I vow to bury yours. I love you, my striking, noble, and formidable Elliott.”
Our tears mix when our lips meet, breathing life and love and hope into each other as we kiss. Our twin flames grow hotter, brighter as we stoke each other’s, willing to burn the world down for one another and our children.
It is right at sunset, when we are supposed to exchange rings, that we finally part. Elliott slips a thick manila envelope from inside his jacket and hands it to me with a radiant smile. “Everything is official.”
“How is that possible?” I ask when I slide some of the documents out and thumb through them.
“I met with some new connections Russell made at the courthouse. The extra docs and information they put into the system may have been fraudulent, but these are legitimate and legally binding,” he says, tapping the stack of new birth certificates and our marriage license, all stamped with official state seals. Although Elliott’s name hasn’t been added to the father’s section of Dustin and Sydney’s birth certificates, sinceI was underage when they were born, he has been added to Kendall’s. “Keep going,” he says.
The next stack is of his formal adoption papers of Dustin and Sydney, with the petitions to change their last names to Berenson. And still, there’s more. When I tip the envelope upside down, out falls a bundle of new Social Security cards for everyone and a driver’s license for me.
“This is incredible,” I say, hugging the envelope to my chest. “It must have cost you a fortune.”Itbeing our total and complete freedom from worrying anyone will look too closely at my former, much more amateur forgeries.
He shrugs, though the tips of his ears are burning red with pleasure. “It’s a gift for me as much as it is for you.”
Maybe it’s not wholly appropriate, but now that we’re married, I figure it’s okay to ask, “You have more than just ‘what you need’, don’t you?”
“Wedo,” he corrects, sliding a large, blood red stone engagement ring nestled within a white gold double-jacket of six diamonds and a matching wedding band on my ring finger.
“Just how much, exactly?” I ask, my toes curling at how exquisite the rings are. I hadn’t seen them beforehand, and yet ours are the perfect complements to each other’s when it’s my turn to slide an extra-wide, white gold band on his ring finger, inlaid with six smaller, matching red stones.
Elliott pockets the precious manila envelope with a shy grin. “Enough to build our own castle after twenty-two years of frugal living and smart investments.”
“Wow,” I mouth. During our walk to Russell’s property through the woods I now call home, an idea takes root. “Since neither of us wants to build a castle, I was thinking…” I stall, a bit self-conscious and worried that it will come across the wrong way if I immediately start talking about spending the money he’s saved up.
“Tell me,” he encourages, carrying Kendall on his arm while he uses a flashlight to guide our way beneath the darkening sky.
“Maybe once I’m out of school…what do you think about starting a business of our own?”
“Russell, Violet, and Dolly have, so I say why not us?” It’s true that Violet started her wedding planning business out of her spare bedroom, and Dolly has opened an in-home day care center, where Kendall was among the first group of children registered.
“Don’t you want to hear my idea before agreeing to it?”
“Sure, not that it’ll change my mind. Hit me.”
I practically swoon at his automatic belief in me, my confidence bolstered while rubbing the underside of my rings with the pad of my thumb like they’re talismans of good fortune. “I’d like to open a low-cost ultrasound clinic near the women’s shelter in town that Goldie told me about. We could offer other services, like testing, too. I mean, I don’t know how profitable it would be, and I don’t know anything about investing, so it might not be a good idea—”
“It’s a great idea,” he says when we step out of the treeline. “Let’s do it.”
“There y’all are!” my new sister-in-law shouts, waving a flashlight, breaking up the kiss that I lay thick on Elliott’s lips. Wearing a lovely floor-length amethyst gown that shows off her pregnancy, Layla says, “We’ve draped the windows so no one will see y’all ‘til you’re ready. Come on, come on.”
She takes Kendall from Elliott, and he scoops me up with a hand around my back and the other under my knees to carryme bridal style across the yard. All of us, including the dogs, enter the private entrance off the back patio into Layla and Russell’s bedroom. She hustles me into her massive en-suite bathroom with its modern black herringbone tiles, crystal clean glass shower, and standalone tub that I’d ask to soak in at some point if it weren’t too weird.
“This is Eden, the best makeup artist in all of Texas,” Layla says of the woman I had yet to meet, having laid out a plethora of products in every shade imaginable. Since I knew I’d cry off all my foundation and mascara at the ceremony if I wore any, Layla has arranged to have my makeup professionally done before Elliott and I are introduced at the reception as husband and wife.
Eden, with her soft brown curls and gorgeous makeup, motions me onto a tall, director-style chair straight off a movie set as she studies my face. “So, what are we thinking? Neutral, smoky, full-glam?”
“I’m not sure.” I don’t have much experience with makeup except for heavy-duty concealer, since we never had any in the desert, and I didn’t have much reason to wear it while serving cheap entrées at the rundown restaurant.
Eden eyes my dress and wedding rings. “Soft gothic romance would look gorgeous on you. Heavy on the smoke on the outer corners of your eyes with a pop of a red shadow, black winged eyeliner, and, ooooh, I have just the right muted shade of maroon lipstick that would go great with your complexion. How does that sound?”
When I exit the bathroom forty-five minutes later, transformed into a starlet with a step-by-step tutorial of how to apply all the makeup Eden used and has gifted me with, Elliott says, “I’ve never cried this much in my life.” He hurries to takea handful of tissues from the box Layla provides, scrubbing his face. “You really are going to be the death of me, Birdie.”
“Wouldn’t that be fitting?” I ask with a sly grin, walking my fingers up his chest, his suit jacket discarded on the emerald green, king-sized bed where the kids are currently lounging, the dogs curled in the corner on the floor. “Though I’ll rip you right out of the ground if you so much as think to—”
Someone cracks the bedroom door, a den of excited voices rising above the low, moody instrumental music playing in the background that brings goosebumps to my arms. I’ve never been much for music, treasuring the short bouts of silence I’ve managed to carve out of my otherwise chaotic life, but there’s something about the melancholy notes, a famous song played in what I think is called a minor key, that is oddly soothing.
