Page 146 of It's Always Been You
“I deserve nothing less.”
She snorts. For Teddy’s sake, I seal the deal with a brief kiss—one that leaves us both wanting more. “I love you, Genevieve,” I murmur as I pull back, tuckingher hair behind her ears. “I will never stop loving you. Never stop pursuing you. You are the one whom my soul loves, and I will spend every day of the rest of my life proving it to you.”
Pleasure lights up her face, but she’s quick to tamp it. “Okay, Casanova. Chill. You’re coming on a little strong.”
I chuckle as Teddy tugs on my shirt, extending the ring box to me. “Put it on her!”
Evie extends her hand, grinning from ear to ear as I pull the ring from the box and slide it on her dainty finger. It’s a perfect fit, and it matches the diamond necklace I bought her to a T—just like I knew it would.
“To the beginning of forever,” I promise her.
All pretense is gone now as she looks between me and Teddy. “To family. And my two favorite people in the whole wide world.”
Grabbing her hand, I lift it over her head and twirl her beneath my arm, reeling her in for one more kiss. “And toyou, Spitfire. My first and only love.”
Epilogue
2 Years Later
Evieisrearrangingherstuffed animal collection in the nursery for the thousandth time since I hung the shelves up on the wall this afternoon. Leaning against the doorway, I watch as she moves one here, then there, then steps back to tilt her head and frown at it—before finally moving it back to the other side of the room.
“I’ve been doing some thinking,” she says without looking at me, stroking her pregnant stomach as she scrutinizes the stuffed toy’s placement for the umpteenth time.
“That’s never good.”
She shoots me a caustic smile. “I want to do something to commemorate the baby we lost. Here in the nursery.”
I push off the doorway and come up behind her. Wrapping my arms around her waist, I drop a kiss to her neck. “What did you have in mind?”
We stare at the wall of cuddly toys together. I was able to recover the collection for her by chance. Or maybe it wasn’t chance at all. Just like when I stumbled across her diamond necklace on the side of the road, Teddy stumbled on three plastic crates worth of the little beanie animals at Goodwill when we were out shopping one day not long after Maggie’s fall. I thought Evie mentioned something about downsizing when she moved out of her Grandma’s house, and when I turned one of the tags around to look at the name of the stuffed toy, it had Evie’s initials. G.C.M. Genevieve Catherine Montgomery. All of them did.
She’d donated her prized collection—the one her mother started for her when she was two years old. I knew it was not an insignificant decision on her part to donate the collection. She once told me she’d only ever give them away if she thought her mother wasn’t going to come home.
I wasn’t sure how she’d receive me regifting something she intentionally donated to heal and process her mother’s absence, but, thankfully, she was over the moon. She cried harder than I’d ever seen her cry when she discovered that not a single one of those stuffed animals was missing.
“Well, I never actually got an ultrasound because I didn’t know I was pregnant until—” She pauses to collect herself. “But maybe in lieu of hanging an image of an ultrasound, we could get something with her name, conception date, and date of passing framed. And we could hang it above the crib as a reminder to cherish every single moment with our miracle rainbow baby.” She looks down and rubs her hand across her stomach. Our breath catches when her belly ripples with a kick. “Ow,” she coos, stroking her bump.
Misty eyed, I bury my face in her hair. It took us about a year to conceive after we got married, and Evie was beginning to despair, thinking it was never going to happen for us.
But then it did. She’s due any day now.
“I love that idea, baby.”
She faces me. “And I love you. Thank you for making me a mother.”
I smile. “Thank you for making me a dad. Times two.”
She grins shyly. “I can’t wait.”
“Neither can I,” I admit, thinking back to those hazy but precious newborn days with Teddy. He’s six years old now, and I don’t know how. Time flies when you’re having fun, I guess. He’s at that age where I’m basically his superhero. I can’t wait to do all the things with him that I used to do with my own dad—like go hiking and fishing and watching all my favorite war films.
I also can’t wait to teach him what it means to be a real man—the kind of man who loves and pursues God above all else. A man who exhibits Christlike behavior in all he does, including how he treats women, so he never makes the kind of mistakes I made. The love of a good, virtuous woman is one of the most precious gifts God can give a man; it’s worth far more than diamonds and rubies,and he’ll grow up knowing how to love, honor, and respect the women in his life.
“Do you think it’s gonna be a boy or a girl?” Evie wonders for the millionth time, beaming up at me. She wanted to know the gender, but I wanted to do things the old-fashioned way and wait until the day of. We couldn’t come to an agreement, so we ended up flipping a coin—and I won. She looked so disappointed that I had mercy on her and offered to do best two out of three. I still won.
“Does it really matter?” I ask, grinning, knowing it doesn’t.
She sighs theatrically. “I guess not.” She frowns then, and I wait. “I think I’m more concerned about what I’m going to be like as a mother. What if I’m horrible? What if—”
