Extended EpilogueOne Year LaterKatI walk out into the wide open pen where the rescue dogs are playing … well, some of them are.
Some are too nervous and have marked out little areas that are just their own, but in time – I hope – they’ll come out of their shells and learn to love and be loved.
Like I did.
I beam proudly when I see that Scrappy and Rusty are walking at my heels, well-behaved and yet still with that glint in their eyes, both of them ready to tumble and wrestle and be happy at a moment’s notice.
“How’s it going?” I ask Angelica, the teenager who came to me asking for a job a few months ago, when my beloved Markus – named after my dad – was still in my belly.
She was a street kid, like me, and when she looks at me with her red hair and her fiery eyes, I could see that knife-like suspicion that will take more time to go away.
Or maybe she needs to find the man of her dreams, like I did.
She smiles, though, looking up from petting Maximus, the name she’s bestowed on one particularly proud and stoic Pitbull Terrier.
“He’s a big softie,” she says. “I can’t believe somebody would abandon him.”
“Some people don’t deserve dogs,” I say, with a wan smile. “But you’re doing an amazing job. I’m proud of you.”
She beams and I feel my chest swell with pride, so glad that I’m able to be here, the scents of the dogs rising around me, their happy yapping filling my ears and my soul.
Then I turn and see that Colton is standing at the door with Markus cradled in his arms, beyond the sound-proofed glass so that the dogs’ ever-present barking and playing and yapping doesn’t affect our son’s hearing.
Colton’s wearing a steel colored suit, as usual, but his beard seems even wilder than the last time I saw him … which seems crazy, considering it was only this morning.
But every time I see my husband it’s like the first time, my body responding with a thousand sizzles and shakes.
And he says the same about me, even after the pregnancy, the extra curves and the extra weight and the extra body odor.
“You could weigh a thousand pounds and smell like a trash heap,” he whispered to me last night, his fingers trailing through my scalp as we lay sex-contended in bed together, “and I’d still want you. I’d still love you. You’re perfect. I love you.”
I lift my hand and wave, and then gesture that I’m going to be five more minutes. He nods with a smile and a gleam in his eyes that’s like a magnet to me.
Then he leans down and kisses Markus on top of the head, a subtle, everyday gesture, but something about it today hits me deep and I feel a tear clinging to my eyelashes.
I close my eyes and thank God, or fate, or whatever force sent me into the office that day.
Falling in love with Colton was the best thing I ever did.
And we get to bask in that love every day.
Forever.Extended EpilogueTen Years LaterColtonI sit in the garden nursing a well-earned beer, Markus sitting next to me with a paperback in his hand, his eyebrows knit in concentration as he eagerly turns a page.
I smile and watch him, content to let summer drift around us, Jessica and Kimberly, our twin seven year olds, splashing around in the pool with Scrappy swimming eagerly after them, his tongue hanging out and his tail poking straight up in his delight. Mom and Dad are on another trip – well-earned, just like my beer – and so we get the not-so-little guy for a while.
I feel a pang when I think about Rusty, but he had a good, long life, and filled us all with delight and warmth and joy every day he was with us.
I take a sip of my beer – always keeping one eye on the pool – and then see Zack sneaking up beside me, his toy club in his hand, dressed in his caveman outfit.
I grin and then wipe my face clean, pretending I can’t see him as he navigates through the pool chairs and around Kat at the barbecue.
Not looking at Kat, though, is a damn challenge.
My wife has spent the day with one of her celebrity clients – and then an afternoon shift at the dog shelter – but even so she looks fresh and vivacious and so curvy I have to physically restrain myself from gliding up behind her and pressing my body against hers.
The births of four children has only made her more gorgeous, and this sunny evening she wears a flower-printed dress made of fabric so light it rests against her like mist, outlining her every perfection.