126 Secret Ln - A Cherry Falls Romance

“We do,” both Corby and I say at the same time.

“Get married,” she suggests.

“By the end of the day. My lawyer is getting the papers handled as we speak.” Angie laughs as she heads out the front door. Corby locks it behind her.

“I hear that Corby O’Neal is getting married?” I try and fight a smile, but I lose.

“Chasing a story?” He comes back over to the sofa to sit down with us.

“No, I’m not chasing a story.” He slips in close to us.

For a while now I’ve been wondering if I was on the right path in my life. Being a reporter is what I always wanted to do, but I never wanted to stray from my small town, the one I’ve spent my whole life in. I didn't want to leave, but I knew something was missing. I run my fingers through Christopher’s short dark hair, knowing this is it.

“We are the story.” I look over at Corby and Christopher. Knowing that every lead that I’ve followed over the last year has led me to both of them.

Epilogue

Corby

“Honey, put Charity down, please.” Glory comes over and snatches my youngest out of my arms. “You have peanut butter on your jacket.” She dabs at the food stain with a napkin.

“Good thing we chose the black coat instead of the white one.” I take the cloth from her hands and wipe the smear away.

“Daddy.” Charity reaches out her arms and because I’m a sap, I start to take her back. Luckily for all of us, Chris appears.

“I got her, Mom,” he says and then whisks the girl a safe distance away.

“Thank you. You’re an angel,” Glory tells our fifteen-year-old son.

Without taking attention away from the baby, he gives his mother a thumbs-up and plops onto the floor, shaking a stuffed rabbit in front of Charity’s face. The girl gurgles with glee and tries to snatch it from him.

“He’s so good with her. With both of them,” Glory murmurs beside me.

“They adore him.” Our other girl, Chas, toddles over and drapes herself across Chris’ back. He reaches up and squeezes the five-year-old’s arm. Charity claps her pudgy hands together and makes a motion with her hand. She wants Chris to draw for her.

Ironically, even though Chris grew up with two writers, he’s not into words but pictures. He wants to be an animator when he grows up. I think he’s as good as any illustrator out there, but I could be biased. Nah. He’s just great.

After the kidnapper got put away, Chris had no family to go back to. He was going to be placed in the foster care system again, just another lost kid. Neither Glory nor I could stand that, so we adopted him. He’s always grateful—too grateful—because we’re the winners here. Ten years later, bigger than me, smarter than me, more sensitive than his mom, he’s the son other families are jealous of. I couldn’t be prouder of a kid.

Glory sighs and lays her head against my shoulder. “We did good, didn’t we?”

“We did.” Looking back, waiting for five years to have more kids was the right thing to do. We cemented our time with Chris, allowed him to slowly grow into the knowledge that we would never leave him or abandon him so when we had the two girls, he didn’t feel threatened. In fact, I think he was enthused. Finally, someone to take the attention off of him.

“Um, Mrs. O’Neal, it’s almost time,” a timid voice interrupts.

Glory straightens immediately and starts to brush her hands across my chest and shoulders. “You can’t go and accept an award with food sticking to you. Maybe we shouldn’t have brought the kids.”

Over her head, my eyes sweep the full hotel suite. The stylist is packing up her suitcase of supplies. The PR person Glory hired to manage this whole whirlwind season of awards is on the phone, probably booking another interview. I dread it already, but it has to be done.

“You shouldn’t have written the screenplay if you didn’t want it to be successful,” Glory teases. She knows exactly what I’m thinking. After ten years of marriage, we don’t even have to talk anymore. She can read me with one glance.

“I shouldn’t have written it? You’re a co-writer, babe.”

She flushes delightfully. “I helped here and there.”

“That’s not what the cut sheet says. You’re an equal partner.”

My sixteenth book was optioned for a movie by Plan Z productions. The first script that came in was terrible, and I complained so much that Glory told me that I should write it myself or be quiet.

So I wrote it, but not by myself. I roped Glory into it because she’s great with a punchline and with dialogue, which is what the script needed. It came out great, as evidenced by the numerous awards the screenplay is up for, so here we are in Hollywood, with two kids, a nanny, and a team of people to make us look and sound great, ready to receive another statuette to put above our fireplace.