Talk Wordy To Me (His Curvy Librarian 1)

Epilogue Two

Cassidy

Five Years Later…

I’m curled up on a great big beanbag chair, my daughter Clara in my lap, when I hear the front door open and Charles shouts, “Knock knock, anybody home?”

“Great Grandpa’s here!” Clara shouts.

She knocks The Very Hungry Caterpillar out of my hands in her rush to get downstairs and I laugh. I guess that’s the end of reading time with Mommy, but at three, Clara is already ahead of her age range, anyway. Chuck and I read to her every single day and she takes great pride in telling everyone she meets that her name is Clara, spelled C-L-A-R-A.

Honestly, I’ve never been more in love in my whole life than I was the day our sweet girl was born.

And now, five years after our wedding day, Chuck and I have everything I could ask for. An adorable daughter. A beautiful home. The most doting grandparents and great-grandparents on the face of the earth. And most importantly, each other.

I follow Clara downstairs, where we find Great Grandpa Charles in the foyer with Evelyn. They got married not long after Chuck and I tied the knot—nobody in the McArthur family wastes time once they know what they want, and Charles proposed to Evelyn just as soon as he’d recovered sufficiently from his stroke to get down on one knee.

Now, he’s perfectly healthy again and Evelyn does a wonderful job of making sure he stays that way—watching his diet, refilling his prescriptions, going for long walks with him to make sure he gets his exercise. It’s everything Chuck used to do for him, so now all he has to worry about is spoiling our little girl.

Speaking of which…

“Charles, what is that?” I ask when I catch sight of a giftwrapped box on the entryway table.

“Just a little something for the best little girl in the world,” he says, lifting Clara into his arms.

“For me?” she says, her green eyes lighting up.

Chuck says she’s going to be trouble when she’s older—she already knows how to wrap Great Grandpa around her little finger, and she acts surprised and delighted every single time he brings her a present… which happens to be every single time he visits.

“It’s not even a special occasion,” I object, knowing it’ll do no good. “We’re just having dinner.”

“We’re great grandparents,” Evelyn says. “We don’t need a special occasion to bring presents.”

Charles sets Clara down and Evelyn hands her the package. She tears it open in about two seconds flat, then shrieks with delight. “Look, Mommy, it’s letters!”

“It’s an alphabet puzzle board,” Charles explained. “Because we want our girl to be the smartest kid in kindergarten.”

I laugh. “That’s not for another two years.”

“Well, she’s got plenty of time to get the upper hand, then,” he says. “Right, Snickerdoodle?”

“Right,” Clara says, popping up from the floor. He holds out his hand and she takes it, and we all follow our noses to the back yard, where Chuck is manning the grill.

He’s wearing a cheesy ‘Kiss the Chef’ apron that I bought him when we moved into the house. This place is the perfect blend of Chuck’s old place, with a view of Golden Creek, and my parents’ farmhouse, cozy and filled with family. And the view I’ve got right now—of my husband crouching down and scooping our daughter into his arms—is the best part of all.

Charles and Evelyn go over to the outdoor dining table to set out the plates and silverware, and I go over to Chuck.

“Are they done yet?” Clara is asking as he presses on one of the steaks he’s grilling and a hiss of juices hit the coals beneath.

“Almost,” he says. “Why don’t you go help Gramps?”

He sets her down then playfully snags one of her pigtails, holding her in place long enough to kiss the top of her head. Then she’s gone and Chuck wraps his arm around me.

He kisses me too—on the lips instead of the crown of my head—and we turn to watch our little girl and Charles and Evelyn. They spoil her, sure, but the truth is so do we. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

“This really is happily ever after, isn’t it?” Chuck says with a contented sigh.

“Almost,” I say.

He looks down at me, one eyebrow raised. “Almost? What’s missing?”

“This is a beautiful story, better than anything I could have written for myself,” I say, then I put my hand on my stomach. “And it’s about to get another sequel.”

Chuck’s eyes light up. He whispers, “Are you saying we’re going to have another baby?”

I grin. “I just found out this morning.”