His Paradise

Sirens blare in the distance and I’m thankful emergency services are on the way. But we’re a small island and there’s only a general hospital here. I doubt they’ve even seen a gunshot victim before. I’m in shock as all these thoughts cross my mind, but I can’t think about the reality of what I’m seeing. Cyrus is completely still as his chest is pressed, but I can’t see any blood.

Liam turns and blocks Sammy’s view and tries to get her to back up. “Let’s move back and give them some space,” he says quietly. “You need to sit down.”

“There’s no pulse,” paramedics working on Cyrus says.

“Don’t you dare fucking die on me!” Sammy shouts as she beats on Liam to get him out of the way. “Don’t you dare let him die! Goddamn you, Cyrus!”

She’s sobbing now as she screams, but the guys who were working on him sit back as the ambulance rolls in. Her words rip through the silence of everyone around us.

“Cyrus, don’t let go! Come back to me!” she screams as a sob like nothing I’ve ever heard comes out of her. “Don’t you leave me, Cyrus! You can’t leave me. I love you!”

Suddenly, Cyrus opens his eyes and sits up. The guys who were doing CPR on him try to cover their laughs. Cyrus looks around as Sammy suddenly realizes what’s happening.

“Well, it’s about damn time you admitted it,” Cyrus says, winking at her.

If he wasn’t dead before, he will be now. Sammy is going to murder him with her bare hands.

Epilogue

Nicole

Five years later…

I stand at the open doors of the balcony of our bedroom watching the sun rise as my husband sleeps in the bed behind me. The waves slowly wash up the beach. My hand runs down to my very pregnant stomach.

“Thank you, Grandpa. Grandma. You really did make sure I got everything I could ever want giving me a home here. I love you,” I whisper.

The last five years have been such a whirlwind. It really goes to show you how much life can change in an instant. It’s still hard to believe at times how happy I am. I didn’t know this kind of happiness existed. It’s surreal.

The Mermaid has changed, too. At first, we decided to change tack on our marketing strategies for the Mermaid and it’s now booming. What’s also booming is my ability to make babies. With that, some things had to change once again. We renovated the hotel after that, taking over half the building for our family home.

While people were chomping at the bit to stay here once they found out about it, I was sad that we lost some of the normal regulars being booked up too much so we kind of slipped back to my old ways of doing things.

The whole less is more really hit home. At least for this part of our lives. The main resort is still busy as ever but we decided it didn’t need to expand. Could it make more money if we did? Sure, but it wasn’t about that for us. If you wanted to get a reservation over there, you needed to book ahead. It wasn’t like we needed the money. We had more than we’d ever use. We lived a simple life and that’s the way we liked it. More so for Liam. He adjusted to the island with such ease. You would think he was born and raised here.

He enjoys the relaxed life more than he ever knew he would. I don’t think that man’s put on a suit in years. Even when he whisks me away for a weekend in the big city, everything is always casual. It warms me when he tells me how much his life has changed for the better. That he never knew how lonely he was until I entered his life. That he was working so hard so he didn’t have to focus on anything else, because if he stopped for even a moment the loneliness would start to seep into his life. He doesn’t have that problem anymore.

Even his mom moved out here and got her own little house. She and Liam got back to the roots of who they were before they both lost Liam’s father. I was thankful. At least our children would have one grandparent. I know how much mine meant to me and I’d hate for our kids to not get that kind of love. It is one of the sweetest the world has, how a grandparent loves their grandchildren.

“Don’t even think about it,” Liam grumbles from the bed, sitting up. I turn and smile at him.

“I wasn’t going to go for a swim.” I smile and walk over to the bed. I’m in a bikini, but I didn’t have plans to swim until he woke up. He doesn’t like me going for swims in the ocean alone when I’m pregnant, which is pretty much all the time at this point.