“I love you, Paige Richardson,” he said, unable to tell her enough how much she meant to him.
“And I love you, Cole Richardson.” Her smile lit the darkest corners of his soul. “You are my heart and my soul for all of eternity.”
Epilogue
Six months later
On the first anniversary of the tornado that had destroyed so much of the town and taken the lives of so many, Paige and Cole slowly made their way down Main Street toward the crowd gathering on the lawn of the newly finished Royal Town Hall. As they walked along hand in hand, Paige was pretty sure she resembled a duck.
Early on in her pregnancy the doctor had suspected she might be having twins, and a sonogram had confirmed that she and Cole were indeed having a little boy and a little girl. They both were thrilled by the news, but only two and a half months away from her due date, her belly was already big enough that she had started waddling when she walked.
“Do you need to sit down for a minute or two?” Cole asked as they strolled past Drew and Beth Farrell, who were laughing as they arranged pumpkins around the fall decorations they had donated for the day’s ceremonies. Last year Beth’s patch had been destroyed by the tornado, but this season it appeared to have produced a bumper crop. Pumpkins in all shapes and sizes, along with bales of straw and corn shocks, made a stunning fall display and reminded Paige that she and Cole needed to get one of the bigger pumpkins to carve for Halloween.
“Paige, are you all right?” Cole sounded worried that she hadn’t answered his question.
Shaking her head, she smiled. “I’m fine. I can make it to the chairs in front of the podium. But I’d like to make a trip over to Beth’s pumpkin patch within the next few days to get one for a jack-o’-lantern.”
“Are you sure you’re all right, sweetheart?” Cole asked, looking worried.
“Now look who’s doing the fussing.” She laughed.
He brought her hand up to kiss it. “You and our kids are my world, and I’m going to protect and take care of all of you.”
“How are you feeling, Paige?” Megan Daltry asked as she and her husband, Whit, stopped to talk to them. A friend of Cole’s and fellow Texas Cattleman’s Club member, Whit owned Daltry Management Company and had helped Megan find her daughter, Evie, after the storm laid waste to the Little Tots Daycare. They’d been together ever since.
“I probably don’t look like it, but I feel great,” Paige said, patting her bulging stomach.
“Who is your doctor?” Megan asked. When Paige told her, Megan nodded. “That’s who I’m going to.”
“You’re pregnant, too?” Paige hugged her friend. “I’m so happy for you.”
“Yeah, we decided to give our daughter a little brother,” Whit said, looking hopeful as he grinned from ear to ear. “But I’ll be happy with a baby girl as long as she and Megan are all right.”
“Congratulations!” Cole slapped Whit’s shoulder in a friendly gesture. “We can attend Daddy Day Camp at Royal Memorial Hospital together.”
“At least I’ll have someone I know in that how-to workshop for new fathers,” Whit said, looking relieved. “We can learn how to diaper a baby together.”
“We’d better get to our seats,” Cole said as the couple walked on ahead of them. “I don’t want you having to stand throughout the ceremony.”
“The Holts have arrived,” Paige commented when she saw Lark and Keaton arrive with Skye and Jacob. Skye and Jacob had been having a rough time in their marriage when the tornado came through, but when Skye was injured Jacob had been there for her and during the time they spent together, they had worked through their problems. And Lark and Keaton had had to overcome a feud between their families. But after a rocky start for both couples, they had finally worked things out and couldn’t be happier.
Both of the women were pregnant, and Paige couldn’t help but wonder if the town was having its own little baby boom since the tornado had come through. It seemed that everywhere she looked there was another pregnant woman.
Watching Skye waddle after her baby daughter, Grace, Paige smiled. In a little more than a year, she would be chasing after her and Cole’s babies as they toddled around. She had wanted to be able to do that for so long, she could hardly wait.
When Cole found them seats close to the stage that had been built for the memorial service to remember the lives lost in the tornado and the dedication ceremony of the new Town Hall, he helped her lower her bulk into the chair before sitting down beside her. “Are you comfortable, Paige?”