AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter 16
Zelda
HOLD ON
They’re here. I hear a car pull up and I thank God with every breath in my body that He saved my baby.
Without thinking, I run for the front door, pulling it open so hard I’m surprised I don’t rip it off the hinges like a superhero. But I don’t care. I don’t even pause to close it. Or look at who else might be here. Or what I look like after a night of crying on the floor. Or anything. I’m lucky I’m wearing pants.
Merritt, wrapped in a blanket, steps out from behind the door of the car and walks toward me but I’m running full out. I don’t stop until my baby is in my arms and I sob hysterically.
Shiny tears track down her cheeks as she holds tight to me and leans her head to rest on my shoulder like she did when she was young and unsure of the world.
We stand like that for I don’t even know how long. It’s just her and me in the world and I don’t care one bit. My child could have been taken from me. Every mother’s worst nightmare is losing a child no matter how old they are. We’re not supposed to outlive our children. It’s the way of the world but I’m all too familiar with how cruel the world can be.
Slowly, the rest of the universe trickles back in. I stay focused on Merritt, safe in my arms, but am now aware of the people around us. Pops is standing on my front porch. Mason is leaning against his SUV. Sometimes I struggle with this current image of the sheriff as the man that he’s become, still seeing the boy with the old Ford who used to stand in that very spot waiting for Audrey.
And then there’s Court. Like two ends of a magnet, I feel the pull toward him like I was put on this earth to be by his side. I don’t know what the future holds after last night, all I know is that I’m done fighting. I don’t want to fight anymore. I just want to be… happy. And maybe not so alone.
I turn back to Merritt when I realize she’s been whispering something to me. “What?” I ask.
“He saved me, Mom.”
“Who—” I start but I already know.
“Court, Mom,” she answers. “He was amazing. We were trapped and I didn’t know what to do but he did. He got us out of there. He saved me.”
Without letting go of my daughter, I look up at the man who bravely protected my world and I know, without a doubt, my whole world just expanded by two more feet—big, man feet in hiking boots. That is if he’ll still have me. If he’ll still have us because I come with a lot of extra bodies.
I hold out a hand to him and, if I’m not mistaken, relief flashes across his eyes. Oh, what hell I’ve put this poor man through and yet he still put everything on the line for me.
He moves toward me and as soon as I can reach him, I pull him into our huddle and he holds tight to Merritt and me, protecting us, cherishing us.
“Hold on,” I plead with him.
“I am,” he says. “I will.”
“Don’t let go.”
“I’ll never let go. For as long as I live,” he says. “If you’ll have me.”
“Yes,” I whisper, crying now for a whole new reason. Thankful for all the seconds chances I’ve been granted today. “If you’ll have me—if you’ll have us because I come with an army.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Epilogue
Court
FOREVER AFTER ALL
Three months later…
When Zelda finally said she wanted me, this life, and all that came with it that day after the avalanche I wasn’t about to let her have enough time to run. I threw myself wholeheartedly into planning our wedding. She said she didn’t want anything huge, just a small ceremony amongst her lavender fields and a party for family and friends at the bar.
Hank helped me plan it all and I’m not embarrassed to admit that I cried a bit when she said, “I do.” Brenna was the cutest flower girl I’ve ever seen and I scooped her up in my arms when she made it down the aisle to me. I was a confirmed bachelor, happy to travel the globe alone when I landed in Bear Bottom, Alaska and now I have a family that I never thought possible. I have plans to show Zelda and the girls the world.
“Welcome to my heaven and hell,” Hank says from beside me just before he tips his beer bottle to his lips.
