After I update everyone, letting them know Dominic’s awake, the crowd starts to filter out, leaving with hugs and promises to visit once he’s up for company.
Silvia and Adrian return, looking relieved. It’s been a stressful twenty-four hours, and despite not having seen or spoken to each other in years, we fell right back into sync.
Silvia’s English has amazingly improved. So much so, that she told me she teaches ESL online. Adrian gushed about his pregnant wife, who stayed behind in Portland because hermorning sickness couldn’t withstand the three-hour drive. We met over FaceTime though, and I’m excited to get together once things calm down.
Silvia and Adrian leave to go back to my townhouse to whip up Dominic a home cooked meal. Something Raúl would’ve made.
We say our goodbyes and I return to Dominic’s room.
“Hey,” I say, slipping back into the chair beside him.
“Hey.” He looks so much livelier and I feel myself relax.
“Your dad still out there?”
“Yeah, my parents said they wanted to see you before they left. Why?”
He shifts slightly as he tries to sit up straighter. “Think I could talk to him? Alone?”
My heart does a ridiculous little somersault. “Alone?”
He smiles, a shy, adorably handsome, contagious smile. “Yeah. Got a question I’ve been meaning to ask him.”
CHAPTER 59
Dominic
JEWELRY AND PAPERWORK
6 MONTHS LATER
“Sheriff Alvarez has a nice ring to it.”
Ellie's arms are looped around my neck, her body pressed against mine, making it nearly impossible to keep my dick from twitching in a room full of people. I clear my throat and glance around the station, packed with the majority of the sheriff’s department, city staff, and a few local reporters here to celebrate my new position. Tomorrow we’re celebrating with friends and family, but today is for the official stuff.
“Have I told you how sexy you look in that dress, Mrs. Alvarez?” I whisper in her ear, letting my hand travel to inappropriately low levels on her back, resting on the swell of her ass.
She blushes, still getting used to the name, even though I call her by it all the damn time.
As soon as I was coherent enough, I asked Jack for permission to marry his daughter. I’d learned my lesson—no more wasting time.
He laughed and told me when he said he didn’t want me to rush into marriage with Ellie, he never meant for me to wait this long. Then, without hesitation, he gave me his blessing.
He told me I never needed his permission—that he’d always seen me as a son and couldn’t wait to officially call me family.
I might’ve cried.
He might’ve too.
We blamed it on the dry hospital air.
After I got released, it felt silly to wait to get married. So, two months after we survived the worst ordeal of our lives, we finally did it, and it was fucking perfect. But one of my favorite parts of the entire day happened right after we left the courthouse…
“This marriage better last, because I don’t do refunds,” Ray grumbles as he finishes the tattoo on my wife’s left ring finger.
My wife.
Fuck, I love the sound of that. Wife. The word I’ve been wanting to call her nearly my entire life—it’s surreal. I keep waiting to wake up because if this is a dream, I never want it to end.
