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The strongest, bravest, most beautiful woman I’ve ever known looks over to me with carefully placed resignation. “Ready?”
“Waiting on you, Scottie,” I say, pulling the lighter we purchased out of my pocket.
We light Jones first, and he takes off like a torpedo into the salty breeze before gently floating up and away.
“Isn’t that just like you?” I say to him with a tearful chuckle.
Scottie grips my hand as we stare at the bright light until it begins to fade.
She holds up Morrero and Mullins. “Should we let these two go together?”
“Yeah, I like that idea,” I reply.
“You’ll always be my favorite,” she promises as she lets Mullins go. “Thank you.” They float up together in a graceful dance on the same drift before fading away into the night sky.
Minutes later, Scottie’s encased in my arms as we stare at the surf, both melancholy and feeling a little lighter.
“Briggs?”
“Yeah, beautiful?” I whisper as I capture her idle hand on my knee and thread our fingers before pulling her closer to my chest.
“Let’s make more plans.”
“Sounds good to me. What did you have in mind?” I know mine. I know what I want—what I hope for every time she falls asleep in my arms. But half the battle was wanting time to stop. And it’s in that sand that I realize I haven’t heard that awful sound since I saw her in Germany. No matter how hard the past eight months have been, in the way I’ve missed her, I’ve never once heard it. I realize then I’ll no longer die a soldier or thief. Here on this beach, our future unfolds rapidly in front of me, in color. It was always there—I just had to battle time to see it.
I see sun-filled days on green pastures and nights in rocking chairs. Poker games leading to feuds that end in nights with her wrapped around me. I see a white dress and blonde hair blowing in the breeze. I see love and laughter. I see forever.
“You know what, Scottie,” I say, before pressing a kiss to her temple. “I think I’ll start.”
Gavin
TEN YEARS LATER
“Careful, Son,” I warn as I watch Noah place Gracie on the saddle.
“I’ve got her, Dad,” he says as she squeals with delight. Shaking my head, I stare on in worry as she bounces up and down on the one-ton horse without a care in the world. Chris and I share a look. Reading my posture, he jumps the fence, and in seconds he’s guiding the horse by the bridle in an easy trot.
“He knows what he’s doing,” Katy assures me, gently grabbing my hand and squeezing it before letting go. “Can you believe he’s eighteen?” she says with a sigh.
Pride swells in my chest as Noah helps guide his sister around the pen Chris built for “little people”—specifically for my daughter.
“She’s so beautiful,” Katy says with a grin. “How old is she now?”
“Thank you. She just turned six,” I say, glancing over at Katy. “Think you’ll ever have any more?”
She shrugs. “If it happens, it happens. We’re not preventing it anymore.” She lifts her eyes to mine. “I just wanted to make sure I was capable.”
“You’re more than capable.” And she is.
“We’ll see, I’m only thirty-seven. I think we’ve got something special with the one I have.”
“Agreed.”
Katy married Chris a few years after our divorce. Her recovery wasn’t easy. It took her years to finally become a registered nurse, but once she tackled it, she made it her life’s work. It was hard for me to watch her progress from the sidelines, but I was no longer the man in her life. Though I didn’t always show it, I was cheering her on—for Noah, for myself, and because I still loved her—always will.
It wasn’t easy letting go of old hurts. In fact, if someone had told me ten years ago that Chris Briggs and I would one day have something that resembled friendship, I would have laughed in their face. What transpired after I divorced Katy wasn’t easy to get through, but it was made bearable by the woman gliding down the gravel drive in a brand-new pickup truck.
Noah remains blissfully unaware as she jumps out and gives me a knowing grin before flipping her long auburn hair away from her shoulder. I met Molly during one of the lowest points in my life. I gave her hell, and she loved me through it. Never did I think myself capable of finding what I lost, but as it turns out, sometimes you don’t have to go looking for it. Sometimes it finds you.
“Oh, I know that smile,” Katy says with a chuckle. “Mind yourself, Captain, there are children present,” she scolds with the shake of her head.
“Sorry if that was weird,” I say, scouring the expansive ranch.
“Don’t apologize to me for being happy,” she says easily. “Ever.”
“Okay, I won’t.”
“It’s all I want for you,” she says on a whisper.
We watch our families interact with such ease for several moments before I turn to Katy to speak, but I see she’s grappling with something that’s left her rooted where she stands.
“God, I know we agreed, but I don’t think I’m ready, Gavin. Do you think he can handle this? A truck of his own?”
Just as I’m about to reply, Noah’s voice breaks through.
“Holy Crap! Mom! Dad! You did this?” Noah exclaims as he spots his new pride and joy. “Molly!” he questions, sauntering toward the truck as his stepmother gathers Gracie in her arms and follows. She spent weeks looking for the right fit for Noah. They’re close, and I can feel the elation coming off her.
“I think it’s too late, Katy,” I say with a chuckle.
Molly must have said something because Noah pokes his head out of the open driver’s side door. “MOM! You knew about this?”
Katy just nods. “Ask your stepfather how fun this conversation was. And just so you know, he won.”
Noah bumps fists with Chris as he ducks his head in the cabin. Noah’s grown tall, his blond curls cropped short, but even with all his changes, he’s the spitting image of his mother. It used to sting, but now it just reminds me that I’ve loved more than once in my life, and I do it the best way I know how.
Katy and I watch as Chris takes my daughter in his arms, and his face gets animated. Something about that strikes Katy and I both. We stand there, paralyzed in conflicting emotion, as her hand brushes mine at our sides before she turns to me with watery eyes.
“We did good, right?” Her eyes flit to Noah and back to me.
I pull her into my arms, and we clutch each other tightly through ten years of space.
“We did so good, Katy,” I promise. We hug each other tighter before letting go.
She lets out a little nervous laughter through her tears. “Gavin, you sure he’s ready for this?”
I look over to the woman I would still move heaven and earth for—a woman who I thought would take up the whole of my life, but turned out was only the first half of it. The words fall easily from my lips.
“Trust me?”
Her eyes widen slightly, but she answers without hesitation, a beaming smile on her face.
“Always.”
“Still love me?”
“Forever.”
September 25th
Gavin,
It’s noisy tonight. The mix of soldiers are restless around me, and I feel the same way for a different reason. After hanging up the phone earlier, I felt guilty because I put space between us. Because I wasn’t truthful. I was trying to follow Mullins’s advice and “soldier up.” I was putting on a brave front, when the truth is, I don’t want to be here. My heart has changed so drastically since the time I met you, and so has my life. And I consider those changes the best thing that’s ever happened to me. The truth is, I feel ridiculed for having never-ending devotion to the man I have waiting at home, so much that I’m never really present here. I’ve tried—God how I’ve tried—but the only place in the world I know I’ll fit is with you. In your arms, kissing your lips, being your wife and Noah’s mother.
When I think of you, only one word springs to mind: golden. I know it may sound crazy, but that’s the word that strikes me every time I look at you. In a way, I feel like life delivered my gifts early, and you were the first. Our love is exactly that beautiful hue of yellow that shines so brightly in our bedroom on the mornings you make love to me. It’s in our son’s hair, in your voice, in the way we look at each other. Everything I know about love you taught me, through patience and understanding. You raised my heart, trained it to love you in the best imaginable way. And this heart loves you beat by beat, as the seconds, minutes, and hours tick by.
