“It’s a fully staffed nonprofit,” I add. “Two full-time handlers, an adoption coordinator, and Dr. Monroe’s best vet tech on staff three days a week. Kay herself consults on the medical cases.” I reach down and rub Lucky’s head. “The rest of the time, Lucky runs the place.”
Lucky wags her tail like she knows she’s being talked about.
“When did you do all of this?” she whispers.
“Told you I’ve been fixing up some of the acreage that Dad put aside for us.”
“You told me it was heavy machinery storage! You did all of this on your own?”
“In all fairness, I hired plenty of help. My carpentry skills are decent enough, but not Noah’s Ark level good.”
She turns to look at me fully then. Eyes wet, chin wobbling slightly.
“You did this,” she says. “You built this. For all these animals.”
“I built it for you,” I say simply.
She doesn’t reply. Just looks at me with those brown eyes that have been making it impossible to think straight since the first day I met her.
“It felt strange to keep it from you,” I tell her, “but I wanted to do something big for our anniversary. I love you, baby. More than anything in the world.”
“I love you,” she whispers. “I love you so much.”
Her lips land on mine. I return her eager, passionate kiss with my own, feeling her body pressed against me.
I’ll never get over it, the feel of her in my arms. The knowledge that I managed to find and keep the love of my life.
I feel her laughing in my arms and I pull back to look at her. “What’s so funny?”
“Just that you came up with the best present of all time and my one year anniversary gift to you is… oh, I don’t even want to say it now.”
I feel a smile curve my lips. I’ve been smiling more in the last year than I have in the previous decade combined. “C’mon baby, out with it.”
“Fine, I’ll tell you. It’s a blank photo album. For your photography.” She sighs. “Paper is the traditional one year gift, you know. I would have been happy with a print of one of your photographs.”
With Lila’s encouragement, I’ve taken up photography on the side. I’ve gotten pretty serious about it, learning how use cameras with actual film, developing my photos in a darkroom. She’s been encouraging me to exhibit my work in a gallery, but I’m still coming around to the idea.
It feels a little weird to be allcome look at me and what I made.But maybe one day.
“You can still have an art print,” I tell her, tucking a strand of pink hair behind her ear. “But I’m thinking I want to do a boudoir shoot of you. Maybe wearing that bridal lingerie. Maybe with nothing on at all.”
Her cheeks flush, but she gives me a coy smile and says, “Why not both?”
That deserves another kiss.
My body heats at the feel of her, at the thought of photographing my wife nude, but before I can take the kiss to a really interesting place, she puts a hand on my chest and takes a deep breath.
“Speaking of paper,” she says. From her pocket, she pulls out a rolled up strip of paper and clutches it between her pink fingertips. She gives me a shy smile. “I have a surprise for you too.”
Curiously, I take the little cylinder of paper and unroll it.
It’s a picture, a grey grainy wedge with a patch of black in the center.
And within the black void is a tiny grey smudge. No bigger than a bean.
I stare at it.
“My annual doctor checkup was this morning,” she says. “I was going to tell you at home and then you blindfolded me. They had me pee on stick as part of their routine pregnancy tests and… well… surprise. An ultrasound confirmed it.”
