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“She’s been trying pretty hard to make me think otherwise.” I shrugged. “Obviously I don’t have the best track record and I’m pretty new to this wife thing…obviously not very good at it.”
With a quick glance at Daniela, he stood, pulling me up with him.
“I’ll say this as many times as you need to hear it, Beckman.” His voice was all deep and raspy and it was hotter than hell. “Whether or not you got into this for the right reasons, I made you a promise because I was in love with you–amin love with you. You’re the most frustrating, beautiful, argumentative woman I’ve ever known.” He paused to chuckle. “Sexy as hell too, which doesn’t hurt my feelings.”
I couldn’t help but smile back.Adam Beckman thinks I’m sexy.
“Then come home with us.” I took a step closer. “Stay with us. It’s not home without you in it, anyway.”
“You being romantic, Mrs. Beckman?” His voice was rough, his eyes a little shiny.
“I’m asking my husband to come home with me. To stay.” My voice dropped and I knew it sounded at least half as suggestive as I wanted it to. “I don’t want to do any of this without you, Adam. Everything in that house adores you: Bailey, Lucy, the baby…I’m a completely foregone conclusion.” I trailed off as Daniela twitched in her sleep. “No more secrets or half-truths, I promise.”
“Does that include telling me the rest of what happened in college?” he asked seriously, and I wondered why that still bothered him so much.
“You have a personal vendetta or something?” I teased, but he didn’t smile back.
“I have always tried to protect you, Madelyn, whether or not you knew I was doing it. It was my job because you were Steve’s sister, but it was my choice because I wanted you for my own. The fact that someone hurt you was what took you away from me for decades. I lost you when you joined the Air Force, and I knew I’d missed my chance. I kicked myself for years.Years. And then you came home…” He looked hopeful, his eyes alight. “And you needed something. Finally, in some way, you needed me.”
I had always needed him, it was just that I’d never thought I could have him, and it was with incredible gratitude that I tipped my face upward and accepted the soft, sweet press of his lips against mine.
In the end, did it matter how we’d gotten here? Sure, it was later than either of us would have liked, but he was mine and I was his. What a close call that had been.
I looked over at the baby sleeping soundly on the booth bench seat, and I smiled up at him. “She’s worth all of it.”
“So are you, Madelyn.” He notched a finger under my chin and kissed me again, even more slowly, waiting for me to open to him, and when I did there was a whoop from somewhere in the restaurant.
“For better or worse,” he whispered against my lips, holding up his hand and I folded my pinkie around his.
“Promise.”
20
Epilogue - Adam
Six months later…
“You could have just called for the helicopter,” Madelyn whined. “If we don’t get there soon, you’ll need to pull over and help me with this and that will be an interesting show for all these passers-by.”
There was an accident on the highway, effectively shutting down all the traffic, and when Madelyn went into labor we opted for a backroads route, which was something apparently everyone else was also doing.
That my wife was pregnant had been a shock to me at first. Aaron had been the one to call it, when Madelyn went on the next rotation with her team the week following our experience in court. She could no longer excuse the throwing up or the hair-trigger emotions as being a result of the prolonged adoption process, and Atholton had taken one smug look at her before Big Mike handed over a twenty dollar bill, to hear her tell it.
Since we didn’t know Daniela’s actual birthday, we’d decided to celebrate it a week before she’d shown up at the camp, which made her less than a year older than her new sibling.
Madelyn had been so shocked by the realization, I think she took it harder than I did. Which is to say that while I wanted to shout it from the mountaintops, she walked around in a daze for a couple more weeks, trying to wrap her head around the fact there were more diapers and late night feedings in our future.
Katsaros took her off ground teams immediately. I hadn’t had to say a thing to the man, and Madelyn was furious. Instead, he put her on intel and told her she’d stay there until the baby was at least three years old.
I’d moved into a supervisory position at the hospital, and though I was a little sad to give up my position on the life flight, I didn’t have to talk myself down each and every shift, when I fought with my fear of heights. Also, our previous coordinator hadn’t been operating with the proper background and having a background in trauma care made me much more effective than she’d been.
We’d opted not to find out the sex of the baby, perfectly happy so long as he or she was born healthy and Lukas, named after my dad, was born at ten pounds, three ounces and an enormous twenty-three inches long. The doctor joked he’d never seen such a huge baby, but it made sense when he saw the parents.
Labor had been tough on Madelyn. The baby was already practically a toddler and he hadn’t been eager to make his appearance in the world. I’d made the very inappropriate joke that, like everything she did, Madelyn was working for this one. It made her give me a look that told me I’d best remove myself from her reach while she was pushing.
Daniela was making remarkable progress with sign language. Madelyn and I had been beating ourselves up to learn and teach her, and we found a small local-ish group of parents with deaf kids, people who were able to point us in the direction of useful programs and tools.
Aaron and Harlowe had just had their fourth kid, which was astonishing to me. The two were procreating like rabbits, and though it had taken me years to see and accept, they were perfect for one another.
