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Madelyn had no idea Steve and I had joined forces to take down the man who so carelessly almost ruined her life. Whether or not that had been his intent, I didn’t care, because he’d taken something from her that hadn’t been his to take.
I let Daniela play in the sandbox until Lukas woke up, and while I fed him his bottle she sat next to me and gazed down at her favorite new toy in the world.
For Lucy’s part, she couldn’t decide who needed her attention most, and she and Bailey seemed to divvy up guardian responsibilities pretty well. I could always find Lucy in one crib or the other, while Bailey and Luna, our sweet new white Pit Bull puppy, slept at the doorway of the room so that anyone trying to pass through had to pass over them.
Madelyn was still completely passed out when I got home with the kids and I fed each of them, put them through bathtime and tucked them into their beds.
I had never been so at peace before in my life. I was needed here, needed by our children and plainly loved by my wife. It had taken a long time for me to accept that when she said she loved me, she meant it.
Every day I came home to happy faces, greeted at the door by Bailey and Luna, Lucy blinking at me from wherever it was she’d stretched out for a nap.
Madelyn started back to work from home, though Hailey still came most days to help her with the kids, and I was amazed by how close the two had become. Hailey had stepped right into Madelyn’s life where her mother had stepped out, something I’d finally recognized was her gift.
Madelyn’s parents did make a point of making the trip north every couple months to visit us and Grams, older than dirt, was still going strong. Every time she saw us she crowed about how she’d known Madelyn would make an excellent mother, just before she helped herself to a handful of my ass.
Old habits die hard.
It had taken Madelyn a while to get used to the fact I’d committed so quickly and sold my place even before consulting her, but with time she began to understand that I’d been committed from the start and she blossomed with the love and care from the people in her life.
My dream girl was finally my reality, the woman I came home to every night and woke wrapped around each morning. With her I was at peace, grateful for every moment. I didn’t deserve the beautiful things I’d been given, but not a day passed without my gratitude.
Nothing ever came of the trouble we’d experienced in court. The three men who had shown up never materialized into anything of substance, and aside from choosing the wrong case from which to make an example, there was no further news, possibly because it would cast certain officials in a negative light.
As I curled up behind my wife in our bed later that night, she sighed contentedly and took my hand in hers, spreading my fingers so she could kiss each individual fingertip. Something that had been mine, that had now become hers.
“Goodnight, Mr. Beckman,” she murmured sleepily and I grinned into her hair.
“Until the morning, Mrs. Beckman,” I responded against her ear.
She knew what that meant, and she giggled just a little, because it meant we’d get little more than a nap before we were after one another, tender moments stolen during the quiet of the night before either of the kids woke.
“Love you, baby,” I murmured, something that elicited a hum from her and she stirred slowly, turning to face me, in order to press her lips to mine.
“Always.”
21
Epilogue - Madelyn
Two years later…
Go tell Daddy that we’re waiting for him.
Daniela nodded at me, as capable of reading what I signed to her as she was capable of reading my lips.
The happy birthday, she signed to me with a lift of her little eyebrows, and I nodded at her with a huge smile on my face.
Adam’s forty-eighth birthday was something he’d thought he could sneak past us, but with Hailey’s help I’d been planning the small family affair for a while.
Life had been a little crazier of late. Shit had really hit the fan, uncovering decade upon decade of Mario’s indiscretions, and many of the women from his past had been called upon to give testimony as a case was built against him.
For many of us the statute of limitations was past, but Steve had never given up and the discovery of a collection of unprocessed rape kits in a hospital storage facility had cracked the case wide open. It shed the light on an astonishingly far-reaching level of corruption, stretching from hospital administrators to police departments, to politicians, and certain members of organized crime–which surprised very few, it seemed.
Adam had been instrumental in bringing Mario to justice, something I’d discovered only after Steve told me just how hard my husband had pushed to have the proper individuals investigated.
My years in the Air Force had provided me with therapy both on the job and off, as my version of therapy was to get things out with physical exertion. As Mario’s trial wound on, my sweet husband became even more loving and tender with me and our children, there for each of us, ready to deal with the fallout of my emotions. It dredged up things I’d squashed down and suppressed years earlier, but I consented to do a few interviews since there were so many other women coming forward.
Most mornings Adam and I worked out together in our gym in the garage, the baby monitor on the floor between us and sometimes the workout was genuine, while other times I simply straddled him on the bench and held him tight.
