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Jackson fixes me with a thoughtful stare and never stops chewing the battered cod strips from the basket in front of him the whole time I'm speaking.
When I finish, his eyes shift from me to Rapid and back before he wipes his hands on a napkin and reaches for his drink.
"Soooo..." he draws out slowly after setting the cup back on the table, "if Dad isn't my dad anymore..."
His glance darts quickly, almost shyly, back to Rapid before zeroing in on me again. There's a glimmer of hope in that quick glance that has emotion welling up inside me.
Rapid's hand slides from where it’s been resting on my knee under the table a little higher and gives me a gentle squeeze when he hears my voice crack.
"Well bud, that's what we wanted to talk to you about," Rapid takes over for me while I grab a spare napkin and blink away the tears that have sprung up to my eyes.
His hand leaves my thigh and he drapes his arm around my shoulders, offering me silent support.
"How do you feel about letting me adopt you?"
This time Jackson's excitement isn't hidden. His eyebrows shoot up his forehead and his eyes go wide at Rapid's suggestion.
"Ohmygod! Can he, Mom? Can Rapid adopt me and be my dad for real now?"
Watching Jackson bounce in his seat with excitement at the prospect is enough to put me over the edge. Rapid's arm holds me tight as I break out in full blown tears.
"Mom? What's wrong?"
My son's voice as he rushes to my side only makes me cry harder. That protective tone he uses as he wraps his thin arms around me is one hundred percent Rapid's influence-- already teaching him how to be a man.
"I'm just happy, honey," I croak out.
"Girls are so weird," Jackson shakes his head at Rapid, but he doesn't loosen his arms around my neck.
Suddenly I'm laughing and crying, wiping the tears away while feeling loved and protected between my two favorite mountain men.
Epilogue 2
Five Years Later
Rapid
Ikeep a firm eye on Jackson and Toni as they paddle one of the tandem kayaks out on the calm water of the late season river.
When your son's best friend is a girl at age eight, it’s one thing; now that they're closing in on fourteen, it's a totally different ball game.
My brothers and their families are spread out all over the place, chasing kids, feeding kids, comforting kids who've scraped a knee or fallen in the water.
Current and Ginger's growing brood is with Cinnamon, over near the kitchen area, and I get the feeling that means one of my brothers is off somewhere making more kids.
"Things are lot different these days, aren't they?"
My buddy, Hayle, lays a cold beer in my hand and plops down on the chair beside me, using an opener on his key-chain to pry the top off one of the non-alcoholic root beers that Ginger bottles at her brewery in town.
"Amen to that," I answer, clinking my bottle to his without taking my eyes off the kids until I'm sure they're going to stick to the water for a while.
Then I let my gaze sweep across the family campsite till I find Sage. She's got things handled with the little ones, helping mom wrangle one of Eddy's boys into a life vest that he doesn't want to wear.
Man, I remember those days, being good enough at swimming that the vest seemed stupid while Vera and Don insisted I couldn't get in the boats without it.
Even my grandparents paddled down for this. They're getting up there in age now and they don't do the strenuous stuff anymore, but they weren't going to pass up an easy paddle downstream with a couple of great-grand kids in their boat.
"How the fuck did River get the voice, man?" Hayle points at my youngest brother, sitting beside the campfire with a guitar across his lap, singing a duet with Vera.
