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“No, Blaire, you don’t have to be ashamed.”
Her hand comes down and covers mine. “I know that. And now I’m just embarrassed over how I’ve pushed people away. People that are important to me. People that I want in my life.”
Gazing up at her, I want nothing more than to reach up and thread my fingers through her silky hair and pull her down for a kiss. And then roll over and make slow love to her all afternoon. But even as the meds work to dull my pain, my mind knows none of that is possible.
“We can’t, Blaire. There’s so many things I currently can’t do and soon there will be even more of them. I’d slow you down.”
Her hand moves upward, coasting slowly from my chest, over my shoulder and up my neck before resting against my cheek. “Maybe I don’t mind slow,” she says. “Maybe I’d like to be given a choice and not have it taken away from me.”
Her face angles closer, her lips only inches from mine while her wide eyes stare directly into my eyes. “You ever think of that, Lee?”
Hope sings through my veins. “You’re right. Blaire, could you love a crippled man?”
“No.”
The word puffs harshly against my lips and that hope in my chest shrivels up and dies.
Blaire’s sweet lips spread wide in a grin. “But I could love you.”
“You could?”
“I could because I already do. I love you, Lee.”
Grasping her face, I draw her down to me and smash my mouth into hers. My lips are frantic as I kiss her and moan at her sweet taste upon my lips.
“I love you, Blaire,” I sob, uncaring at how unmanly the tears streaming down my cheeks are or how they pepper our kisses with their salty sting. “So damn much.”
Laughing, Blaire pulls away, her eyes shining brightly down at me. “I love you too, and don’t you dare ever call yourself crippled again.”
I’m not going to fight her on that, not when I’ve just won the heart of the woman I love.
Nodding, I haul her back down and kiss her until we’re both too breathless to do any more talking for a long time.
EPILOGUE
TEN YEARS LATER
BLAIRE
Watching my husband race our oldest child Lily around the driveway, her on her bike, him in his wheelchair, I clench my fingers tightly together and bite my tongue.
Those two! Two peas in a pod.
Lily may have my bright red hair and green eyes, but she has her father’s stubborn streak. And his ability to sweet talk his way out of anything.
Ten years ago we tore up his resignation letter together and after speaking with the board, he got the office redesigned with wider doorways and a handicap accessible restroom. He ended up not needing to go full time into a wheelchair just yet, though he does use it for long walks with the kids and it comes with us whenever we travel.
And boy, do we travel! The kids have been to thirty out of the forty-nine continental states. And we have plans to go to Alaska in the fall to see the Northern Lights.
Lee worried about slowing me down and that hasn’t happened yet. If anything, things are far busier for me since we’ve been together and welcomed three children.
Well, soon to be four.
I give my sizeable belly a pat, where the littlest Matthews, another boy, is cooking and just four or so weeks away from his due date.
When I told Vanna I was pregnant again, she laughed and said to count her out because three was her limit. I couldn’t help teasing her about being a quitter. We were both pregnant at the same time for two pregnancies, and it would have been nice to have us waddling around together again.
Though this little guy was quite a surprise, as Lee had a vasectomy two months before we found out I was pregnant again. Guess this little guy was just meant to be.
