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We lie together in happy silence. Finally Xavier slowly pulls his cock out of me, kisses me gently, then groans and starts to move off me.
“Where were you hiding all this while?” I whisper after Xavier rolls off me so I can breathe. He pulls me against his bare chest, wraps me in his big arms until I’m snug and secure, happy and warm. “And how long do you need to stay hidden before it’s safe? Do we need to leave town? I’ll do it. You know I will. We can start over somewhere. I can just—”
Xavier shuts me up with a kiss. He says nothing, but I feel him tense up. He kisses my hair, then sighs. I sigh too, knowing that although there’s a ring on my finger and his seed in my womb, I’m about to re-open my cookie store which happens to be located a dozen miles from the prison.
“I’m dead, remember?” he says softly against my hair. “Nobody’s going to recognize me here, Connie. I’ll lay low for the next six months, maybe a year. Stay in the kitchen while you serve your customers. It’s going to be fine, baby. I’m already ancient history for everyone at the prison. I kept my distance from the other inmates, didn’t make a lot of friends, didn’t make a lot of enemies.”
I sigh out a breath, listen to his heart, feel myself relax a bit. Xavier’s right. Sure, it’ll take time before we can fully relax. But every day together brings us closer to complete freedom, and if every day is like this, that’s something we can live with.
Then my wandering mind goes back to something Xavier just said.
“Well, you did make one enemy in prison,” I correct him. “Patrick tried to have you killed, right? That’s what started this whole thing. It’s the event that got your cell unlocked, gave you the chance to escape.” Raising my head and looking at him, I see a strange dreamy gaze in his dark eyes. “Ohmygod, we never would have met if Patrick hadn’t tried to kill you, Xavier! You’d never have escaped. You’d never have found me. You’d never have been able to . . . to protect me!”
Xavier swallows thickly, blinks like he’s forcing himself to return from that mystical place my question just transported him to, a place my own boggled mind is rapidly spinning itself towards.
“I can’t explain exactly why Kieran put out a hit on me, but I understand it,” Xavier says softly as he blinks again and shakes his head. “There was always some weird tension between Kieran and me. We’d stare each other down in the yard like two bulls about to lock horns. But there was a truce between the prison gangs at the time, and we couldn’t get into a fight or else we’d have turned all the gangs against us, pretty much guaranteeing that we’d be killed.” He shrugs, shakes his head, shrugs again. “Can’t explain it, babe. It was just a simmering, seething tension between Patrick and me, like our paths were bound to cross. It makes no sense, but . . . but shit, it does make sense in a way, doesn’t it, sweetheart?”
I stare at him, close my eyes for a long blink, then nod silently, rest my head on his broad chest, listen to my man’s heart whisper the answer.
Because only the heart can understand the answer.
Only the soul can see the truth.
The truth that fate is real.
Maybe the only thing that’s real.
Real and here.
Here for us.
Here forever.
∞
EPILOGUE
ONE YEAR LATER.
VALENTINE’S DAY.
XAVIER
The line of customers goes on forever. It’s our first Valentine’s Day since the new storefront opened last spring, and Connie is bouncing off the walls with excitement.
Our three-month-old twin girls Corrina and Christina are bouncing with excitement too, but thankfully not off the walls. They’re safely secured in their pink-and-black matching seats perched on a spotlessly clean stainless-steel shelf away from the ovens and the sinks and the dishwasher and the utensils and anything and everything that my paranoid ass can think of. They’re my babies, my two perfect cookies, two magical muffins, two charming cupcakes.
They’re mine.
All mine.
Just like their Mommy.
“Mommy, I want that one for my Valentine!” cries some kid at the counter outside as I listen from behind the kitchen door. I peer through the round glass window in the swinging kitchen door, see that Connie’s completely overwhelmed by the mad rush of customers going crazy for her heart-shaped cookies that have been selling faster than hot-cakes. And we know this because we also sell hot-cakes.
Glancing back at our babies, I rub my clean-shaved jaw and debate whether I should go out there and help Connie serve our customers. We’ve been extremely careful keeping me hiddenthis first year, but after so long without any sign of people who might recognize me even beneath my “disguise” of a clean-shaved chin and well-combed long hair and big glasses that make me look like a nerd but hide my eyes and face pretty damn well, I figure it’s safe.
So I grab the carry-handles of the two baby-seats, push through the swinging kitchen doors, and stride out into the open like I’m declaring my freedom. Immediately some of Connie’s regular customers squee and coo at our adorable twin babies when I place them against the back counter facing the crowd.
