Page 84 of Captivated

She shakes her head, her lips trembling, and then rising in a smile. “Nothing is wrong, Cash. These are happy tears.”

“Okay….” I’m not going to lie, she’s frightening me right now a bit.

Suddenly she outstretches her hand and opens her fingers, revealing a small lock painted in teal blue. It’s not tiny, like the lock you would find on a girl’s diary, and it’s definitely not the same size as the two that hold our names together on this fence. It’s somewhere in between, which is exactly where my thoughts are right now as I try to figure out what she’s telling me.

“We need to add this lock to the fence, Cash—with ours…” It takes me a minute before the realization hits me and I choke.

“Are… are you saying what I think you’re saying?” I can’t help it, my tears come forward now too. Piper turned me into this man that cries all the fucking time, but I own it. She makes me feel everything.

She nods. “Yes. Our family, our love is growing, Cash. We’re having a baby,” she smiles wide, revealing that beautiful smile that drew me in from the first moment I saw it.

“What? How?” My mind is racing along with my heart, my entire body buzzing with excitement and disbelief and pure joy.

She wipes away tears from under her eyes and then continues. “I went for my appointment on Thursday to do the final check before we pick a date for implantation and the ultrasound tech saw the baby. We did it, Cash. We made a baby. Part you and part me.”

I drop to my knees, pressing my face to her stomach, wrapping my arms around her, holding the two of them so tightly like I’m afraid they might disappear, and thanking God on my knees for this woman and this life I’ve been given. “I can’t believe this, sweetheart. I’m so fucking happy,” I look up at her, her eyes discarding tears like it’s their job.

“Me too, Cash. So please, put this on there,” she lifts her hand with the lock still inside. “Because even if this baby doesn’t stick, I want to remember this moment, this feeling of knowing we beat the odds. We overcame and our love healed us and changed our lives and hopefully created this new one for us to love.”

“I fucking love you so much, baby,” I stand, kissing my wife with every ounce of my soul—the woman that captivated me and now owns me, the woman that I never knew I needed more than anyone in my life. Our tongues meld together, our arms encircle one another, encapsulating our baby between us, a real-life, physical extension of our love.

“I love you too, Cash. And look,” she says, turning the lock upside down to show me the numbered combination. “I set the combo to the due date.”

“02-28-23,” I read out loud.

“You know what’s crazy?” She asks me.

“What?”

“That is the day I left home. The day that my parents forced me into a new life, a life that brought me to you. If that’s not a sign, I don’t know what is.”

All I can do is shake my head as my breath catches in my throat. Life has put us through hell and back, but I always knew we would get our happily ever after.

And when I held my son for the first time, who was born on that exact date nine months later, I promised to never let him know a life without love, to never fear that emotion or run from it. Because the love I received from his mother, is a love that changed my life.

THE END

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