Page 119 of Unspoken Promises

A giggle erupts and more tears stream down. “That’s what I told Enzo you were. My uncle.”

His chest bubbles with a small laugh but he stops himself as the movement clearly causes him pain.

We sit in comfortable silence, soaking in the end of a fourteen-year history together. I’m ready to say goodbye to Lucy. But not Anton.

“I think you’d really like Echo Valley.”

He lifts his eyebrows. “Yeah?”

I nod. “I know a woman who makes some mean pierogis.”

“We never did try Polish cuisine.”

I hold my friend’s hand in silence while listening to the buzz of activity outside the room. The world around us spins, but Anton and I are still. And finally, right where we ought to be.

EPILOGUE

TWO MONTHS LATER

We found out Ava wasn’t pregnant. After that, she made a list of all the things she wanted to do in the next few years, and that list included running a team at GhostEye. I didn’t understand just how determined that woman is. How sincere. Giving. Full of life.

She is so full of it she’s breathed a new one into me.

Not long after that fateful night, we both threw ourselves back into work, both at GhostEye and on the ranch. Anton moved into Ava’s old house. I took Ava shopping to settle into the one we now share and to get her a winterwardrobe. We got through the trauma like people often get through grief. We kept busy as we digested the horror we lived through, and after a couple of months, she got the “normal” she always told me she was craving.

We also hired some highly recommended therapists. That definitely helped.

Through her, I realized how stagnant I’d become. I’d spent over a decade working hard and hardly playing so with her help I finally felt secure hiring more people on the security team. Ava also insisted I hire an executive assistant.

With Ava by my side, I’m more confident in these things. She might be a lot younger than I am, but the woman is a boss lady, matriarch in the making. She’s kept an eagle eye on the new hires, and somehow, her diligence and industrious nature, her curiosity, all make her my perfect partner on every level. Personal and professional.

The best place in the world is standing by her side.

But we both need a break.

And now that I make promises, I’ve taken her on a long weekend away.

I dragged her out of Echo Valley for a weekend in New Mexico. Visiting Roswell seems right up her street, and it gave me an excuse to swing by Starlight Canyon to visit my sister, her husband, and my nephew who were the only ones not to have met Ava. That needed to happen.

They loved her.

Approved.

So I whisk her off to UFO fest. Since meeting Ava, there are a million and one things I’ve done I never thought I’d ever do, and this is one of them. In all my years as a rancher’s kid in New Mexico, never once did I think about coming into this planetarium in Roswell unless I was wearing a tin foil hat.

When we enter the dome-shaped building, a manager greets us with two drinks.

“Welcome to Roswell Planetarium,” he says with a bright smile. “May I tempt you with an Area 51 mocktail?”

Ava glances at me, amused and taken aback by the individual hospitality she wasn’t expecting.

“Sure, thank you.” She takes the swirly concoction of God knows what from his platter.

I take the other.

“Right this way.” He ushers us out of the lobby area and through a door leading to the giant dome.

The manager allows us in and says, “It’s all yours. Enjoy.” And leaves through the door.

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