Page 106 of Nesting With My Three Alphas
Not an ending, but a beginning that kept beginning.
I thought about the woman who'd fled Chicago in terror four years ago, convinced she was broken beyond repair. She couldn't have imagined this life, this love, this family we'd created from hope and patience and the radical decision to trust in something better.
But she'd been brave enough to take the first step.
Everything else had grown from that single act of courage. Leaving what was destroying her and trusting that something better was possible.
Outside our bedroom window, snow was falling on Hollow Haven, covering our town in the peaceful quiet that came with winter nights. Somewhere in the distance, I could hear the sound of the volunteer fire department responding to someone'semergency, probably just a power line down or a car in a ditch, the kind of small dramas that reminded you how good it was to live in a place where neighbors took care of each other.
Where community mattered.
Where families like ours could flourish.
This town had given me so much more than I ever could have dreamed of. It gave me three loving mates, and two wonderful children. But most of all, it gave me the absolute certainty that what we'd built together was unshakeable. That our love could create life, withstand crisis, and build a future worth fighting for.
That we were strong enough to last.
In the morning, there would be breakfast to make and children to get ready for school and daycare. Work to be done and the thousand small tasks that made up a life worth living. There would be challenges and growth and the beautiful, ordinary magic of people who'd chosen each other continuing to choose each other.
But tonight, there was just this.
Just us.
Just home.
I closed my eyes and let myself sink into the perfect contentment of being exactly where I belonged, surrounded by exactly the people I belonged with, living exactly the life I'd never dared to dream.
This was my ever after.
And it was perfect.
THE END
