Page 69 of Slow Burn
EPILOGUE
BRYNN
It's nothing to be nervous about. And yet, I am edgy, anxious, my hands shaking and my skin sweaty. Although, to be fair, it's kind of hot in here. Gigi's studio lights pour down on the castle background we're posing Amelia on. Levi watches us, looking every bit my handsome king.
A few weeks after his accident, he went back to work. And I did too. I had no sooner gotten my last box unpacked when he suggested it. The six houses Deacon and Gwen were looking to build out on the land they owned needed buyers.
“I know you made this our home. I love it. It's not about where we live though; any place we live, you and Amelia, you will make it home.” Like usual, Levi was right; with that in mind, we struck a deal.
I would design the homes, we would put some of Levi's savings, and some of my Gold family inheritance, towards a hefty down payment. One of those six houses would be ours. We would move out to the lake as soon as ours was finished, which was about four months away.
Just about a year from the day Levi asked me to be his nanny.
Really, he was giving me the gift of a family. A family that would have dragons to slay, battles to fight, but would see its fairytale come true. We were lucky and we knew it. Now we just remembered to tell each other every day, tell our daughter how special she was.
How she made two lonely, damaged souls her parents.
Before I'd unpacked that final box and moved myself into our castle, I officially became Amelia's mother. Isabel signed her rights away allowing me to adopt her; I insisted we add the stipulation that should Isabel want contact with her someday, we would allow it. On our terms, of course.
I refused to take a choice away from a mother because it had been taken from me.
“Smile, baby. Look pretty for Gigi.” I coo at her now, adjusting the tulle on her dress and the tiara atop her ginger curls.
“Always pretty, munchkin. Just let aunt Gigi catch it, mmkay?” Gigi laughs and ducks back behind her camera, aiming and snapping.
For her one-year birthday, Gigi and I talked Levi into a Princess photoshoot. Completely with a stuffed dragon, a castle backdrop and a tiny tiara. Not that it took much effort, Levi adores his Princess—and his queen—and will give us whatever we ask for.
Like the elaborate Princess themed room we planned for the new house. I'm keeping the tree mural; this time Lola will paint it with fairies instead of owls. Because Princess Amelia loves her fairies. Levi will sit with us through countless viewings of all the Tinkerbell movies—although he prefers the pirate one the most.
“Always a pretty Princess.” Levi calls from behind Gigi, making faces and dancing her favorite plush dragon in the air to make her smile.
Man, the way that little girl smiles and giggles at her father. The way he will do whatever it takes to make her smile. How adorable he looks dancing around and being goofy. Just for her. Ovaries implode.
Levi makes goofy look hot as hell. Think after we get our family photo, I might take his hot, goofy ass out to the family minivan and show him what it does to this mama.
Besides being a stellar father, he's a good man. To me, to our friends, to everyone. Hunter had been injured during the fire that put Levi in the hospital. But when they met the mother and baby they saved, they knew it had happened that way for a reason. And Levi decided to do something else for another mother.
Just weeks after becoming a mother for the second time—on paper at least—Levi gave me back the choice that had been taken from me. Using connections in the police department, he dug up all the info my mother tried to have kept from me.
“If you want it. Her parents want you to know about her. Want you to know you made the right choice. You can even write her if you want, they said. Tell her about yourself, about our daughter. You have the choice now to have a piece of Abbi back. If you want it.”
I thought when he gave me Amelia, I loved him. When he gave me back myself, helped me find who I had let be derailed so long ago, that I loved him. But, Levi giving me back the choice I had always wondered about, that made me love him more than the stars in the sky.
Levi had found my daughter's adoptive parents and spoke with them for weeks. Seems they were always open to the birth parents knowing about her. My mother spoke for me when she drafted the adoption papers that said I wanted no such thing. Papers I foolishly signed.
Papers Abbi's adoptive parents, the Decker's, sent in a packet full of photos and drawings and life moments of my daughter. Papers that they teasingly wrote “VOID” over. I did not have the courage, not yet anyway, to write her, but those monthly packages of photos and moments of my daughter's life, they reminded me I'd made the right choice.
The second right choice, the one that gave me Amelia and Levi, I was reminded of every single day.
“Think we got it, mama. That precious face. Pretty sure I had the shot hours ago, I just love her face. So weird how she looks like the two of you. That ginger hair and blue eyes. Those freckles.” Gigi bent in front of the prop we had little Amelia sitting on, showering her chubby cheeks with kisses, making the little Princess giggle wildly.
“It is kind of weird. Looks nothing like her egg donor.” Levi commented as he came up from behind me, wrapping his thick arms around me.
I didn't entirely agree. Sometimes all I could see was Isabel when I looked at my daughter. Now, speaking with Nance Decker, and knowing her side, I didn't mind it like I once did. Besides, somehow, my little girl really did look like me. Like the good parts of me and all the best parts of Levi.
“Hey y'all!” I twist to watch Cage and a pregnant Charli come in.
Charli has been glowing for months. If ever there was a woman meant to be a mother, I think it must be Charli. Us girls have spent the past months setting up a nursery for their baby boy, and Cage looks like he was the first man to impregnate their wife.
