Page 53 of Peak of Love
She leaned into him as his hands roamed from her waist to her bottom. Dane sat back and pulled her over onto his lap. She needed to be closer. He locked their bodies so she could feel his growing arousal.
“Butyouare my everything, Celina. I love you so much. I’ve been crazy in love with you, even before I could say it out loud. Baby, I love you with all I’ve got. I want to spend every minute of every day showing you how much.”
They kissed deeply and grabbed greedily. As their lips travelled over the terrain of skin and bodies entangled without restraint, he said the words over and over again. “Sweet Celina, my love. You’re everything, baby. I love you so much. My everything, my Celina.”
“I love you too, Dane,” she said through gasps of excitement as he rocked her over his hips. “With all I’ve got. I love you for you.”
When they made love again, tears fell. And they were happy, healing tears.
One Year Later
A lone figure approached the gravesite, clad in a jacket that kept her body warm despite another one of Seattle’s bleak and foggy afternoons. Her body was hot from the walk while her face was chilled by the spring rain pelting her cheeks, forehead, lips.
She welcomed the contrasting extremities of hot breath against the sharp wind, a heavy tread transporting a light heart, and melancholy that made happiness that much sweeter.
Asher Whittaker’s marble monument was built as a park bench. His widow sat at the edge and ran her hand up and down the white stone. And because she was alone, she let words float freely.
“I’m going to tell them soon, Asher. I’m just waiting for the right moment. It will be soon. I’m sure at some level they know. In the last year, their Uncle Dane is as much the carpool driver and school tutor as I am. They even converted him into a true Marvel fan! A feat which you and I never accomplished.” Her chuckle was mixed with the rush of overwhelming emotion.
“I know you see how much Dane makes them happy. Gives them confidence and encouragement and love. So much love. As much as Jerome and Jonas miss you with every bit of their hearts, there’s room for happiness, too. In fact, there’s so much happinessbecauseof you.
“You didn’t have enough time with them—it will never be enough—but you gave them a foundation of what a father is supposed to be. Each experience you had with them was its own lifetime. I’m grateful for every second they spent with you, my love. So grateful that you showed your sons what a man should be to his children.
“You showed that to Dane, too. When he’s with Jerome and Jonas, he isn’t replacing you as a father. Your spirit and memory and love guidehim. He is a fatherwithyou.”
She lifted her face, tears mixing with the mist and rain of the in-between: the solemnity of winter and the promise of spring, co-existing in perfect harmony.
“Last night, he asked me to marry him.” Celina smiled at the memory. Dane’s exact words, while they cuddled in the sofa after tucking the boys in, were exactly how she needed to be asked.
If you ever want to marry again, Celina, will you marry me?
“He’s amazing, isn’t he?” She lobbied the rhetorical question to herself, to the bench, to the world. So wonderful and sweet and confident and patient and so very, veryhers.She was his, too.
When she’d lost Asher, she was scared to trust anything. She loved her boys unconditionally, worked endlessly to provide a home, and would have dedicated her life to the children’s happiness. Yet she didn’ttrustthat her love was enough or that her home was secure or that their happiness was guaranteed. She didn’t trust herself.
Dane’s trust in her—and the fact that he gave himself completely—changed everything.
“Asher, I said yes. I’m marrying our best friend.”
***
Jerome and Jonas snuggled on each side of Celina as they drank hot chocolate. Maybe it was the foggy weather that made everyone nostalgic. She had a load of laundry to fold but when the boys asked to look at photos together, she couldn’t resist the opportunity to remember their father with them.
They were looking at a picture of preteen Asher with Parker on a Boy Scouts outing. They were squatting over a pile of firewood, looking eager to start it up.
“Remember when we went camping in Oregon and Dad put Christmas lights around our tent? It was in the middle of summer!” Jerome’s voice cracked and she got a sense that adolescence was stealthily turning her sons into young men without her permission.
“You guys just turned seven.” That trip was a mere months before the accident. Celina cleared her throat. “What do you remember about the trip other than the lights?”
Jonas jumped out of his seat before she finished asking. “He made a bonfire! It was so big, and you got mad at him because you said it wasn’t safe to dance around it!” Her son started to skip around the coffee table as a pantomime of their dancing.
She remembered the trip, and the bonfire, and the fear of looking up from fixing the sleeping bags to find her sons perilously close to the bouncing flames. Asher was always the risk-taker, the fun parent. In their little family, it was up to Celina to draw the boundaries of safety.
“You told us to stop and you were mad.”
“I was?” She sighed. It dismayed her that their memories of the camping trip included her scolding.
“Then Dad and you danced that funny dance around the fire. You weren’t mad anymore,” Jonas offered happily.
