SWNOVELS Chapter Runaway Love: Epilogue
Austin’s alarm went off, yanking me from a deep, contented sleep. He reached over and hit snooze, but before he could get out of bed, I looped an arm around his torso. “No. Stay.”
He laughed gently. “I have to get on the road soon.”
“But it’s our anniversary.”
“Anniversary?”
“Yes! It’s the third Saturday in June. One year ago today, I came knocking on your door looking for a job.”
He settled back on his pillow and put his arms around me. “Huh. I guess you’re right. It has been a year. Feels like longer.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“Yes.” He gave me a squeeze. “It feels like you’ve always been here. Always belonged here.”
I smiled. “It does. So I will forgive you for not remembering this very important anniversary. The day I found the life I was looking for.”
He kissed the top of my head. “I found the same thing.”
“What time will you be back tonight?”
“Pretty late. The client is in Ann Arbor. And they have a photo shoot scheduled on Monday for Architectural Digest, so I have to get it down there today to give them time to stage the dining room.”
I gasped and picked up my head. “I didn’t know about the photo shoot!”
“I just found out about it.”
“That’s amazing!” Excitement overshadowed my disappointment that he’d be gone all day.
Over the last nine months, demand for a custom Austin Buckley table had exploded—he had more orders than he could possibly fulfill. His tables were in shops and galleries in five different cities, including Chicago and Detroit, and this summer he was moving from the garage into a real workshop, one that had a showroom up front.
He’d have done that already, but he’d been busy last fall rehabbing Miss Edna’s School of Dance into Sutton Dance Academy. The building, just outside of town, had actually been in pretty good shape, but had needed new floors and barres, a new sound system, and a lobby remodel.
I’d started teaching classes in October, enrollment had grown steadily all year, and my summer workshops were jam-packed—I actually had waitlists. I’d hired a college student to help me out over the next couple months, and I was planning to hire one more full-time instructor in the fall.
“I’m so proud of you,” I said, my eyes misting over. “You work so hard.”
“I’m proud of you too.” He tucked my hair behind my ear. “And I’m sorry I won’t be around today to celebrate us. But you’ll be right here when I get home, right?”
I smiled. “Absolutely.”
I’d moved in last fall before it got cold enough that Austin would have had to heat the garage. We’d been discussing it for a couple weeks—it seemed silly to go through all that trouble when I was spending nights in his room anyway. And even though I tried my best to sneak out at the crack of dawn so the kids wouldn’t see me, they’d totally caught me in the hallway like three times. We were trying to think of the best way to approach it with the kids when they sat us down one night and announced they thought I should move in. They even helped bring over all my stuff.
Sometimes they asked if we were going to get married, and we always said the same thing—maybe, when the time is right. But we’d been too busy getting our new businesses up and running to really give it serious thought.
When it happened, it happened. What I had now was everything I’d ever wanted.
Love. Family. Home.
I was right where I belonged.
“Owen! Adelaide! Let’s go!” I shouted up the stairs just before nine. “The teacher can’t be late!”
“Coming!” Adelaide came rushing down the steps dressed in her dance clothes, holding up a few hairpins. “Can you help me with my bun?”
“Yes. Where’s your brother?” I asked, taking the pins from her hand and sliding them into her hair.
“In the bathroom. Ouch—that one hurts.”
I readjusted the hairpin. “Shake your head. Everything secure?”
She shook her head and jumped up and down. “Yes.”
“Good. Grab your dance bag and get in the car.” I called up the stairs one last time to tell Owen to get a move on, then wrote Austin a quick text.
I miss you already. Drive safely and let me know when you get there, okay?
I added the red kiss mark emoji like I always did and hit send.
“I’m ready,” Owen said as he came down the stairs. He jumped from about the fifth one.
“Nice,” I said, ruffling his hair. “Good plié on the landing.”
Both kids had a lot of talent—Adelaide was progressing beautifully in jazz and ballet, and Owen was fantastic at hip hop and tap. I loved that I was their first dance teacher.
“Where’s Dad again today?” Adelaide asked once we were on our way to the studio.
“Delivering furniture.”
I heard giggling in the backseat and checked on them in the rearview. “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing,” said Owen. “I, uh, made a funny face.”
But the look they exchanged had me wondering if they were up to something.
Later that afternoon, I was cooking dinner when the doorbell rang. I heard the twins’ feet clatter down the stairs and then giggling.
“Kids? Who’s at the door?” I set my spatula down on the spoon rest and turned off the heat under the pot.
“It’s a delivery man!” Adelaide shouted. “He needs you to sign something.”
I smiled. Maybe he’d sent anniversary flowers? Austin was good at surprising me and he loved doing it—small things like bringing me coffee or fudge during the day, thoughtful things like shoveling the snow at the studio or salting the parking lot, sweet things like roses for no reason, dirty things like a hot text message in the middle of the day, and big things like an October weekend in New York City so I could pick up the box of items I’d saved from my mother and see Morgan and her family.
I tried to be just as thoughtful—bringing him lunch while he was working, checking in on his dad, massaging his sore muscles (although that usually led to other things), and when I saw him getting too wound up, reminding him to take a break every once in a while. Go easier on himself.
When Morgan saw us together, she told me she knew instantly he was the one.
“I’ve never seen you so happy,” she said, hugging me tight. “This is right. I feel it.”
As I made my way to the front door, I remembered I owed her a phone call. We were trying to—
My feet stopped moving. My heart began to race.
Through the screen door, I saw Austin standing on the front porch, wearing a black tuxedo and a grin.
I covered my mouth with my hands. “Oh my god.”
“Hi,” he said, holding up a ring box. “I’m here about a bride.”
“Oh my god.” Tears sprang to my eyes as a thousand butterflies took flight in my belly.
Next to me, the twins were giggling. “Go out there,” one of them said.
I pushed open the door and stepped out onto the porch. My legs trembled, and my head spun.
Austin—my gorgeous, strong, beloved Austin—went down on one knee and opened the little ring box. A diamond winked at me. “About a year ago, a woman showed up at my door wearing a wedding dress and sneakers,” he said. “She was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen, so I tried to make her go away, because I didn’t want to feel the things she made me feel. I didn’t like the idea that she might turn our lives upside down. I didn’t want anything to change.” His lips tipped up, and his dark eyes twinkled. “But she didn’t stay away.”
I shook my head, tears splashing down my cheeks. “She couldn’t.”
“I’ll be forever grateful that she came back. And I’d like her to stay forever.” He glanced through the screen door, where his children stood side by side, just as they had the first day we met. “Now?”
They nodded, their smiles mile-wide.
Austin focused on me again, melting my heart with his gaze. “Veronica Sutton, will you marry me?”
“Yes!” I tried to shout it, but it came out like a squeak because my throat was so tight. “Yes, I’ll marry you!”
The kids cheered as he slid the ring on my finger. He rose to his feet, and I threw my arms around him, crying tears of joy. The twins came out and we opened up our hug to include them. “You guys knew!” I accused, squeezing them tight. “That’s why you were giggling this morning!”
“They knew,” said Austin. “But they were sworn to secrecy.”
“We did a good job,” said Adelaide. “Mostly.”
“You did a perfect job,” I assured her. “This was the best surprise ever.”
“Can we be in the wedding?” Owen asked.
“Of course!” I said, filled with joy at the prospect of being able to plan a wedding to the man of my dreams. Absolutely everything was going to be different this time. It would be real.
“And can we call you Mom?” Adelaide asked shyly. “We want to. We think it’s cool to have two moms.”
Austin and I locked eyes—his were shining too.
“That would make me very happy,” I said, smiling through tears. “Sometimes I don’t know what I did to deserve you all.”
“You knocked on the right door,” said Owen.
I laughed and pulled them all in close once more. “I certainly did.”