He tosses the towel aside, and slides me back in front of him.

“You can’t wear this,” he says and slips his shirt off of me, then to my surprise, simply wraps his arms around me and hugs me close. “Your back is so slender,” he murmurs. “My hands look so big on it.”

“I love the way your hands feel on my back,” I reply softly, and breathe him in. “You smell good.”

“Alecia, you take my breath away.” He buries his face in my neck and, still holding on tightly, takes a deep breath. “You are everything good in my life.”

“Are you okay?” I ask, a bit concerned. He’s holding onto me almost desperately.

“I need you to know,” he begins and kisses my cheek, then pulls back only far enough to look into my eyes. “I don’t want to just spend my life with you. I want to spend my only life with you. Every day.”

He swallows hard and drags his fingertips down my back, then up again, caressing me sweetly. “I know that forever is a long time, but if you tell me that I get to wake up to your sweet smile every day, it will never be long enough.” He sweeps my hair back behind my ear. “A smart woman once told me that love is a daily reminder. It’s saying, I choose you. Today and every day. Spend forever with me, Alecia.”

My heart stills, then stumbles into double time.

“Did you just ask me to marry you?” I whisper.

“I need you to marry me, be my partner, my friend, my love. You’re everything, amore. I love you more than you will ever understand.”

“I love you too,” I reply and kiss his lips softly.

“Is that a yes?”

“Hell yes.”

Epilogue

Ten Years Later

~Steven Montgomery~

The day is just waking up as I pad down the stairs in my son, Dominic’s, home toward the kitchen. My bride of fifty years today is still sleeping like an angel upstairs, and rather than make love to her, which was my first thought, as it is every morning, I decided to let the poor woman sleep.

It’s going to be a busy day.

I’m surprised to hear quiet voices in the kitchen, assuming that I’m the first up.

“Good morning, Dad,” Natalie says with a grin. She and Luke are sitting at the breakfast bar, sipping coffee. It never gets old hearing this sweet girl call me Dad. I’m not the man that she comes from, but she’s been mine for more than twenty years now, and I couldn’t love her more. She gives me a big hug, and when I point to my cheek, she plants a kiss there as well.

“You two are up early.” I pour myself a cup of coffee and lean against the counter.

“Josie and Maddie got in late, so we stayed up with Brynna and Caleb waiting for them,” Luke says. “And then Haley woke up this morning with bad dreams, so we decided to just stay up. I’m still not used to the twins driving.”

“Neither is Caleb,” I reply. “No parent is ever ready for their kids to grow up.”

“Olivia has decided that she’s in love,” Natalie says with a grimace, and laughs when Luke simply glares at her. “It’s just hormones.”

“I’ll lock her in her room.”

“No, you won’t.”

“She’s twelve,” Luke says adamantly.

“It’s all downhill from here, son,” I inform him good-naturedly. “Before you know it, it’ll be your fiftieth wedding anniversary and you’ll have seventeen grandchildren.”

Luke pales and I laugh, enjoying his panic.

“We have a while before that happens,” Nat reminds him, patting his face. “Of course, it doesn’t help that you have three daughters.”

“I’m surrounded by women,” he agrees, and I smile as I think of the two littlest ones, Chelsea and Haley, who are two little spitfires, even at nine and seven. “Keaton is all boy, though, and helps balance things out.”

“How’s work?” I ask Luke.

“It’s good.”

“He’s collaborating with some amazing people for his next project,” Nat adds proudly. “I have a feeling he’ll be nominated for the Oscar again next year.”

“I don’t need Oscars,” Luke says with a shake of the head. “Although, it doesn’t suck to have one on the mantle.”

“I’m so proud of you, handsome.”

She leans in to kiss him, and I refill my cup and wink at them, then head out the back door to sit on the patio before they get too carried away. The fire is already roaring, and Isaac, Stacy, Caleb and Brynna are huddled around it, drinking their own coffee, my boys cuddled up to their women.

I raised smart boys, that’s for sure.

“Good morning,” I greet them and sit in the single unoccupied chair. “Seems everyone is up early.”

“It’s a good morning for it,” Isaac replies, gesturing to the sun coming up over the mountains, casting the vines in soft pink sunlight.

“It’s beautiful,” Stacy agrees. “And most of the kids are still sacked out in the play room, so we’re taking advantage of the quiet.”

“Good plan. I hear the twins got in late.”

Caleb frowns and sighs. “They made curfew, I just hate that they’re driving, and they came out here, so they were on the freeway late at night.”

“They’re good girls,” Brynna says, and rubs her hand down her husband’s leg. My boys chose well when it came to their women. Strong, beautiful, smart women, all of them.

“Is Maddie still insistent that she wants to go to New York after she graduates to dance?” Stacy asks.

“Yes,” Brynna replies with a sigh. “I don’t think we’ll be able to talk her out of it.”

“She’s so good,” Stacy says. “She could do great things with it.”

“New York is too fucking far away,” Caleb growls.

“We have time,” Brynna whispers.

“A year,” he says. “It’ll feel like ten minutes.”

You have no idea, my boy. More like the blink of an eye.

“What about Josie?” I ask.

“She has a boyfriend, you know,” Brynna says and eyes her husband, who scowls again. “She’ll probably go to college here in Seattle.”

“If he touches her, I’ll break his arms.”

Brynna rolls her eyes.

“I’ll help you,” Isaac says casually.

“Oh good, you start in too,” Stacy says.