A Missing Heart (36 page)

“Welcome home,” Cammy says. A burst of emotions explodes through my chest, as nothing has ever felt so right. I’ve never felt so damn lucky in my entire life. I pick up my pace and step up onto the farmer’s porch, looking back at Cammy once more for approval before I open the front door to what I’m still silently praying isn’t someone else’s house. “Go ahead,” she says.

As the opening door reveals the interior, I find a furnished house, half with my stuff, half with new things. The floors and walls have all been redone, and Hunter and Dad are standing smack in the middle of the living area, off to the right. “You shittin’ me?”

“Welcome home, son,” Dad says.

“Well, now you can take over some of the family dinners and Sunday breakfasts,” Hunter says. “You have no more excuses.”

“Can we afford this place?” I ask Cammy, knowing I make a good salary, but it hasn’t ever seemed like enough to afford a place this big.

“The place was trashed inside,” Dad says. “We got you a deal that’ll make your mortgage cheaper than your last house.”

“This was the big job we had, AJ. The one we were supposed to start last week.”

“Holy—”

Ever runs past me and up the stairs. “Which is my room?”

Gavin follows her, trudging up the stairs on all fours. “I want a room too!”

“There are five bedrooms, so hopefully they can work it out,” Cammy laughs.

“I don’t even know what to say,” I tell everyone.

Cammy takes my hand and leads me through the large, open-concept first floor and out the rear French doors that lead outside into the backyard—my backyard.

We take the few steps down off of the wrap-around farmer’s porch into the overgrown yard, covered in meadow grass and weeds. Cammy continues pulling me forward, leading me up to the one and only large oak tree in the middle of the yard and yanks at the wooden swing dangling from the branch. “You’re unreal,” I tell her.

“It’s what you always wanted,” she tells me, resting her head on my shoulder.

I wrap my arms around her, pull her into me, and kiss her with everything I’m feeling in my heart right now. I don’t care that my whole family might be watching from the window. My arms lock around her, and I wish I could pull her closer, but we’re as close as possible.

“That’s true, this house is a dream come true, but, Cam,
you
are all I ever wanted,” I say, brushing a loose lock of hair off her face. “You must love me an awful lot, going through the trouble to make my dreams come true—”

“I have always loved you this much,” she says. “I want to be with you in those dreams of yours. That’s been
my
only dream.”

A warm breeze blows Cammy’s hair into my face, bringing in the scent of lavender—definitely lavender. I’m sure now. The sensation forces a warmth through every inch of my body, making me see the full picture of the path we have both traveled down. “You know,” I sigh. “There was always something missing, from the moment you left me.”

“What do you mean?” she asks.

“You took half of my heart with you, and Ever took the other half. I was left for thirteen years with nothing but a missing heart.”

“And now?” She asks.

“You’re both back, and so is my heart.”

EPILOGUE

"WE'RE GOING OUT
for dinner tonight,” I tell Cammy. “Your parents are watching the kids.” Cammy walks into the kitchen where I’m concocting some breakfast she’ll surely pretend to love before adding a handful of salt.

“
My
parents offered to watch the kids tonight?” she questions. “Really?”

“Yeah, I asked, and they love me, what else would you expect?” Not sure that would have been the case when we were seventeen, but they were pretty happy when Ever came back into our lives. I’m almost positive they were relieved to find out I had been the father all along. Kissing ass has its benefits at age seventeen and thirty. In any case, Cammy noticed a change in her parents almost immediately when she told them Ever came to find us. They must have had a lot of guilt, and I’m guessing some of that will never go away, but in any case, everything worked out the way it was supposed to. I’m sure of that now.

“I’m just glad they’re back here in Connecticut now too. I guess Dad must be getting real bored with his retirement if he offered to watch three kids, though.”

“Actually, Ever is going to her friend’s for a sleepover,” I laugh.

“Ever isn’t the issue,” Cammy laughs. “The last time Aiden went to your parents’ house, he knocked over every picture frame on their coffee table and then spilled a vase full of water on their bed.”

“So, they raised me, and I’m guessing they assumed one of our kids would eventually follow my destructive path—it obviously had to be the youngest. It’s a thing, you know?” I say with a grin. “Besides, your parents haven’t experienced Aiden’s ways yet, so it’s a free chance to get away tonight. Plus, Gavin is usually pretty good, so he’ll balance it out.”

“Aiden’s terrible twos are no joke, AJ. Are you sure we should do this?”

“Cam,” I say, running my hands down the sides of her arms. “I promised to love you and sweep you off your feet whenever I have the chance to. It’s our anniversary and I’ve had this planned for more than two months now. I’m taking Aiden to daycare, and the other two to school. You have an appointment at the hair salon, then the spa, then the nail salon. When you’re done, come home and put on that sexy little black dress you’ve been saving for a special occasion. Then, meet me at the front door at six, sharp.”

I don’t waste moments. I don’t waste seconds. I treat the way I’m treated, and I love the way I’m loved. I’ve been given a second chance, and I will never take it for granted.

I’ve learned more about life in the past few years than I ever could have imagined, and this is my way to prove it.

“AJ, it’s not our anniversary,” she says, laughing as she presses her glass of orange juice up to her lips.

“It is,” I tell her.

“No, we got married in August, and it’s November. We celebrated three months ago, silly. You okay?”

“Today marks the beginning of our family’s anniversary, though,” I explain.

“You’ve lost me,” she says with question. I pull an envelope out of my back pocket, handing it to her. “What’s this?”

“Read it,” I say, reaching it out further to her.

She takes it and holds it still, looking at me like she’s scared to read whatever it is, so I take it back and slip the two papers out of the envelope.

Starting with the letter I received four months ago, one that I kept to myself for a particular reason, I read:

AJ,

I know this may come as a shock, hearing from me after all this time, but I’ve owed you more than an explanation for a very long time.

If our plans of no pasts ever worked out completely, our lives would have been unfulfilled, empty and a little meaningless. It was a life I was forced to live, but one I never should have let you live with me. I had no right bringing you into my life and burying your mind under the ground with mine. You stuck with me longer than I think anyone would ever stick with another person who acted the way I acted.

I may never be mentally capable of accepting people in my life after what my childhood caused, but you never should have paid the consequence for that.

Leaving you and Gavin has been the most difficult decision I’ve ever made, even if it appeared like it was a quick, easy solution for me. I’m not capable of loving or being a parent. While it was selfish to leave our son without a mother, it would have been more selfish to be his mother. I wouldn’t have been able to give him a normal or decent life. While I don’t expect you to ever fully understand why I did what I did, my decisions were out of love and hope that you will give Gavin the life he does deserve.

I left when I did for several reasons, one of them being Cameron stepping back into your life. When I walked past the pizza shop that day and I saw you laughing and talking with her, I realized I had not seen you smile like that in most of the time we had been married. Of course, I was upset and jealous in the moment, but I quickly came to realize that if there was someone out there that could make you smile like that, I was being even more self-centered by staying with you and keeping you from a happiness you deserved, especially one where you could have the possibility of a normal family.

I don’t know if you ended up with Cameron after all that happened, but believe it or not I have prayed that you did. I have wished that you and Gavin are happy.

I’m writing to you, not to rehash old, painful memories of our time together, but to ask if you’re in a situation with Cameron or someone new, and if so, would she possibly be interested in adopting Gavin, giving him the chance at having a real mother, since it can’t be me. It could possibly be the only good thing I can give my son, and it’s my wish to do so.

If you are in a place and with someone who would fill that role for our son, please write me back. Whether it’s now or down the road from now, I will give up my legal rights and grant adoption to whomever you are with. I trust you enough to make the best decisions for Gavin.

I am sorry for what I put you through, and I want you to know I am in a good place now, living in a convent, making peace with my life, as I should have done long ago. I have forgiven myself for my mother’s death and my sister’s. I am still working on forgiving myself for what I put you and Gavin through, but I feel this proposal will help me grant myself more forgiveness.

I hope you and Gavin are doing well and you’re living a blessed life.

Tori

I look up at Cammy, the shocked look on her face, the tears running down her cheeks, and the redness webbing across her face. “You got this letter four months ago?”

“Yes,” I tell her. “I responded to her right away and told her all about you and how you had taken to Gavin as if he were your own, selflessly offering him a motherly figure in his life, while loving him like he should be loved. I told her how you and I together gave him a family—an older sister and a little brother.”

Her forehead crumples and her lips quiver. “You said all of that?”

“It’s the truth, Cam. Yesterday, I got this in the mail.” I hold up the other piece of paper.

Cammy snatches it from my hand. “Adoption papers?”

“If you’ll have him,” I say.

“Where do I sign? What do I have to do to make this official? I’ll do it this very second!” Her words come out so quickly and without thought. I know she would jump in front of a moving car for Gavin, and she’s spent three years proving that to me. “I will be that little boy’s mother. I love him as if I put him on this earth myself, and I will continue to give him everything I can. I would have continued even if it were never an option to make it official. I love him.”

“I know all of this, Cam. I never questioned it for a second.”

“Thank you for this opportunity,” she cries softly.

“Some things were never meant to be, but then there are things that were always meant to be.”

My life has come full circle in the most dizzying, off-roading way, and while I have spent half of my life being impatient for this moment to occur, it was all worth fighting through. It was all worth surviving. It was all worth waiting for.

International Bestselling Author, Shari J. Ryan, lives in Central Massachusetts with her husband and two lively little boys. Shari has always had an active imagination and enjoys losing herself in the fictional worlds she creates.

When Shari isn’t writing or designing book covers, she can usually be found cleaning toys up off the floor.

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