The music ended and cradling my face in his hands, Tristan whispered, “I love you, Nina. You make happier than I likely deserve.”
“You deserve everything good. Remember, good things happen to good people, and you’re one of the best people I’ve ever met, Tristan Stone. So no more talk about not deserving things.”
He kissed me and whispered in my ear, “Then let’s get this honeymoon started.”
Epilogue
Tristan
“Daddy, tell us the story about when you became a pirate!” Tressa squeals as she jumps onto the bed. “Dee wants to hear the princess story, but I want the pirate one.”
Diana, her twin sister, struggles to lift her leg to pull herself up onto the bed, so I reach over and take her into my arms. My reward is one of her adorable smiles, a better payment than anything I could ask for.
With a pout, she says in her tiny voice, “Daddy, Tressa pushed me out of the way. I want to hear the princess story. Tell the princess story, pleeeeeeease.”
Two pairs of brown eyes stare up at me, begging for their favorite stories and making the word no an impossibility. Both girls bounce on their knees as they wait for my decision on which story would be the one for the night.
“Diana! Tressa! Where are you?” Nina calls from the hall. “Are you bothering your father? He just got home from work.”
She appears in the doorway, her arms folded across her chest and her best “Mom” face on to let the girls know she isn’t happy they’ve done exactly what she told them not to. I’m more to blame than they are, though, since they know I love to see them after a long day away.
“Girls, your father’s tired and it’s time for you to go to bed.”
Diana turns to face her and quickly answers, “Daddy said he’d tell us a story. He’s going to tell us about the princess.”
Her sister isn’t going to be beaten on this, though. “No, he’s going to tell us about when he became a pirate. That’s my favorite story ever.”
“It’s okay, Nina. I like this part of my day best, so I think I’ll tell both stories tonight.”
In unison, my daughters throw their arms up in the air and yell, “Yay!” They take their seats next to me and wait for me to begin. Which story to choose, though? I prefer the princess story, to be honest.
Nina walks over to the bed and sits down on the edge, taking Tressa’s long brown hair in her hands to braid it. “You know what story I like.”
I smile at her playful jab. She prefers the pirate story, like Tressa, so now we have a standoff. After pretending to consider my choices, I announce my verdict. “I think the pirate story is the one I’ll tell first.”
Diana’s mouth turns down into an adorable pout much like the one her mother puts on when she’s disappointed, so I pull her onto my lap and whisper near her cheek, “But I promise to tell the princess story just for you, honey.”
Her pout turns into another of her gentle smiles, and she wraps her little arms around my neck. Kissing me on the cheek, she whispers, “Okay, Daddy.”
“One night, your mother and I were at the hotel in the city and she told me that she wished I was a pirate. I told her that I didn’t think saying ‘Aarrgh’ all day during meetings would work, but she insisted that she’d love me even more if I were a pirate.”
Tressa reaches out and points at the patch covering my left eye. “And that’s why you got an eye patch—because Mommy wanted you to be a pirate.”
“Exactly. So now, Mommy gets to say she’s married to a pirate.”
“Daddy, do the pirate voice!” Tressa squeals. “Please?”
In my deepest voice, I do my best pirate imitation. “Aarrgh, matey! Shiver me timbers!”
The ‘shiver me timbers’ part always makes her giggle, and she bounces on the bed again, excited her story has been the first one told. Nina just smiles, like she always does when I tell the story to explain why I wear an eyepatch. It’s far more interesting and less traumatic than saying I got beaten to a pulp when Karl tried to kill us. Five year old girls demand a far more romantic story than that.
“And that’s why you have your pictures on your arms,” Tressa says, motioning on her own body where my tattoos are.
“Yes,” I say with a smile, amused by the way she refers to them.
Diana touches just above my heart and says, “The snakes are for you and your brother, right?”
I nod. “My brother and I were twins like you and Tressa, so I got the snake tattoo to show we were forever together, no matter what, just like you two.”
“Let me see the one about us, Daddy,” Tressa pleads as she tries to push up the sleeve on my right arm to show the tattoo I had done right after the girls’ birth.