Two weeks ago, I was introduced to the first of Amara’s family members outside of her father. Her , Samos, who everyone apparently calls Scamp, called round and has visited a few times since. She’s a sweet girl, but something was clearly troubling Amara about the situation, and after a while she opened up to me.
Turns out, their father has Scamp dealing drugs, both on the streets and at the community college where she’s studying. Amara has tried to get her sister to flee, but Scamp insists that she’s tough enough to handle it in a way Amara never was. She says that she’s going to get enough money to get out and take their 12-year-old sister away with her. Amara’s worried. She says her father will never let that happen. But Scamp is sure she can grind it out.
I’ll give all of them any help they need, but Scamp is the sort of person that refuses to accept assistance.
Stretching my back, I turn from the window and head to the bathroom. I need to get cleaned up, because today Amara and I start the next chapter of our life together, and things can only get better.
***
The weather has taken a cold turn these last couple of days, even as we’re heading into spring, and the kids Amara was teaching were wrapped up warm out on the ice. She is too, but now that we’re all on our own I’m holding her close enough to keep the cold away for good.
“You’re getting better at this,” she says as we slide round the bottom end of the rink, and I grin.
“Skating or loving you?”
Amara laughs. “I don’t think you could get any better at that.”
We skid to a stop and she turns her face up to mine, staring at me with those beautiful brown eyes, and I can’t resist her lips. I lean in for a kiss and she smiles into it, sighing as her body goes soft in my arms. But this isn’t what I’m here for, not today.
Dropping to one knee on the ice, I take her hand. Other people are stopping and staring, but I don’t care, it’s all about us right now. I watch her hand go to her chest, the blush rising on her cheeks, and I know she knows what this is about, even if she can’t quite believe it.
Pulling the little box from my pants pocket, I open it up in front of her, the glittering ring sparkling in the sunlight. I take it out, my hands shaking as I speak, fumbling to put it on her finger.
“Amara, you brought the warmth into my life when I thought nothing would ever thaw the ice around my heart. You showed me what love means. You made me want this, and you made me want this.” I place a palm flat against her stomach, and she coughs out a sob, tears springing to her eyes. “Marry me, please. I want you. I want babies. Let’s make a whole hockey team.”
She laughs, spluttering a little as she wipes a hand across her face, swiping away tears as she nods, grinning. “Yes. Saint, yes yes yes. I want to marry you! I love you so much!”
“I love you, baby. More than words can ever say.”
Drawing her hand to my face, I kiss her fingers, the back of her hand, her wrist, and lean my head against her cool skin. She’s everything I’ve ever wanted, even if I didn’t know it, and I’m never letting her go.
Epilogue 2 – Amara – One Year Later
“Hey, Scamp!” Saint grins as he holds the phone to his ear, glancing across to me. “Sure, she’s right here, let me just take the little one off her hands.”
He comes across to me, lifting Christa out of my arms and handing me the phone, but not before he leans in and takes my lips in a firm kiss, making me sigh as my body stiffens, trying to get more of him. That will honestly never get old, even if I live to be a hundred and fifty.
Christa is our first child, but I’m already pregnant with our second. Saint simply can’t keep his hands off me, it seems, and that’s just as well because I’m insatiable for him. He says that he wants to make a hockey team from our babies and at this rate he just might. But he’s right when he says that this place won’t be big enough for us soon, so it’s just as well that his business continues to go from strength to strength and we’ve already started to look at houses in the suburbs like good, sensible parents.
“Amara?” Scamp sounds uncertain, which isn’t like her. She’s usually the strong one of the family. When Saint and I married, the wedding was beautiful but my side of the aisle was distinctly empty. While he had his friend Greg, his mom, some work colleagues and cousins from out of town, only Scamp turned up from my family. She’s the only one brave enough to defy my father.