He slammed his lips against hers, holding her close.
“Wish granted,” he said, whispering the words, knowing he’d give her anything her heart desired, so long as it was never to be apart from him.
Epilogue
Ten years later
“Paige, Dale, Sean, Mia, Rachel, Luke, and Talia, get your butts down here right this second!” Caleb was starving, and seeing as his kids had to eat first, he wasn’t in a very patient mood.
Not only was it Christmas morning, and a large snowfall had landed outside, but he was hungry, and his wife was slaving away in the kitchen making them all cranberry pancakes with hot maple syrup.
“Dad, I’m helping Mom out, duh,” Paige said, appearing in the kitchen.
Caleb had been so focused on his wife that he’d not seen his oldest daughter standing there.
Moving back into the kitchen, he kissed Paige’s cheek, then moved up behind his wife.
They’d been married for ten years. He’d not been able to wait until the New Year, so after a rushed two weeks, in a wedding on Christmas Eve in front of the whole town, he’d married Madeline Lennox. He was sure half of the town came to see if he’d even make it down the aisle. There was no other woman for him, and because of his little outburst, Emily had left town and hadn’t been seen again.
Maddie had nothing to do with her parents, and whenever he saw them in town, he ignored them. They didn’t care enough about her when she was little, and Maddie wanted nothing to do with them now.
Wrapping his arms around his wife, he kissed her cheek, breathing in her scent.
“You’re very impatient,” she said.
He pressed a hand to her swollen stomach. “They’re going to want to open presents, and if they do, seeing some of the chocolate we’ve bought, they’ll eat that, spoil dinner, and I’m not having that.”
Maddie’s Christmas dinner was a thing of dreams.
In fact, being married to her was straight of out of his dreams. Every day he woke up to the love of his life, and every day, he went to sleep holding her in his arms. She was the most beautiful, amazing, loving woman, and he’d wished for her, and they’d finally come true.
She leaned back, smiling up at him. “I love you,” she said.
He kissed her, not caring that his children entered. They’d seen him kissing her a lot over the last ten years, and he intended to spend the next fifty plus years kissing her.
“I finally got my happily ever after,” she said, cupping his cheek.
So had he.
The End