“Nobody’s going to mess with you as long as you’re at my hip.”
“Good, because I plan on being by your side forever.”
“Me too, which is why I got you this.”
Like pulling a rabbit out of his hat for a second time he reaches behind him and not a full second later he’s got a small, black, velvet box, which he’s popping open.
I sit up in bed immediately, my entire body shaking.
“We’re technically on the run now. A modern day Bonnie and Clyde. This is the best Halloween ever because I got a trick and a treat, the sweetest girl to ever walk the face of the Earth. The girl who showed up where I was incarcerated one day on her own accord. Well, I don’t want you to ever have to go looking for me again, because I want you to know until I take my dying breath I’m always going to be by your side, through thick and thin, no matter what crazy adventure we come up with next. One for all and all for one. And you, Beautiful, are the only one for me. Will you marry me?”
Staring down at the sparkling diamond, thinking how all this has played out so perfectly, I can barely comprehend how he’s managed to already top everything we’ve done in such a short amount of time. And that’s the best part. I know he’ll find a way, and I can’t wait to be there to see it for myself, by his side as he just said. Partners in crime, so to speak. Partners in life. Partners…forever.
I nod. “Yes. Yes, I’ll marry you.” He slides the ring on my finger. “I mean si,” I say, working on my Spanish. When in Rome…
The ring is a perfect fit and he seals it with a kiss, then does the same with my lips.
“Javier’s coming to get us in two hours?” I ask, cocking an eyebrow.
“It’s Mexico. Might have to wait until mañana.”
“But Dia de Muertos will be over by then.”
“True, but our lives are just beginning. Together.”
“Together.”
“Forever. I love you.”
“I love you.”
Epilogue
Juniper
One year later
I exhale hard, bouncing little Jaxon in my arm as we walk away from the front steps of the final home on the block in Camps Bay.
“We did it!” I say. “First Halloween as a family. What a difference a year can make, huh?”
“Best year of my life…by far,” Jack says. He holds up Jaxon’s oversized plastic pumpkin which we took out to get candy this year. “And Jaxon’s too.”
The thing is overflowing with so much candy it will take years to eat it all.
“Ready to pile in the Jeep and head home?”
“Let’s stay out for a bit longer. It is Halloween, our favorite day of the year and we only get to do it once.”
“We’re going on three hours, Jack. And we have a baby, not to mention one really tired mom.”
“Just one more. I promise,” he says, taking Jaxon from me, holding him in one hand and the candy in the other.
I don’t really have an excuse at this point, plus it’s rare that Jack really wants to do something like this. He’s become a pretty easy-going guy these days, as we need to be considering we’re officially dead.
Yeah…deceased. At least that’s what the coroner in California thinks after Javier used our boat for fishing for a few months, then discarded it off the coast with tons of chum tied to it, which the sharks loved. Not only that, but of course, we provided some of our hair samples and personal items too. When the Mexican Navy sent the samples back to the States it was a match, and that was that.
We took a flight out of Cabo the next day, using the fake passports which worked like a charm. We’ve been in Cape Town ever since, the fine white sand of the beach under our toes each day, especially when we bring Jaxon to the natural rock swimming pools and show him the Twelve Apostles mountain in the distance. The views, and the people here, truly are spectacular.