So in my eyes, his life was forfeit.
The promise was forfeit.
Except that it wasn’t.
Lance had never broken a promise to me, and he never would.
Epilogue
Twenty Years Later
When we walked into the small room, Nathan nodded at Lance with a side smirk on his face. My heart clenched with that look. Because it was one he’d learned from his father.
Not the man currently serving a life sentence in a prison three states away.
No, the man standing beside me, holding me by my waist because he likely knew that I couldn’t stand up in front of by my own power.
In front of my firstborn mimicking his true father with a smile that we’d managed to tease from him. He was as handsome as Lance was when he did it too. My Nathan had grown into a man sometime when I wasn’t paying attention. Sometime when I was trying to wrangle twin girls and grow my business. Then move my whole family to our home on a ranch two hours outside of LA.
My life had not slowed down in the past twenty years.
Not a single bit.
It had started moving so fast, it would all be a blur if it weren’t for the man at my side, holding my hip, keeping me grounded. The man who bought me my ranch. Gave me my daughters. Gave our son that smirk on his face.
“Captain,” Nathan said, his deep husky voice thicker than normal.
I leaned on Lance even more and his grip tightened.
Nathan may have changed a lot since he was five years old. Grown at least a head taller than his mom. Gained some pretty impressive muscles to rival his father, shown that he was the best big brother and man I could have ever hoped to raise. Played in the NFL and moved to New England into some big fancy mansion with his girlfriend—soon to be wife—Samantha.
He’d changed so much that it took me a second to realize that this beautiful, talented man was my son.
He had never stopped calling Lance Captain. Not when he was going through—a thankfully very short—rebellious teenage stage when it might have been very uncool to refer to your father as a Marvel hero. Not when he graduated high school, or college.
Lance was always his Captain.
Today was no different.
“Son,” Lance said, his own low voice much thicker than usual.
Lance hadn’t changed a lot over the past twenty years. His hair was now grayed at the edges. He’d grown a mustache that he somehow pulled off in a big way. His face tanned with the work he did on the ranch, lined with the worry he always had about his teenage girls and the smiles they gave him. His muscles were still there, due to the fact he worked out every day.
He still didn’t say much to people that weren’t his wife or his children. Didn’t smile at those people either. But he was softer. He was no longer a hard edge. He smirked. He made dry jokes. He even laughed.
And he cried. On three occasions. Our wedding day. The day our daughters were born. And the day Nathan spoke about him in his college graduation speech. About his father, his Captain being his hero.
He didn’t mention Nick. Sandra. His parents. Not since he told me about them. But every Christmas Eve, we went to a diner in town, had a family dinner, and we lit a special candle we put out every year for that reason.
Rosie was right, that would always be a wound.
But there were no longer any fresh cuts.
“Proud of you,” Lance continued talking to the man in the tux, our son. Our son that was about to get married to his high school sweetheart. Money, fame and the fast life had not changed the way he loved Samantha or the way he treated her.
Lance taught him many of the things that made him treat her that way. I taught him others. I knew that my son would love that girl with everything in him. I knew he’d fight for her, protect her and work as hard as he could to make the marriage work.
My hopes were so very high for them. And I still had the ability to do that. Hope.
“We’re both so very proud of you,” Lance continued. “Know your mom isn’t speakin’ right now because she doesn’t have the ability since she’s runnin’ through your entire life in her head and is likely two seconds away from burstin’ into tears. Then she’ll yell at me for lettin’ her cry ‘cause she promised me to stop her from doing that ‘cause she’d ruin her makeup.”
I glared at him. “Which I’m doing right now,” I hissed.
He only smiled and kissed my head, which made me cry more.
“I’ll take over for a sec, Captain,” my son said.
I felt myself being passed between the two most important men in my life. Nathan’s lips pressed into my hair, that also had silver in it, artfully covered by my amazing stylist. “Proud of you, Mom,” he murmured into my head.