The Wildflower (Completed) (Southern Nights)

Epilogue

 Zeb slid over and pulled Elizabeth so that she sat against his chest.  She made a contented sound and leaned up against him, relaxing into his body. She felt him kiss the top of her head.

“Do you know why I wanted to bring you here today?” he asked her, picking up her hands and intertwining their fingers together.

Turning around, she looked up at him and furrowed her brow..  “I thought you just wanted to get out...”

Zeb laughed at her puckered expression.

"What?” Elizabeth asked. “What is so funny?”

Zeb only smiled and bent down to kiss her nose.  “You know what–you are so adorable when you look at me like that?”

She tried to frown at him but he made it impossibly hard when he stared at her like that.

“Okay, Mr. Crooker, then tell me,” she demanded raising her finger to trace the stubbled edge of his jaw line.  “Why did you bring us here today?”

“This place, Mrs. Crooker….” He lowered his face and unabashedly stole a quick kiss from her lips.  “This is the spot that I decided that I was irrevocably head over heels in love with you. This is where I decided that there was no way on God’s green earth that I was going to let you get away from here.  Here, we had our first picnic, and when I fed you those chocolate covered strawberries, I told myself that one way or another, I was going to make you my wife.”

“Really?”  She patted his cheek and thought about how much that comment was so Zeb; arrogant, confident and determined. Traits that she had come to admire in him now, because if he hadn’t pushed the way he did, then she would have never had the chance to have the beautiful family that she had today.

“I love you,” she whispered to him.

He captured her hand and held it against his cheek.  The heat from his face warming her skin. “And I love you too, Mrs. Crooker.”

They both started to lean into each other, their lips only a hairs breadth apart when Brandon interrupted, reminding them they weren’t alone.  “Mommy?”

Blushing, Elizabeth pulled back from Zeb.  She struggled to get herself back under control and turned to Brandon.  “Yes, baby?”

“These are for you,” he proudly announced holding out a beautiful bouquet of wildflowers that he had picked.  It was the most beautiful bouquet that she had ever seen.

“Wow,” she commented, accepting the gift.  “These are amazing Brandon.  Where did you get them?”

Brandon pointed to the large field behind them.  “Over there. I thought they were pretty, just like you. So, I picked them for you,” he shyly told her.

“Aw, thank you Brandon. That was so sweet of you.  These are beautiful.”

Not to be outdone, Jacob suddenly sent out a cry that the banshees would have been proud of.

Brandon was instantly at his side.  “Ssh,” he whispered softly, carefully picking up the pacifier that had fallen in the carrier and placing it in his mouth.  “It’s okay,” he assured him.  When Jacob started sucking greedily on the pacifier, Brandon held out his finger for his baby brother to curl his small hand around.

Happiness had finally found them. Zeb placed his arm around Elizabeth’s waist and they were both content to sit back and watch their boys bond.  After everything that they had been through it was hard to believe that anything could ever bring them down now.

Elizabeth brought the hand picked bouquet of wildflowers to her nose and breathed in the sweet aromatic scent.

Yeah, she thought to herself, her heart filled with so much love it was bursting.  Life just didn’t get any better than this.

THE END

   

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Author's Note:

Hope you enjoyed this happy ending! It's never easy to part with a story, for you or for me. Thank you for all the love support you've given this story. It's really been amazing reading your comments and seeing your reactions, and although the story has ended, the fun doesn't stop here.

If you haven't seen it already, the other story in the Southern Nights series is called "Second Chance Romance". I'm also working on a project to do a crossover between the Brandon you know and love and Libby from "Second Chance Romance". For more information, please click on the "Support MercyRose's Fan Funding Project" button on my profile.

Thank you all. See you in another story!