Chapter Downpour: BONUS EPILOGUE

Returning to the arena after seventeen years felt like stepping into a dream. The dirt under my boots stirred up a torrent of memories. This was the place where everything had changed. I’d seen a few events over the years, but today marked my return to the heart of it all.

I scanned the list on my clipboard and lifted the microphone. “Up next—number eighteen—six-year-old Loretta Thompson from Maren, Texas.”

From the stage, I watched a little girl in boots and flannel climb onto the back of a sheep named Blizzard, holding on for dear life. She did a damn good job too, smoking the rest of the kids who had tried their hand at mutton busting.

I scanned the crowd, trying to spot my motley crew, but there were too many faces to pick them out. The place seemed overrun with Griffiths.

“Hey, handsome.” Brooke appeared on stage, offering me a water bottle.

Goddamn, she was as pretty as a picture.

She had aged like fine wine. Her curls were streaked with silver and piled atop her head in a bun. I worshiped the body that had given me our children every moment I could.

She was an exceptional mother to our brood. It felt like just yesterday we were nervously waiting for our firstborn. Now, he was about to go off to college. He’d be the first of us to get a degree after high school, and I was so fucking proud.

“Where are the kids?” I asked, sipping from the bottle.

“Oh, they’re around somewhere.” She pulled up a stool and sat down, sharing my wheelchair’s armrest. “I think Claire is with Seth, and Olivia and Summer are together.”

That was predictable. Claire, at six years old, was nearly inseparable from seventeen-year-old Seth. Our middle two, Olivia and Summer, were practically twins despite being two years apart.

Brooke stayed on stage with me while I announced the last two kids competing for the mutton busting championship.

When the final scores were in, I handed out ribbons and the championship buckle.

It still amused me that kids wanted photos with an old bull rider, but I obliged each of them before the next announcer took over for team roping.

A pair of hands clapped down on my shoulders. “Okay. How long do you think I could actually last on a bull?”

I chuckled at Seth’s question. He was a mirror image of me in my teenage years. “You wouldn’t get out of the gate. He’d throw you in the chute.”

“Be for real. I’d do alright.”

“Keep thinking that. Where are your sisters?”

Claire appeared from behind Seth’s leg. “Hi, daddy.” She crawled into my lap and hung her feet over the armrest of my wheelchair. “Can we get a snack?”

“In a minute, baby. I’m almost done.” I kissed her head.

Our youngest had Brooke’s curls and a pair of blue eyes that spelled t-r-o-u-b-l-e.

Brooke slid her arms around me from behind and rested her chin on top of my head. Her breasts pressed against the back of my neck.

“I’m proud of you,” she said. Her voice was soft, meant only for me. “You did great.”

Olivia joined us on the wings of the stage. “Can we get food?”

“Oh my god, yes. I’m starving,” Summer chimed in.

I looked up at Brooke. “Should we feed them?”

She hummed thoughtfully. “We fed them once and they just kept following us home like stray cats.”

“

,” three of them whined.

We snickered.

“Alright. Let’s go get some food,” I said as I backed up and pivoted to avoid the extension cords taped down across the stage.

Claire was perfectly happy letting me cart her around like a princess. I didn’t mind it in the slightest. Before I could blink, she’d be grown and out of the house along with the rest of them. I just wanted to hold onto these moments for as long as possible.

Brooke had given me the greatest title of my life.

.

It was better than any championship buckle, trophy, or accolade. My wife and kids were the highlight of my life.

The six of us had road-tripped across the country together, watched the ranch grow and change over nearly two decades, spent countless birthdays with hoards of friends over for horseback rides and movie nights by the pond. We had managed cramped living quarters and dealt with the mess of construction for an addition to the house when we needed more bedrooms.

We had survived the passing of my dad—their grandfather—and all the mourning that followed.

Through the mess and mayhem, the beauty and elation, the grief and gratitude—we held onto each other.

I paused to admire Brooke as she ushered everyone out of the arena and into the minivan with practiced efficiency.

Early evening sun danced through her hair, illuminating the regal grays that had been earned over seventeen years of parenting. She was my silver lining.

“You too,” she said as the sliding doors closed and she made her way around to the passenger’s side. “I might be hungrier than all of them combined.”

I caught her arm and tugged her down. Brooke stumbled into the kiss but gave way just as quickly.

“I love you.”

She laughed like it was a forgone conclusion because—for us—it was. “I love you too.”

Still, I held onto her. “I know you weren’t here when it happened or in the months after. But you were here for the days and months and years that really mattered.”

Her brows lifted, and her eyes softened. “As much as I wish I had been there, I’m glad I wasn’t. Because it brought me to you.”

I pulled her in for another kiss, just because I could.

The window rolled down, and the kids groaned. “Bruh, stop making out with mom. It’s weird. And we’re hungry.”

“I’m not your ,” I said before stealing another kiss.

Parenting was half daily grace and half pissing them off on purpose. Especially the teenagers.

“Dad,” the girls groaned.

Brooke laughed. “We better go before we have a mutiny on our hands.”

That was true. Two of them could drive. We finished loading up and pulled away from the arena. As the debate about where we were going to stop to eat on the trip home raged in the back, I looked over at Brooke.

She had a lazy smile on her face. Her fingers traced the somewhat faded tattoos on my forearms. It seemed like just yesterday the kids would crowd around to color them in. Claire still did, but she was quickly growing out of it.

Maybe I’d get them permanently filled in.

“What are you thinking about, Sunnyside?”

She rolled her head across the back of the seat and looked at me. “Are you happy?”

I laughed. “Of course.”

“I mean it,” she pressed. “You had it all before.”

“I didn’t,” I said. “I had things. I had people. I had a life. But I didn’t have you. I didn’t have a home. I’d give it all up. My money. My body. My breath. All of it, over and over again, if it meant that I got you for just one day.”