Epilogue
Sloan
♪ The Huntsman’s Wife | Jaxon Waters
Three years later
Tucker watched with a wagging tail as our long-suffering stagehands lugged my giant recliner backstage and set it up in my usual spot where I could watch my husband play.
When he first bought me this monstrosity, I’d refused to use it. It was beyond ridiculous. It had the massage features and a remote and everything. It weighed like half a ton and needed an extension cord to power it up.
For the first few weeks he’d had to plop me in it before every show and command me to stay, threatening to punish me for moving by dragging me onstage to introduce me to the crowd. Again.
The album he’d dedicated to me, Sloan In-Between, had gone platinum. Actually, all of his last three albums had gone platinum. Not to mention I was a media darling and had been ever since Jason’s dramatic stage plunge at the Forum three years ago. The video of Jason’s confession and him kissing me in the crowd had gone viral and suddenly everyone had wanted to know who I was. I had almost as many Instagram followers as he did. People loved my photos of life on tour, so my onstage cameos were always a crowd pleaser, even though I was completely mortified every single time he did it. I didn’t know how he could stand out there in front of all those people and not be nervous.
I felt different about my chair these days, though. Now that my ankles were starting to swell, I actually appreciated being able to put my feet up while I watched my husband perform.
We’d been on the road for eight months this time. The Hollywood Bowl was our last stop before we went home—for good.
This show was the last one with this label. Jason was signing with a smaller independent one after this. The money wasn’t quite as good, and they didn’t offer as many frills, but the life balance we’d have would make it worth it, and they gave Jason complete control over his work and his schedule.
Jason was doing his sound check, so I sat down, hoisting my pregnant belly. Tucker plopped by my chair. Zane pulled up next to me as I extended the leg rest and handed me a warm Starbucks cup. She turned a metal folding chair backward and straddled it, crossing her arms over the backrest. “Ernie told me to tell you he’s on his way and he has the cupcakes.”
“He got lemon drops, right?” I asked. I was addicted to Nadia Cakes, and my pregnancy cravings were serious.
“Placed the order myself. Couldn’t let Ernie fuck that up. I didn’t want you pissed at me.”
“Like either of us could ever get pissed at you.” I smiled.
She smirked and we sat and watched Jason adjust his microphone stand. He sang a few verses to test his equipment and he tipped his head toward me, his lips to the mic, and winked. I blew him a kiss and his grin got so big I could hear it in his voice.
Lola—Nikki—joined him for the big cities, by our invitation. She’d be here tonight. She was actually pretty cool. She was mostly producing these days and doing really well. She only performed with Jason, and the two of them collaborated on writing most of his songs—except for the ones he wrote about me. Those just poured out of him.
He set his guitar down on its stand and walked over to us, pulling out his in-ear monitor. He put his hands on the arms of my chair and leaned down to kiss me. “Are you comfortable, sweetheart?”
“Yeeeess.” I smiled against his lips.
He put a hand to my belly and I moved it to the left, where the baby was kicking, and his eyes gleamed.
“She likes the music,” I said.
He held his hand to my wiggling stomach and grinned. “Are you hungry?”
“Always.”
“Almost done.” He leaned down and kissed my stomach. “Twenty more minutes,” he said to my baby bump. He reached down and ruffled Tucker’s head, then jogged back out to his sound check.
Zane chuckled after him. “You know, it wouldn’t kill you guys to be slightly less adorable.”
I smiled at her. “Probably not. But why risk it?”
We survived our last show of the tour and had a late dinner with my parents. Then we headed home—well, our version of home. A mini mansion we rented in Woodland Hills. It was close enough to Kristen and Josh for when we were in town between tours. It was gated and safe and we had a place to keep our stuff while we were on the road.
Both of us preferred Ely to LA. Jason’s fame was harder on us in California. We couldn’t really go out without getting approached.
Ely was small, and nobody there cared who he was. Everyone there had grown up with him. There was no paparazzi, and I’d gotten really close to Patricia over the past three years. With the baby coming, it would have been nice to live near her. But Kristen and Josh took priority for me, and whatever took priority for me took priority for Jason. So Woodland Hills it was.
Jason smiled at me from the limo seat across from me. “I have a little surprise for you.” He grinned.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “What surprise? I didn’t like the last one.”
He chuckled. “What? When I told you I want to get pregnant again right away?” He crossed over to sit next to me and leaned in to kiss me, putting a hand on my belly. “I just love you like this,” he breathed against my lips.
I jerked my head back. “And did you love all the barfing?”
“Well, no. But look how sexy you are right now…” He put his face into my neck and trailed his mouth across my skin.
“There is nothing sexy about this, Jason. I’m swollen and starving. I have to pee constantly.”
He laughed into my neck. “I think I can convince you.”
Yes, he was very good at convincing me to do things. Like getting me to agree to marry him just forty-eight hours after we got back together. I’d been wearing a ring since two days after the Forum.
“What if I had said no?” I’d asked.
“Then I was going to go into plan B.”
“Which was what? Subterfuge? Tell me I’m just your girlfriend but really we’d be engaged the whole time?”
He’d laughed. “No. Unwavering, unrelenting persistence.”
I hadn’t said no, of course. But I’d made him wait a year to marry me. I didn’t want something rushed. I wanted a real wedding—and I’d kept my last name. I wanted my own identity.
We’d gotten married at the Glensheen mansion in Duluth, on the shore of Lake Superior—home of the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Tucker had worn a tuxedo Kristen had made for him, and he sat at our feet as we’d said our vows. Oliver had been our ring bearer. Ernie, David, Zane, and Josh had stood next to Jason, and Kristen had stood next to me—the way it was always going to be.
“So what’s your surprise?” I asked, closing my eyes as he kissed my neck.
“It’s at home.”
We stopped at Forest Lawn like we always did when we came to town so I could visit Brandon. Jason usually stayed behind in the car to give me some privacy, except for one time, right before we were married. He’d asked to have some alone time at Brandon’s grave.
He’d spent a half an hour there while I watched from the car. He didn’t tell me exactly what he’d said. Only that he was thanking him, and letting him know he was going to take good care of me.
It meant a lot to me that he’d told him that.
Jason and I both gave blood on Brandon’s birthday, a tradition we vowed to keep for the rest of our lives.
When we pulled up to the curb in front of the house, Kristen and Josh were out front with their kids and Stuntman Mike. “My surprise?” I beamed at Jason. We weren’t supposed to see them until tomorrow.
He winked.
I got out and Kristen ran to me. I hadn’t seen her in five months.
“Look at you and your sex injury!” she said, putting her hands on my belly. “Does Jason know what this baby is about to do to his favorite playground?”
“Yes. And can you believe he wants to do it again right after this one comes out?”
She arched an eyebrow. “That’s eighteen months without raw cookie dough and real coffee. Has he met you?”
We both laughed.
Jason and Josh hugged, slapping each other on the back. They saw each other as much as I saw Kristen. The guys flew out to Minnesota for the deer and duck openers and we’d all spent a week in Ely right before the tour so he and Jason could go ice fishing. They were practically best friends. Kristen said they were having a bromance.
I hugged Kimmy and Sarah, Kristen and Josh’s adopted daughters. They were nine and eleven now.
Two years ago Josh had gone on a fatal heart attack call at work. The man who’d died was the grandfather and sole guardian of his two granddaughters. Kristen and Josh stepped in as emergency foster parents. The girls’ adoptions had been finalized just a few months ago. They were amazing kids.
“How have you guys been?” I asked, scooping Oliver up into a hug.
“Oh, you know, just doing the married thing, eating tacos with that one special person for the rest of our lives. How was the tour?” Kristen asked.
“Piece of cake. Glad it’s over, though.” I straightened from my hugs with Oliver and put my hands on my lower back as I walked to the gate.
“Are you gonna autograph my cookbook for me?” Kristen asked.
I laughed. “Sure.”
I’d published a cookbook. Slow Cooker Recipes by The Huntsman’s Wife. I’d developed most of them in the bus, on tour. All the recipes had conversions for wild game. And I painted on tour too. I had a two-year waiting list for my artwork.
I’d made the road my home. Being on tour was as easy to me now as breathing.
I started to punch in the code to the gate, but it wasn’t working. I wrinkled my forehead. “This thing’s broken.”
“You’re at the wrong house,” Jason said from behind me.
I looked back through the gate. No. This was the house. The same one we’d rented for the last three years.
I turned around, confused. Kristen was beaming at me. I looked over her shoulder at Jason and Josh, watching me from the curb. They stood next to each other and grinned like conspirators.
“What’s going on?” I asked, looking back and forth between them.
Kristen looked giddy. “You moved.”
“What?”
She smiled. “So did we.”
“You moved? When? Where?”
The three of them looked at each other like they were trying to decide who should answer me. Jason volunteered. He stepped up and took my cheeks in his hands and kissed me. “To Ely.”
I gasped and whirled on Kristen. “What?”
Jason grinned. “We bought houses next to each other. A hundred acres combined. Private. Safe. A room with a lake view for you to paint and a recording studio for me.”
“We needed the bigger place,” Josh said, putting an arm around his smiling wife.
Kristen looked at her husband and he grinned at her. “Josh quit the fire department. He got a job with the Forest Service in Minnesota. And…” She paused. “Our surrogate’s pregnant.”
“What?” I breathed.
“She’s due in three months,” she said, beaming.
I put my hands over my mouth. “We get to have babies together?”
She nodded, her eyes tearing up. “I’ll be able to snowshoe to your house in a blizzard to borrow a cup of frozen milk.”
I laughed, taking turns hugging them all through tears. I ended with my husband and put my face into his chest. He put his lips to my ear, his arms wrapped around my back. “Trying to keep all my promises.”
All I could do was nod. The baby kicked between us, and I felt so much happiness my heart threatened to burst.
When I pulled away, he kissed me, his eyes a little misty. “Come on, we have a plane waiting. It’s time to go home.”