Ellie shook her head stubbornly. “He’s not just a shifter. I think he and Seriel are more than that.”
Carter shrugged one shoulder, not wanting to argue, but Ellie didn’t drop the subject.
“After everything we’ve seen and done and been through together, you’re still going to deny even the possibility of angels?”
Carter was trapped and he knew it. He shrugged again. “Maybe.”
Now she smiled, and it was bright and warm and everything he loved about Ellie. “Glad you agree. Because I also think we need to discuss the merits of raising a child in church, at least until his family is able to come get him.”
Internally, Carter groaned. She was teasing him, but beneath the teasing was an absolute layer of insistence. Neither was she finished with demands. She went a step further.
“I also think,” she added, “while we’re on this topic, we could discuss the idea of raising children period.”
Now Carter felt his eyebrows go up. He didn’t want to remind her they couldn’t have children. That seemed cruel. Fortunately, Ellie explained herself with, “I’ve been thinking…I’m not going anywhere. I don’t think you’re going anywhere. Maybe we should discuss fostering. Or adoption. I’m sure there are plenty of kids who have lost parents to this war. Maybe we could help. Maybe we could give something back.”
Ellie’s big heart was one thing he loved about her. Her love for kids—that was what had involved her in his world, his life, to begin with. He wasn’t going to argue. After all, what she said made sense, and he owed her after tonight. Honestly, he owed her everything.
“Do we have to decide that now?” was his only question.
Ellie leaned her face into his shoulder. “Nope. Like I said, I’m not going anywhere. If you’re not either, then we’ve got the rest of our lives to make up our minds.”
The rest of our lives…
Carter liked the sound of that.
“I’m for sure not going anywhere,” he promised, and if his voice sounded gruff it was due to tamping down his emotions instead of any anger or resentment.
“Awesome. Glad we agree.”
She seemed content to leave it at that. Carter wanted one thing cleared up first. He’d told her he would never step foot in one again, but…
“I guess you’re right about taking a kid to church. A little church wouldn’t kill me. I do have one favor to ask, though.”
“What’s that?”
“Can we not go to your dad’s church?”
He’d never forget the man’s ire when he’d walked in there like a fool, announcing he was married to his daughter…with Ellie’s father having no idea Ellie was married. Carter had seen a lot during his lifetime, but that—that was the stuff of nightmares.
Ellie laughed, and the sweet, gentle sound touched every nerve, warming him from the inside out, healing the scars and pain and bruises, lifting his spirit, giving him hope for the future.
“I think we can work something out.” She raised on tiptoes to kiss him. “Let’s go home.”
Home.
Mentally, Carter soaked in the word as he climbed into the car with his wife and drove away, refusing to look back. Leaving the past behind and heading into the future, the words of an old song echoing in his head. Something about once being lost and now being found.
He went home.
Chapter Forty
Home.
After all the displacement, the moving around, and the living in hotels, home almost seemed like a foreign concept. But then, I’d moved enough during my dad’s army career to know that home was what you made it and home was the with the people you loved, not necessarily the setting.
And the setting, for now, was Carter’s apartment. Which we might change. Or might not. Sitting on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, I studied the barren walls in the semi-darkness, considering changing the place, redecorating. Or possibly giving it up, finding a new home that the two of us chose together. It was a little strange this idea of togetherness, finally making decisions as a unit rather than individuals or even enemies, like we’d been in the beginning, but there it was.
A noise alerted me, breaking into the lazy drift of my thoughts, but my fuzzy vision told me it was only Carter, coming down the hall, emerging into the living room where I sat. I needed new glasses, but they’d have to wait until tomorrow.
“Couldn’t sleep?”
I shook my head. “Too much to think about.”
He dropped onto the couch next to me. It felt good to snuggle into him. Natural. No worrying about right or wrong moves, no questioning either of our motives, no concerns that it wouldn’t last. This was it. This was forever.
“Can’t get the fight out of your head?”
Some of it had been replaying in my brain, but I honestly felt a strange sense of relief, so far as all that was concerned. It was over. Done. We now had the future to consider, and that’s what I told him.
“More like thinking about the future. What it’s going to entail. What it’s going to hold.”
“As in…”
“Everything. Where we’ll live. How we’ll handle the responsibilities Sean left us. How we’ll tell my parents I’m moving in with you. Where my family will go. What explanations we’ll give them about us. If we’ll ever come clean about the whole story. Them re-starting their lives. Honestly, everything.”
Carter grimaced. “Maybe they’ll decide to stay in Oklahoma City. Or go back to Washington.”
I snickered. “You’re lucky I’m not offended by that.”
“Hey, I have nothing against them personally. It’s just—the whole in-law thing…”
“I know, I know. You and my dad. You two are going to have to figure it out, you know. Wherever they choose to settle, there’s going to be Christmases and holidays and birthdays together. At the very least, you’re going to have to be able to drink beer and watch football games in the living room while Mom and I clean the kitchen.”
“I don’t drink beer and I’d rather help clean.”
“Now you’re trying to kiss up to my mom.”
“I don’t have
