True Love’s Ransom – Extended Epilogue

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“Boss man!” An excited voice called out from further up the rocky cliff face, the noise sending a few pebbles and other debris cascading down from the lip that the boy stood on.

Although, really, Lukas shouldn’t refer to him as a boy, he knew.

Edward Chestain was only five years his junior, a bright boy with an adaptable personality and a willingness to learn. It was why Lukas had recently promoted him at the mines, even given his age.

“What’d I tell you about calling me that, Edward?” Lukas laughed, shielding his eyes with his hand and looking up to see the boy trying to pick his way down to him.

The other men labored around them, clearing rock and sediment from the place that Lukas had planted the flags several days before. It was supposed to be the start of a new mining shaft, although currently, it just looked like a cliff face and a lot of rubble around it.

A good chunk of the men closest to Lukas laughed at the back and forth, grinning at him as Edward all but slid the last few feet down the face he had been walking down and careened to a stop only inches from where Lukas stood ungracefully. No one jibed the man about it, though, just laughing and continuing.

It was a good crew Lukas had found for this operation, though, not that he had a bad one. In the last three years, Lukas had taken to overseeing more and more of the mining business, taking over the day-to-day operations as his father faded into the managerial role in the background.

“You said only to call you that when I thought the risk of my britches being set afire were worth it.” Edward laughed back, unable to keep the humor from his tone.

Lukas shook his head, shouldering the pickax he had been using and signaling to the men around them that they could all take a break as well. He never asked them to work when he wasn’t, something that had taken time for a good number of them to get used to. It was something he thought that made them respect him just a little more though as well. Every man on any of his sites knew that he valued them as a collective and individually. They also knew that he worked just as hard and alongside them.

It made for a better work environment.

“And are you willing to have your britches set afire?” Lukas asked, laughing at the way Edward nodded. “Really?”

“I think it might be worth it, sir.”

“And why’s that?” Lukas asked, leaning against one of the larger rocks behind him and taking one of the drinks brought to him. He sipped the water with a casual interest in the boy’s explanation, eying the way the job site quickly transitioned into break mode carefully.

“Because you also said that if I saw a horse riding here fast, I was to come get you at once,” Edward said smartly, his grin breaking past his words.

It was all he needed to say for Lukas to drop both the pickax and his drink, taking off in a run up the same path Edward had just come down. Sure enough, coming from the direction of town, a lone horse rode, a cloud of dust in their wake.

“You tell Lily we said congratulations on the new sibling!” Edward called laughingly as Lukas gave up all pretense of grace and scrambled the last few feet up the ledge. “And tell Tonia we said congratulations too!”

Lily.

The excitement gave way to fear, gnawing at the edges of his consciousness as he hurried towards the line of tied horses even before the rider could reach them.

Lily.

It was hard to think of her name and picture anything but the sunshine she so clearly embodied, her dark hair so like her mother’s always sticking up at wild angles, and her smile always so ready for anyone she happened to come across.

Lily had been Lukas and Tonia’s first daughter, born just a little over nine months after their wedding.

Tonia and Lukas had been only too glad to welcome a child into their family, their three sets of parents absolutely overjoyed with the news. The pregnancy itself, hadn’t been remarkable. Tonia had done what every woman did in such a situation, growing and softening into the mother she would become.

It was the birth that was different.

She had carried so much longer than anyone thought that she would, and then when it came down to it, the labor had lasted nearly a full day. Lukas had waited outside the room she was delivering in, his heart in his throat and his prayers so frequent he wasn’t sure he was ever even pausing in saying them.

“Your wife is in labor,” the messenger croaked, his body half-leaned over his horse. “Her water bro–”

But he never got to finish his sentence.

Lukas had been saddling and readying a horse before the messenger had even made it to him. As he pulled up, Lukas was already swinging himself into the saddle, not bothering to waste any time on discussion as he took off in the same direction the messenger had come from.

He rode with a desperation he hadn’t felt in years, his fingers so tight around the reins that his knuckles were blanched white.

He had sworn, after all he and Tonia had been through, that she would never be forced to face another thing on her own. He just had to ensure that he kept that promise.

The miles between the new mine site and home flew past, his prayers already started before he ever even saw the rooftop to his home. A very real part of him was almost tempted to ride all the way up to the front door on the horse, but he stopped just short instead. He slid off the horse and onto the porch, walking quickly through the front door and into the foyer.

“Da da!” a little voice called out, full of hope and excitement as Lukas was forced to stop in place. “Da da, Da da, look! Grampy ga’ me pencils!”

Before he could even answer, a small, black-headed child crashed into his knees, gripping them tightly in a hug and jumping up and down. “Grandpa got you pencils?” Lukas asked distractedly, picking her up and hugging her close to his chest as he walked her back into the sitting room she had run from.

Johnny Merrick sat at the small table there, his knees hunched up to his chest and his forever disgruntled expression dispelled by a large smile. It was a smile he only ever wore in the presence of his oldest granddaughter.

“I told her to wait,” Johnny groused, holding his arms out for Lukas to deposit Lily’s wiggling form into them. “Didn’t I, you little grump?”

“I no’ grumpy grampy, you grumpy!” Lily answered back, sticking her tongue out.

Lukas smiled wryly, shaking his head. “You’re both grumpy at times,” he amended, making them meet in the middle. “Tonia …?”

Johnny grinned, gesturing over toward the back of the house importantly. “She’s back there, with Agata,” he informed him. “Delivering my next grandbaby; why don’t you go on back? I’m here to watch Lily.”

“Lily do’n’need watching,” Lily groused, her little face screwing up in a delightful show of stubbornness.

Tonia and Lukas regularly argued over who she got that particular trait from.

“Well, Lily’s going to watch Grandpa then, how about that,” Johnny Merrick offered sweetly, kissing the top of her perfect little head and winking at his son.

Lukas smiled in thanks, stepping back himself and turning to go back to where he knew Tonia was delivering.

He was happy. Or he was trying to be. Mostly he was just worried.

The further he got back in the house, the more he could hear the noises of pain coming from the other side of the door. Each new one was like another frisson in his heart. He had tried going in the last time and had been told that he needed to wait outside. He knew it well enough now, but the desire to be by his wife’s side was still there.

He could hear the indistinct talking of two women from behind the door, his ears straining to hear anything concrete beyond his wife’s noises.

The door opened as he stared at it, though, and Agata came walking out, her brows furrowed in a worry she quickly tried to hide as she caught sight of Lukas. “Lukas!” she called, forcing a smile to her face.

“Don’t, Agata, please,” Lukas breathed out, craning his neck to see around her, but the door was already closing. “Tonia …”

“Is in labor,” Agata soothed, coming up alongside Lukas and taking his hand. “It is a difficult one, just like we feared. The midwife thinks this one, too, will be born foot first.”

Foot first.

Lukas dreaded those words. He knew what it meant. It was the same problem that had come during Lily’s delivery, and that had been such a close call.

“Oh, my boy, don’t make that face; it’s only a complication,” Agata promised, patting his hand. She spoke easily, despite her own worry.

She had always loved Tonia, but she had spent every spare moment getting to know her as an adult now over the last four years, making up for lost time.

Lukas knew she needed comfort just as much as he did, though, and he squeezed her fingers back as they both looked to the door. “So now …”

“Now we are patient.” Agata laughed. “Come now, Lukas; you’ve been here before.”

“It’s the waiting that smarts,” Lukas muttered, his tone almost despondent.

Agata didn’t try cheering him up again, though, only standing and pressing her lips into the top of his forehead before she nodded. Lukas let go of her hand reluctantly, knowing that Tonia needed her more than him and wishing he could just go in there with her. Instead, he sent Agata, his prayers resuming as if he had never stopped.

The door shut between them, and Lukas tried to focus on the last three years.

His marriage.

Lily’s birth.

Christmases as a huge family.

Easters out at Merrick Manor with new friends and old all invited.

He tried to think about the sight of Tonia, two years previous, with her arms wrapped around their firstborn daughter, her black eyes shining with love as she looked down at the beauty they had created. He thought about the first time Tonia had shown him how to find herbs to use for cooking and the first time Lily had ever said Da.

He thought about his life.

Three years before, he had been dream-walking through it, missing everything around him and caught up in what was expected of him and social decorum. Tonia had been like a battering ram to that existence, doing away with the old and planting gardens and gardens of love and understanding in its place.

Although Howell ended up imprisoned for the rest of his life, sometimes Lukas couldn’t help thinking that maybe they owed him a debt of gratitude. For leaving Tonia her necklace, kidnapping them, and forcing them together again after all those years.

It was a strange thought, but one he couldn’t quite banish either.

Not even as he heard something that sounded like a small cry as the rest of the room beyond went quiet.

On the second cry he was up, striding across the space to slam open that door with all the worry and fear he had been trying to contain bristling through his body …

But what he opened the door to required none of that.

Tonia was propped up against the pillows behind her, a swaddled baby being placed in the crook of her arm, and Lukas almost sagged against the doorframe in relief.

“Is she …?” he asked, cutting off as Tonia looked up with her heart in her eyes in that way that he so appreciated once more.

“He,” Tonia breathed raggedly, her exhaustion clear in her voice, but also her love. “Lukas Merrick, meet Johnny Taxim Merrick.”

Lukas stumbled his way to her side, sinking into the chair at her side as Agata and the midwife rushed around to clean the room and provide them with the help that they could. He didn’t have words, looking at that perfectly scrunched face in Tonia’s arms or Tonia’s face as she stared down at it too.

Johnny Taxim … Their fathers would be so proud.

“He has green eyes like you too,” Tonia whispered, her fingers whisper-soft against his face before she lifted him, handing him over.

Lukas felt his chest swell.

Would his heart ever stop growing to fit more?

“And black hair, just like you,” he whispered, brushing the tuft of it on top of his head back. He looked so much like his older sister, tiny and perfect. “Tonia …”

“I know,” Tonia whispered, not even needing him to finish saying the words.

“How did we get so lucky?” Lukas asked, his voice ragged as he brushed the perfectly formed black eyelashes that were still closed.

“I think we were owed some of that after our unlucky start,” Tonia joked, leaning her head against Lukas’ bicep as she stared happily at the two of them. “Or maybe it was always just meant to be like this …”

“Do you think our children will get tired of how invasive we’re going to be?” Lukas laughed, knowing that Tonia knew what he meant.

“Oh, I’m sure they’ll think we’re overbearing and ridiculous …”

“But they’ll deal with it,” Lukas said surely, lifting his face finally to look at his wife.

The bags under her eyes and the tired lines stretching her face were evident, as was the slow progression of years on her skin. He could, like this, almost imagine what she would look like ten years from then. He could imagine her covered in wrinkles, her hair graying …

And she would still be just as beautiful to him then as she was now.

“I choose you, you know,” Lukas whispered, his breath fanning over her face.

“Oh yeah?” Tonia asked, her laugh light. “Why’s that?”

“Because I love you,” Lukas promised, the words sincere.

“Well, good,” Tonia breathed. “Because I choose you too … because I love you,” she promised, lifting her face as he descended.

The kiss he gave her was full of promise and love, just like their first and second, and every one that had come ever after. Because that was what he and Tonia were altogether: Full of love and promise.

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