Chimera and the Cat Burglar (FUC Academy #46)

Epilogue

FOUR YEARS LATER

“Mommy, that’s Daddy’s statue.”

“Yes, it is, Millie. That’s your brave father who saved the town, and tonight, the whole town celebrates him with a midnight costume parade.” Boo balanced the three-year-old toddler on her hip, rocking gently to the sound of the cover band playing “Don’t Stop Believing” in the park across from city hall.

The song reminded her of Willy’s faith as much as the bronze statue she stood in front of, which depicted Willy as a winged hero.

Rumors of a giant falcon appearing added to the town’s folklore seemed appropriate.

The statue also represented Willy’s continued heroism and bravery as an international FUC agent, after he’d protected the town from the mad mayor, faux gas leak, and resulting explosion that occurred due to the sinkhole under the cemetery.

Boo’s heart had fully healed, even as she waited patiently for Willy to join her and Millie, as he’d promised to return from his latest mission.

“I want to see Grandma and Daddy,” Millie said.

“Soon, very soon,” Boo promised.

Millie was born with Boo’s petite physical features, her skin tones a shade lighter than Boo’s, along with Boo’s sass and passion for adventure. She inherited her dad’s focused demeanor, mocha eyes, and the tiny crook in her pinky finger.

“Boo! Millie!” Cecilia propped open the doors to the museum for the evening celebration.

Cecilia and Boo were some of the few who knew the truth of that awful night four years ago, and the disappearance of Mayor Joystick, suspected of covering up a critical soil erosion problem under the town.

The townsfolk flooded the streets in an assortment of anything-goes summer-solstice costumes, their cheers reaching the heavens as they gathered, waiting for the new mayor to kick off the summer solstice party.

“I hope you know what a hero you are, my love,” Boo whispered to the statue, her pulse trilling with anticipation of Willy’s arrival.

She turned her attention to Millie, who’d decided to wear falcon wings on her kitty costume. “Are you ready for the party?”

Millie wiggled free, spotting her grandmother. “Can Grandma come with us?”

The little girl didn’t wait for an answer, darting across the sidewalk and springing into Cecilia’s arms.

Where had time gone? Millie was thinking and making decisions, challenging Boo at every turn, it seemed.

Cecilia had become the best grandmother to Millie. Boo attributed her renewed love of her mother to Cecilia’s sacrifice in slowing down Richard’s attempt to take control of the Bastet statue and its fabricated power.

Without Willy’s quick action, the sinkhole might have swallowed her mother right along with the mayor.

Boo shook her head, took one last look at the statue, and made her way toward the stand where the crowd gathered.

Holding hands, Millie and Cecilia met Boo.

“Let me fix you a little.” Cecilia adjusted Boo’s Marty McFly jacket, which had wrinkled holding Millie.

It was strange how Boo romanticized time travel movies, and that hadn’t changed, even though a scientific reason existed behind the graveyard episode.

“I’m fine, Mom. Life is full of wrinkles.” Boo stood firm. “I don’t want to come off as perfect when I’m a work in progress.”

“We all are,” Cecilia conceded, adjusting her own cat ears. “Now, it’s time. We’ll be fine. I promise I’ll keep my eyes glued to Millie during the speech.”

This mothering thing wasn’t as easy as she’d assumed, her worrying over Millie taking up much of her time when Willy was off saving the furry kind.

But he’d be home soon. She could feel his closeness in her bones.

With Mayor Joystick gone, she should have been calmer, but Boo knew evil existed in the world and had once made its way to Willow Wisp.

“Gosh, I’m turning into you, Mom, helicoptering the child,” Boo admitted. “But I’ll deal with the repercussions of her angsty teenage years later.”

“I’ll be there to help. Promise. Until then, let’s partake in the celebration. We have a midnight parade and street lighting, line dancing…” Cecilia went on and on and kicked up her heels in a playful dance.

Millie twirled, her dress sailing about her chubby knees. “Grandma, dance with me.”

The two skipped toward the gathering crowd, hand in hand.

Millie hadn’t yet shifted. Boo couldn’t know what her DNA would bring forth—a feline of sorts, a gorilla, or a combination shifter—but Millie was healthy and happy. For now, that was what mattered. Boo had the fierceness of motherhood to see her through helping Millie once she matured and a partner she could count on to return home.

“I can’t wait to hear the mayor’s speech this year.”

Alyce?

A tap on Boo’s shoulder spun her around. “You’re here.”

“I wouldn’t miss the town’s newest tradition. You and Willy hold a special place in my heart.” The llama shifter patted the place over her breast and then hugged Boo.

Murmurs bubbled all around them as more townsfolk gathered in the hub of town, waiting for the mayor to address them.

“It’s time.” Boo’s assistant, Ginnie, pointed to the podium.

“Go get ’em, Mayor Tagger.” Alyce cheered, adding a fist pump.

Boo never thought she’d become mayor but had been unanimously voted in after the board’s acting mayor, Cecilia, stepped down.

Her dream of proving herself as a worthy FUC agent had subsided after becoming a mother, and she wore her motherhood duty as a badge of honor.

Boo climbed the three steps to the raised platform and took her place behind the podium.

Familiar faces lined the street as far as she could see, and her heart warmed. Even though Willy wasn’t among the crowd, yet he understood the importance of uniting the citizens in remembrance of the night the aurora borealis came to town.

Boo tapped the mic, sending a screech into the air, and the band stopped playing. “Hello. I’m Mayor Tagger, and I welcome all of you to the third annual celebration of our town heroes, especially Willy Tagger. Without your bravery, none of us would be standing here today.”

Cheers erupted.

Boo’s love and pride for her husband filled her to bursting. “Without further ado, let’s get this party started!”

Boo blew the party horn Ginnie had left on the podium and then rejoined Cecilia and Millie. “I just need a minute.”

“We’ll be fine. You take your time while we watch the jugglers and pony parade.” Cecilia hiked Millie onto her hip and headed to join the other parade spectators.

Maybe Boo should join in the celebration with her constituents.

She should pour her attention into her daughter in Willy’s absence.

But for one night a year, from midnight until she was confident the portal wasn’t reopening, she listened to the distant celebration, waiting for Willy to appear.

The grass chilled her legs as she sat near the now-closed sinkhole at her father’s gravesite. The full moon filtered through the heart-shaped linden leaves and projected the pattern onto the ground, and Boo settled. She glanced upward, speaking to the moon, hoping that her dad was looking down from the heavens. “I miss you, Dad. I love you. I wish you could see your granddaughter. She’s so much like you, curious, yet focused, and she’s only three.”

A tear fell onto Boo’s cheek. She guessed the cemetery was the appropriate place to let tears fall, and she shed less each year.

A bird cried out above, its large wings temporarily blocking the light.

Boo continued, “Dad, I will never forget you.”

A thud landed behind her, and she spun to face the giant falcon.

Willy transformed into his human form. “I won’t let you forget him, either. Your father saved the town by alerting to the cavernous space and tunnels running under Willow Wisp.”

Excitement rushed through her, and she sprang toward Willy, clutching his neck, pulling him down for a kiss that lasted until she needed to breathe. “After three months, you’re home!”

“I’ll never break my promise to return to you, Boo.” He took her face between his palms and lowered his mouth, crashing it against her, devouring her as if she fed his soul.

The kiss lit her inside. Over the past years, Willy had patched up every broken crack in her heart.

She took another breath and said, “You’re everything to me. I’m so glad you’re home…”

Boo spoke a mile a minute, but she didn’t care. Willy was home. Home!

Home.

Never had one word brought her so much comfort.

He ran a slow hand down her arms as if testing her authenticity. “You’re the best part of me. I love you, Boo.”

That was all she needed to hear. “I love you, too.”

“I have a surprise for you.” Will waved at someone in the distance and then wrapped an arm around Boo’s shoulders, pulling her close and providing support and comfort as the man approached.

Boo’s heart marched double-time. Dad?

“Boo, this is your father. He remembers waking up in the hospital years ago. He had no ID on him, no memory of who he was or where he came from, but I was able to search a missing persons’ database and find him using your DNA.”

Her dad had returned. She didn’t know any more than that he presented himself with the kindest eyes and a gentle disposition. She trusted Willy wholeheartedly.

“Boo Boo, you’re all grown up.” Her dad’s eyes watered. “I remembered I had a daughter named Boo in the hospital.”

Of course that wasn’t Boo’s birth name. She’d been born Emma, so a search wouldn’t have led her father home.

Boo wasn’t a little girl anymore, but the little girl in her caused her to run. Yes, she skipped and laughed and flew into her father’s open arms. She cried from relief, and all her pain vanished. “Daddy, you’re home. You’re really home.”

“Boo, is it really you?” He squeezed.

“It’s me, Dad.”

Faith had come through.

“Boo! Thom!” Cecilia called out, her mom sprinting toward them with Millie on her hip and the toddler giggling all the way.

Boo eased away and took Millie from Cecilia, handing the toddler to Willy, who embraced his daughter.

“Thom, is that really you?” Cecilia squinted.

Dad didn’t waste a second. He grabbed Cecilia and spun her around. “I remember something… The night I left I met with Richard Joystick.”

“You don’t have to worry about him ever again,” Cecilia purred.

“I’m sorry I left you, Cecilia,” Thom said. “I never will again, if you’ll have me.”

“Will I!” Cecilia tossed her cat ears and purred as she snuggled her husband.

Boo had never seen her mom so happy, and it warmed her to her core. She had her family back—a miracle in the monsters-and-mayhem world.

She didn’t know if she’d remain mayor of Willow Wisp. Willy would continue to seek adventures as a FUC agent. If so, she might join him since they’d both graduated from FUCN’A.

Their world was a blank canvas, and she was ready to paint their future.

Whatever life threw at them, she knew the truth, in her heart and soul, that they’d never be apart because they were bound by love.

“I want pizza with Grandma and Grandpa, Mommy.”

Boo laughed, and the others joined in and then headed toward the festivities, leaving Willy and Boo to bask in the moonlight.

“What should we do now?” Boo asked, nuzzling the love of her life.

Willy hummed, pumping his brows. “We could celebrate our reunion, dream of our future, profess our love to each other, or… you could agree to marry me again.”

“Every day,” she cooed.

Willy pulled a ring from his pocket, the lapis lazuli stone twice the size of what her zebra heart pendant had been.

Willy said, “I followed the coordinates that Zeb gave you on my last mission, and I discovered this stone in a local jewelry store. It symbolizes the heavens and the gods, and, to me, my boundless love for you.”

Heat welled inside her, reaching a fever pitch as Willy slid the ring onto her finger.

She squealed with joy. “Now it’s time for me to show you how much I missed you.”

Willy slid a wicked smile across his face. “I’d like that very much, kitten .”

And Boo did. She kissed him long and slowly, again and again, finally allowing their bodies to reacquaint themselves under the spill of stars from above.

Utterly and completely.

Always and forever.

The End