Five Stolen Rings

Epilogue

JACK || FIVE YEARS LATER

Stella freaking Piorra.

I think it’s safe to say that I am crazy about that woman. She keeps me on my toes; she drives me mad; she’s sweet and soft and sexy. She also says she married me for my health insurance—but last week I woke up to see her watching me sleep with a little smile on her face, so she’s a big fat liar.

She loves me.

…Except maybe right now, at this very moment, she loves me a little less than usual.

“No way.”

She shakes her head and then winces, her hand jumping to where there is once again blood in her hair.

“Yes way. You brought this on yourself,” I point out, folding my arms across my chest and leaning back in my chair. These seats by the ER beds leave much to be desired. “What did I tell you about climbing trees? ”

“Oh, please,” she says with a scoff as she looks over at me. “Like you would have done any different.”

“I would have climbed up, retrieved the kite, and then gotten back down safely,” I say. “Without tearing a gash in my head. That’s what I would have done.”

Our daughter, Millie, is three years old, and she carries her kite everywhere she goes. It was a gift from Auntie Maude, and she adores it. So it comes to meals with her; it goes to bed with her.

It goes out to play in the backyard with her, too. And when the winter wind caught her precious kite and carried it up into the scraggly branches of the tree…

“So obnoxious,” Stella says under her breath now. “ I would have climbed down without tearing a gash in my head, ” she mimics. “ I’m tall, so climbing trees is easy. But you know”—she glares at me now—“we’re not all tall, Jack.” She reaches up and probes her head wound gently, her glower receding, her lip quivering.

“I know,” I say with a grin as my very nice colleague Dr. Winters enters the room. “It will be over before you know it, Stella girl. We’ll pick up Millie from your parents’ and go home and watch a movie together. Okay?”

“No,” Stella says again. Her eyes zero in on the stapler that Dr. Winters is holding. “Nope. I am being punished for doing a good deed?—”

“This isn’t punishment, Princess,” I cut her off. “This is the medical care that your emergency doctor deems necessary. You’ve given birth; a few staples is nothing next to that.”

“It’s different,” Stella says. “I got a baby at the end of labor.”

“Deep breaths,” Dr. Winters intones in his low, calming voice. Stella squeezes her eyes shut and takes a couple breaths—they’re not deep, but they’ll do.

“And on the count of three,” Dr. Winters goes on, “in one, two?—”

“Ow— ow! ”

“All done,” he says soothingly. “You did great.”

I’ve heard him say the exact same thing in the exact same tone to little children. All he needs to do is offer Stella a sticker of her choice.

“Would you like a sticker?” Dr. Winters says, and I laugh out loud.

Stella sniffles and then nods. “For our daughter,” she says quickly. “Not for me. Do you have any with princesses?”

“Hmm.” Dr. Winters opens the cabinet and pulls out the rolls of stickers we have. “We have a pink princess?—”

“That’s Sleeping Beauty,” Stella says, shaking her head. “Millie doesn’t like that one. She’s scared of Maleficent.”

“What about Mulan?” Dr. Winters says, holding up the Mulan sticker.

“Perfect,” Stella says happily. “I’ll take it.” She looks at me. “Maybe we could put it on one of Millie’s gifts.”

“That would work,” I say. We say thank you to the doctor and then check out, and ten minutes later we’re in the car, on the way to pick up our daughter.

We’re getting Millie some fun things for Christmas. But I’m more excited about the gift I have for Stella, in honor of our fifth Christmas together :

Five golden rings.

Thank you so much for reading FIVE STOLEN RINGS!