Epilogue
Three years later
“Twins?” Logan exclaimed. “Are you kidding?”
Ellie rubbed the slight bump of her tummy, then smiled up at Aidan as his hand covered hers.
“That’s what the doctor says,” Aidan explained to his brother as they relaxed under the pergola overlooking the secluded cove. They were surrounded by their large, extended family and Aidan couldn’t help smiling as he watched his two-year-old son, Bobby, stretch to plant his sandy feet in his older cousin Jake’s footsteps.
There were kids everywhere. The Duke and Sutherland families had established a new tradition of spending the holidays together at the charming boutique hotel the Duke brothers had built on the northern coast of Alleria. The hotel had been built into the side of a cliff and overlooked one of Alleria’s beautiful views. Flowering vines cascaded down the hillside and the pristine white sand beach was dotted with colorful umbrellas. Sailboats bobbed in the azure waters beyond the breakwater.
Logan and Grace were here with their eighteen-month-old twin girls, Rosie and Lily, and the three Duke cousins had brought their entire brood. As far as Aidan was concerned, there was nothing better than Christmas in the tropics, and he was looking forward to a rollicking Christmas dinner with the whole gang later that afternoon.
His dad and Sally had made the trip, too, of course. Sally had made it a habit to keep in close touch with Aidan and Logan and considered them to be her boys along with her three Duke sons.
Aidan watched Sally laugh at something one of her grandchildren said. He rubbed at the twinge in his chest as he recalled the exact moment when he had realized that Sally had become the mother of his heart.
“Twins run in the family,” his dad, Tom, said, smiling fondly at Ellie.
“They must,” Logan said with a laugh.
First there had been Aidan and Logan, then Logan and Grace gave birth to twin daughters, and now Ellie was pregnant with twins.
Sally touched Tom’s knee. “Are there more twins we don’t know about?”
“Oh, yeah,” Tom said. “My father was a twin, too. But his brother, my uncle Ransom, was lost at sea during World War II.”
“That’s so sad,” Grace said, keeping an eagle eye on little Rosie and Lily as they dug in the sand with their colorful plastic shovels.
“Yeah.” Tom sipped his beer. “My dad never accepted it though. He always had a feeling that his brother was still alive somewhere. You know, that twin radar of his wouldn’t let him give up on his brother.”
“So you could have an uncle living somewhere?” Sally said, her eyes wide. “Have you ever tried to find him?”
“No,” Tom said, then started to laugh. “But something tells me I’ve just given you a new project to dig your teeth into.”
“Yes, you have,” Sally said with a big smile. “And I can’t wait.”
Aidan chuckled. If anyone could do it, Sally could. She had been a widow for many years and had spent part of that time trying to track down her late husband’s brother, Tom, otherwise known as Aidan and Logan’s dad. When Sally finally found him, the two had fallen in love, so who better than Sally to search for a lost uncle?
“You have to admit she’s good at finding people,” Logan said.
Aidan met Ellie’s soft gaze and he felt the familiar jolt of happiness he always got when he looked at his beautiful wife. “She helped me find you.”
“I think we found each other,” Ellie whispered.
No thanks to his own stubbornness, Aidan thought silently as he gripped her hand in his. Thank goodness he’d come to his senses in time.
Now as he stretched his legs out on the chaise longue he shared with his wife, he considered himself the luckiest man on the planet. Ellie enriched his life in so many ways and he tried each day to show her how much love and happiness he held in his heart for her. They were perfect partners in every way possible and had given each other exactly what Ellie had always wanted and what Aidan had finally discovered he wanted just as badly. A family of their own.