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Author's Chapter Notes:

This is the last chapter (sans very small epilogue), and I'm so sad to see this one end. I am overwhelmed by the response to this story, and can't wait to see what you think of the ending. Thank you so so much for reading!

 

“This better be good, Nick.”

 

“I love you, too, Kevin.” Nick let out an exasperated sigh, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel impatiently as he waited for the light to turn green. “And it’s not good. It’s bad. I think it’s really bad.”

 

Suddenly, he had his older brother’s full attention. “What’s going on, Nick?” Kevin asked pointedly.

 

“I lost Annie and Drew.”

 

“You did what?”

 

“I woke up this morning and they were gone. She left a note. It said not to freak out, but that was four hours ago, and she still isn’t answering her phone. I called the studio, then I called the hospital and the police station, and then I didn’t know what else to do....” Nick told Kevin in one hurried breath.

 

“Slow down, Nick,” Kevin coaxed calmly.

 

“So I called Brian.”

 

“Seems reasonable. Brian and Annie are close.”

 

“Well, he seems to think maybe I’ve scared her back to Kentucky.” Nick flipped on his turn signal as he guided his rental car towards the exit for the interstate.

 

Scared her back to Kentucky?” Kevin challenged, his voice on edge.

 

“Long story.” Nick paused as he focused on clearing the near 360-degree loop of asphalt.

 

“AJ called me, by the way.”

 

Nick groaned. “What did he tell you? He knows something, but what I don’t know. Something about bridges and soup.”

 

“He talks in code, I know. He didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know. Am I the only person you’ve told about Lauren and the baby?” Nick and Kevin had spent a great deal of time together in LA in the weeks after the cruise, with Nick actually staying with Kevin and Mason for a while.

 

“I told Annie..... But I didn’t call you to talk about this. The reason I called is that I need your brother’s number.”

 

“Tim’s number? Why didn’t you just get it from Brian?”

 

Nick let out a strained chuckle. “Something about Baylee and a mud puddle, and he lost all his contacts when he got his new phone. I’m on my way there, but I just got on I-65, and I think I’m something like three-and-a-half hours away. Kev, if she’s freaking out, somebody’s going to have to be there to talk her down.”

 

Talk her down?”

 

“It’s been a really long week, Kevin. Maybe we can talk about it later, but right now I’m really worried about Annie. Are you going to give me Tim’s number or not?”

 

“How about I just let you talk to him?”

 

“What? Where are you?”

 

“Tim’s guest room.”

 

“You’re in Kentucky?”

 

“Well, my family lives here, you know.” Kevin ducked out of the bedroom and into the hallway in search of his brother.

 

“Right. So, can I talk to Tim?”

 

“Just a sec.” Kevin entered his brother’s living room just in time to hear the doorbell ring. He followed behind Tim as he crossed the room to answer it, trailing close enough to let him know he needed him, but not so much that he would be interrupting if whoever was at the door was a parishioner who needed him more.

 

Tim glanced over his shoulder to acknowledge his little brother as he reached for the doorknob, and swung the door open. “Annie?”

 

Kevin stared wide-eyed at the rain-drenched young woman standing on the doorstep. Her hair stuck to the sides of her head and rivulets of water trailed through the mascara streaks that ran down her cheeks. Her coat was slung over one shoulder and Drew’s tiny arms reached out from under it and clutched her neck. “He’s gonna have to call you back, Nick.”

 

“What?” Nick screeched.

 

“Just keep driving, okay? He’ll call you back.” Kevin hung up the phone and shoved it in his pocket.

 

“It’s raining,” Annie panted. “I came all this way, and it’s raining. What do you think that means?”

 

Kevin held the door open for her as Tim lunged forward to remove her dripping coat and retrieve Drew. “I don’t really know what you’re talking about, but...” Tim hesitated as Annie looked up at him with tearful eyes. “I’d say it just means that it’s raining,” he finished with a shrug.

 

“I had plans,” Annie told him, still not even noticing Kevin’s presence. “I had plans, but now it’s pouring the rain, and I couldn’t take Drew out with me in that mess, and maybe I’m not so sure if I can go through with it.”

 

“Well, I don’t know what your plans were, but it looks like the clouds are already starting to break up.” Tim told her as he peeked his head out the door and pointed skyward, where sure enough, there was a tiny sliver of bright blue above his outstretched finger.

 

_________________________________________________________________

 

Nick chucked his cell phone angrily at the seat beside him and pushed the accelerator to the floor board. “What does he mean- he’s gonna have to call you back? Did Kevin really just hang up on me? He didn’t even tell me Happy Birthday. What a douche,” he muttered under his breath. He eyed the phone that teetered haphazardly on the edge of the passenger seat and lunged for it just before it fell to the floor. “Come on, Annie. Pick up,” he begged, dialing her number for what felt like the hundredth time that day. Only this time, he heard the tell-tale click of someone answering in the middle of the fourth ring.

“Nick.”

 

“What the-?” Nick pulled the phone away from his ear and glanced down at the screen. He’d been sure he dialed the right number, but as life seemed to be going lately, maybe he shouldn’t be so sure of anything anymore. “Kevin?

 

“Nick, she’s here. At Tim’s. Right now,” Kevin’s rich voice soothed across the line. Nick’s foot instinctively eased up on the gas pedal as he breathed a sigh of relief. “You didn’t dial the wrong number.” Kevin chuckled lightly. “And slow down.”

 

Nick tensed and instead pressed his shoe back down to the floorboard. “Is she okay?” he asked quietly.

 

“She’s.....” Kevin trailed off and sighed. “Freaking out.”

 

“I knew it.” Nick groaned.

 

But--” Kevin interjected. “She did tell me to answer her phone and talk to you.”

 

“Is this her way of letting me down easy? Sending in the big brother?”

 

“Uh-- I don’t know,” the older man admitted clumsily.

 

“You don’t know,” Nick stated flatly.

 

“She seemed a little overwhelmed. Tim and Kristin are talking to her out on the porch.”

 

“Tim and Kristin?” Nick raised an eyebrow. Was Kevin losing it, or was Tim’s wife named Kristin, too? Surely, he’d remember Kevin mentioning something like that.

 

“Yes, Kristin.”

 

“As in your wife, Kristin?”

 

“Yes, Nick. My wife, Kristin. It’s been a pretty long week for me, too, okay? Maybe we can talk about it some other time, but right now I have to go stop Mason from trying to feed Drew dog food. Cute kid, by the way.”

 

“He is,” Nick agreed, just as he noticed the flashing blue lights in his rear-view mirror. “Crap.”

 

“Crap, the kid’s cute?”

 

“No! Crap, I’m getting pulled over.” Nick hit his brakes and moved over into the right lane.

“I thought I told you to slow-- Mason, no!”

 

_________________________________________________________________

 

Nick pulled his rental car into the small gravel lot and parked it beside a beat-up, older model red Jeep. Kevin and his brother leaned up against one side of it casually. “What’s this all about?” Nick pleaded as he opened his door and climbed out, stretching awkwardly. After driving straight there from Franklin, with only one stop to take is speeding ticket and go on without a fight, Nick’s back and neck felt like a tightly coiled spring that needed to be unwound. An hour outside of Berea, he’d gotten a text from Annie that was simply an address. So, of course, he’s programmed it into his GPS and driven a little faster, hoping that maybe fate thought one speeding ticket in a day was enough.

 

“She’s over there.” Tim pointed to a narrow path through the leafless trees that were still wet with rain and glistening in the sunlight.

 

Nick nodded and tucked his keys into his pocket, then wiped his palms, which were sweating despite the chill in the air, on the legs of his jeans as he made his way through the trees, the wet gravel crunching under the weight of his tennis shoes. His breath hitched in his throat and he stopped dead in his tracks when he saw her. She was kneeling on the ground about a hundred yards away with her back to them, her hair dancing in the wind, and facing a large, rounded slab of marble. Nick whipped his head in Kevin and Tim’s direction as hot tears pricked at the corners of his eyes. “She wanted to meet me at a graveyard?” Both Richardson men nodded. He gulped. "Andrew’s grave?” This time, only Tim nodded.

 

Suddenly, Nick’s breath started coming in short, shuddering gasps, and his hands hit his knees as he bent forward in an attempt to pull more air into his lungs. “Why would you let me come all this way for this? So that I can have my heart broken again. What the hell’s wrong with you?” he growled, more at Kevin than at Tim, who he’d only met a small handful of times.

 

“Nick, breathe,” Kevin coaxed gently.

 

“I can’t!” he panted in return. “Most of the time I can barely breathe when I’m around her under the best of circumstances! Now, she’s brought me to her husband’s grave so she can tell me she’s changed her mind and that she can’t be with me!” In the distance, Annie whipped her head around at the sound of Nick’s voice.

 

“Is that what you think this is?” Tim asked gently, as he stooped down to look Nick in the eye and place a hand on his shoulder.

 

“What else could it be?”

 

“Maybe you should go find out.” Kevin gestured in Annie’s direction, and Nick turned to look at her. Their eyes locked, her expression unreadable. Yet, she beckoned him to come to her with a “come-hither” motion of her index finger.

 

“Oh, God,” he breathed quietly. “What do I do?” his eyes searched those of both Richardson brothers.

 

“Go to her, of course,” Kevin answered quickly.

 

Nick nodded and straightened up, then turned and walked slowly towards Annie. He hesitated and turned back to them for just a moment. “I don’t think I can handle this.”

 

“Go on...” Tim coaxed with a shooing motion of this hand. “Trust me.”

 

“And Happy Birthday,” Kevin echoed after him with a wink.

 

Nick’s heart beat wildly in his chest and he walked a little faster. Annie had turned back to the headstone in front of her, and he could hear angelic voice murmuring quietly, though he couldn’t yet make out the words. He suddenly realized that he wanted to hear them, and knowing that the next few moments would likely seal his fate one way or another, he started to jog. By the last few yards, he was at a dead sprint, closing the space between them as quickly as possible. She had yet to turn back around, so he stopped just a few footfalls behind her, placed his hands on his hips, and listened. Her curls danced in the cold breeze, whipping around her face, and her hands were in her lap, toying with what he recognized as the same cashmere throw she’d clutched around her shoulders yesterday afternoon. Since he couldn’t see her face without interrupting the sweet cadence of her voice that was now practically surrounding him, he instead gazed at the wisps of auburn hair that danced along the nape of her neck and longed to run his fingers through them.

 

“I think you’d really like him, Andrew,” she said to the base of the intricately engraved tombstone. “He’s not at all like I’d imagined him in my dreams so many years ago. Instead, he reminds me of you, and I think that’s what made me so afraid of having a relationship with him in the first place. That’s until I realized that the things about him that reminded me of you weren’t so much the things that made you who you were as a person, but the things that made you who you were as part of ‘us’--- Like the way he smiles at me when I walk into a room. His demeanor completely changes. It’s like for some crazy reason I’ll never understand, just my presence makes him happy. But I’ve gotta say, maybe I kind of understand that, because when he runs his fingers through my hair, I shiver. Every single time I shiver. Only you used to be able to do that to me.” She paused, and Nick took a few tentative steps towards her, stopping just short of the space directly to her left. “And when I’m talking, he looks at me like I’m the only other person in the entire universe. I guess what I’m trying to say is that he treats me the way you treated me-- The way you’d still want me to be treated. So, I want you know that while I’m always going to love you and cherish every single second I had with you...” She trailed off and looked up at Nick with a smile, then reached for his right hand that was hanging at his side, grasped it with her left, and gave him a gentle tug. “I think that now it’s time to give my heart to someone else.” Nick smiled back and took a step forward so that there was no longer any distance between them, then sank down to his knees in the grass beside her.

“Andrew, meet Nick,” she said. She leaned in to give Nick a soft, reassuring peck on the cheek. “Nick.... Andrew.”

 

Nick cast his eyes downward at the engraved marble in front of him. “Nice to meet you, sir,” he said reverently. Annie gave his hand a little squeeze.

 

“I didn’t really plan on him being here for this....”

 

Nick cast his eyes towards hers. “Sorry,” he said meekly.

 

“But I’m kind of glad he is.” Nick relaxed, but only for a moment. “Because I might need help with the shovel.”

 

“What?” Nick hissed, his eyes as big as saucers.

 

Annie couldn’t help it. She burst into an uncontrollable fit of giggles. She knew what his knee-jerk reaction to such a statement would be. That was why she said it. She needed to break the tension in Nick’s presence beside her, and figured Andrew would probably get a kick out of it, too. She gestured down to the blanket in her lap. “I want to bury something. Not dig something up!”

 

Nick breathed a sigh of relief, but still felt a little uneasy. “Here?”

 

Annie shook her head. “No. There are regulations about that. Over there actually.” She pointed to a large, sprawling willow tree in the far corner of the fenced in cemetery.

 

Nick eyed the willow tree and nodded. “I’m going to give you a minute, okay? I’ll be right back.” He stood, and she stood with him, still grasping his hand. Then, he bent down to plant a kiss on her cheek and turned to jog towards his car. He noticed that Kevin and Tim had long since gone, as their vehicle was nowhere to be seen. He grinned even bigger than before when he realized that the two of them must have known how this was going to end all along. After grabbing something out of this car, he returned to Annie quickly and found her standing beneath the leafless willow tree. Her hand was outstretched, and her index finger traced a carving in the trunk. When he got closer, he was able to see that it read “AD + AM.” Those were the initials of Annie and her husband, and he could imagine Annie looking on as Andrew etched the rough carving into the tree with a pocketknife years ago. “So, this is a pretty special place,” he said somberly as he stopped beside her.

 

Annie nodded. “This is where be proposed.”

 

Nick cocked an eyebrow. “In a cemetery?”

 

Annie laughed. “It wasn’t a cemetery then. When I found out they were going to build a cemetery here, I was mortified, but in the end I was glad that this was Andrew’s final resting place.” She bent over to pick up the shovel that was resting on the ground beside her. “Let’s do this. It’s time to let go.”

 

Nick watched as she angled the tip of the blade into the soft ground and pushed down on the shovel with her foot. The grass below gave away easily, and she scooped and tossed a patch of soggy earth away. After the first few scoops, Nick took over for her, and soon there was a hole large enough to hold the cashmere throw tossed on the ground beside it. Annie hit her knees and let out a little sob as she picked it up and started to lay it inside. “Wait.” Nick stooped down beside her and grasped her wrist just as she was about to let the blanket go. “Let’s do this together.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a tiny, red and black football jersey.

 

“Oh,” Annie gasped as she recognized the Tampa Bay Bucs jersey Nick had alluded to buying for Lauren when she was pregnant.

 

“I’ve been carrying this thing around for months. Not all the time, but for some reason, I did today. Now I know that it’s because it’s time for me to let go of something, too.” Annie looked on as he stood and grabbed the shovel again to quickly dig a hole beside hers, almost equal in size. “You know, maybe I should have done this somewhere else. Do you think Andrew would mind? I mean, this is kind of like sacred ground for you two.”

 

Annie quickly shook her head. “No. This is good. I honestly think he’d be fine with it.”

 

“Okay,then. You ready?” Nick held the jersey up and looked at Annie expectantly. She nodded and dropped the cashmere throw into hole in the ground. Nick followed suit and laid the Bucs jersey into the soft earth, then pulled a few handfuls of soil over it. He looked up to find Annie looking down at the throw with a ring box in her hand and tears coursing down her cheeks. “You don’t have to bury those,” he said softly. “I mean, don’t keep them in your dresser drawer anymore, but maybe box them up and put them in the attic. Drew might like to have them someday.”

 

Annie smiled through her tears. “That’s exactly what I was thinking. Thank you.” Nick nodded and brushed her tears away, leaving faint, muddy smudges on her cheeks. She tossed a few handfuls of dirt over the throw, and they stood up, taking turns with the shovel until both holes were filled back up. Nick reached for Annie’s hand and gave it a squeeze, and in turn, Annie let go of his hand and threw her arms around her waist. He wrapped his own arms around her shoulders and planted a long kiss on her temple before resting his chin against the top of her head as they stood and examined their handiwork. There in the upturned soil, they’d unknowingly filled their holes so that they converged in an almost perfect heart.