The Truth About Fairy Tales (35 page)

             
I let him take me to bed that night—after all, there was nothing normal about us. Everything, including the night before our wedding, wasn’t like anyone else. We were as odd as the way we’d first met. I’d known from that moment that he was the one for me. And Jackson, well he’d known even before that time that we’d be together.

Chapter Nineteen

              And so, at ten the following morning, on the first anniversary of the day we met, I walked into the living room of our house and married the man of my dreams.

             
I think the look on Jackson’s face said it all as I took my place next to him. He’d known all along that I would be there.

I stood beside him while Fred ran through the wedding vows, but I confess I really wasn’t listening. In fact,
Jackson had to whisper in my ear to tell me to say I do.

             
But I did and I never looked back to the past or to that frightened little girl I’d been after that moment. I let her go back into the past where she belonged and I stepped out to face the world as Mrs. Jackson Riley, on simple blind faith. The faith that this man by my side had shown to me.

             
Jackson had taught me so much about life in his somewhat joking and oftentimes sarcastic way. Life was what you made of it. You are the only one who can destroy your happiness. He’d taught me that we make our own joy, our own despair.

For more than twenty years, I’d been living inside my mother’s despair. Now, I was ready to embrace the future and commit to the guy that was committed to me with all his heart.

              He’d confirmed all of those things to me the night before we married. He’d told me I could spend the rest of my life expecting disaster, and someday it would find me, or I could live life, love the ones around me and be happy to the end—however long that was.

             
Nothing was guaranteed. Not tomorrow and certainly not happiness. Now, at last, I got that.

             
Throughout that day, all I wanted to do was be alone with my husband. To tell him how much I loved him, to show him—to make him understand how much I appreciated all the things he’d done to help me become the woman I believed I could be. We had a party to attend and that was just part of living.

             
So, instead, I was patient. I let the moments slip away while we danced, ate cake, and drank champagne.

             
Just before we left for the airport, where Jackson’s private jet waited to take us to Paris, I stood next to my mother and looked around the room at all the people who were important to our lives. They were our family and friends—the ones that had been with us through thick and thin, even when we didn’t realize it.

             
I spotted Ben across the room and went to him. I owed this man an awful lot as well. He’d introduced me to Jackson, after all, even though he had no way of knowing things were not going to turn out the way he’d intended that night. Now, I believe he was actually glad.

             
“Hey, you look happy. Are you happy, Ben?” I took his hand and moved away from the crowd. I wanted to know that he was okay with everything.

             
Ben grinned at me with that smile of his that was nothing like his uncle. “I’m okay. I’m happy…I’m glad things worked out the way they did. You were right, you know. We were so wrong for each other. I wasn’t strong enough to handle you. You’d have eaten me alive. My uncle, he gets you.”

             
I had to smile at that. I couldn’t have summed it up better if I’d tried. I scanned the room for my husband who was busy chatting with Gran. He knew where I was. His eyes found mine and I could almost believe he knew what I was thinking as well.

             
“Yeah, he gets me.”

             
Our honeymoon night was spent aboard an airplane. I’m sure to any other normal couple that would have been odd, but not for Jackson and I. For us, it was like coming home. Everything about the bed in that tiny little room aboard the plane reminded me of that unexpected trip we’d made to Paris. Back before he told me, he loved me. Back before I realized how deep my love for him truly was.

             
Back before.

             
Now, I don’t think I would have wanted it any other way. We made love just as we had that other night, but there was one difference. Now we knew where we stood with each other. There was no more guessing. After all, we’d promised each other forever.

             
If nothing else about our honeymoon had turned out the way we planned, I wouldn’t have minded because we’d started our official life together in just the right way. We’d loved each other with all our hearts.

Officially.

****

             
Paris in July was breathtaking. Every single moment of our time there was magical. From the small apartment to the days, we spent sightseeing. To the nights spent loving each other. It was, after all, nothing normal but perfectly right somehow.

             
In true romantic Jackson fashion, he took me back to the restaurant that we’d had Thanksgiving dinner at last year. This year was no different. He’d closed the entire restaurant so we could be together alone. He’d even booked the same little band. We spent hours together eating too much and dancing until almost dawn. It was the stuff that fairy tales are made of for little girls from Santa Anna, Texas. It certainly was for me.

             
I almost hated for that night and our honeymoon to end. Almost, had I not been looking forward to my future back home in Austin with him so much. I was just as excited to get back to the states and to our new status as husband and wife.

             
As he’d promised, my husband kept up his slower pace at work. Each morning we started the day off right together. We spent an hour walking through the early morning neighborhood and we were so happy doing it together.

             
Jackson was turning over more of the responsibilities of running the company to Sam and Ben who in his opinion, seemed to be thriving on it. Ben had more enthusiasm for his new role than anything he’d ever shown in the past.

As for me, well, I was finding that my lifelong dream of being an attorney was losing some of its luster. Oh, don’t get me wrong—I still loved the job, but lately I was finding more happiness in doing the simplest little things, like making dinner for my husband, than anything else.

              I didn’t have the heart to tell Jackson, but we were becoming normal to the point of boring and I loved every single minute of it. He let me try out new low fat recipes on him and he never once complained. This man was golden.

             
Our life was happy and content and I’d stopped caring about babies at that point. For me, I could be content to spend the rest of my life with Jackson Riley.

             
On the first day of winter, both of us met our first winter storm. Our little buddy, Sidney, died peacefully in his sleep.

             
I don’t know which of us was more upset. Jackson had loved that dog almost as much as me. So, on a cold morning, two weeks before Christmas we buried our beloved old friend beneath a pecan tree on a grassy slope in our yard. We said a little prayer for Sidney and we spent the rest of the day consoling each other. We were together and we somehow got through the pain.

             
Jackson asked me if I wanted another dog someday, but I couldn’t even think of replacing my Sidney. I’d spent a great deal of my life loving that dog. He could never be replaced in either of our hearts. Who knows, maybe someday we’d want another little buddy, however hard it was to imagine right now.

             
We decided to spend Christmas alone that year--just the two of us. We opened our presents together on Christmas Eve and stayed up late watching the tree lights.

             
“What do you wish for this Christmas, Maggie? Is there anything that you want? Tell me and I’ll get it for you.”

             
I turned to him and smiled, then went into his open arms. “I don’t want or need a thing. I have it all. I couldn’t be happier.”

             
Later when we lay close to each other in bed, I touched his face. “But I would love it if it snowed.”

             
And just like that, as if on cue at the snap of his fingers, the first snowflake fell.

Epilogue

              On the last day of February, on a leap year, I went to my husband’s office to surprise him.

             
Amy was there typing away on her computer when I walked in.

             
“Is he in? He’s not with anyone is he?”

             
“He’s alone. Go right in, Mrs. Riley.”

             
I’d tried so many times to get her to call me Maggie, but Amy was always the professional, according to Jackson.

             
I knocked once, listened to him absently tell me to come in, and then watched him glance up, his surprise turning into delight.

             
“Hey, this is an unexpected surprise.”

             
He held out his hand to me and I took it. “A good one, I hope?”

             
His answer to that was to tug at my hand and bring me closer, smiling at me with that tender little smile of his.

             
“Always, Mrs. Riley.”

             
“Are you busy? I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” I asked and was rewarded with another tug.

             
“Never. What are you doing in these parts? You have a meeting close by?”

             
For a moment, I found it hard to gather my thoughts now that I was actually standing in front of him. And I needed to say this just right.

             
“No, I just came from my doctor’s office.” That was all I could get out. I was still trying to read his reaction to those words.

             
“You didn’t tell me you had an appointment scheduled for today. Is everything all right?” I knew exactly what he meant by that. He, too, was remembering that day long ago.

             
“I didn’t want to tell you about it until…everything is fine.” I watched his frustration grow. He gave my hand a final tug and I was in his arms.

             
“Tell me the truth, Maggie.”

             
“I am. I’m fine. I’m better than fine, I’m pregnant. Two months pregnant. Christmas Eve pregnant. And that’s two weeks longer than the last time. I wasn’t sure…I mean I thought so, but I wanted to be sure before I told you. Miranda confirmed it this morning and did a very thorough exam. She says everything looks good. She believes it’s going to be okay this time.”

             
He didn’t say a word. My dear sweet husband was speechless.              

“Are you okay with it? I mean you do still want kids right?” I stopped when I spotted what I had only imagined I’d seen before in the past. Those beautiful blue eyes of his held tears. I just caught them before he pulled me close.

              “Okay? I’m more than okay with it, little bit. I’m the happiest man in the world. We’re going to be parents.”

             
He was laughing and crying and I couldn’t help but smile.

             
“We’re going to be parents,” I confirmed.

             
“Come on, let’s go tell everyone.”

             
“No! No, Jackson, let’s just keep it to ourselves for a while. Just in case. Just for a little while longer.”

             
“Oh, Maggie, you know better than that.” He smiled at me and I knew what he meant. He was walking out on blind faith, believing that everything was going to be okay this time around. Jackson was asking me to join him out there on that limb.

             
“Okay, you’re right. I don’t want to keep it a secret, either. I want to tell the world. But there’s something else.” A little of his happiness disappeared at those words and I hurried to reassure him. “No, it’s nothing bad. It’s just, well, I want to stop working for a while, until the baby is older. I want to be a stay at home mom. Is that okay with you?”

             
I think that news floored him more than the news of our baby. “You, what?” he asked as if he wasn’t sure he’d heard me correctly the first time and then he was laughing, actually laughing at me. “Let me get this straight, Mrs. Riley. You, the one that was so determined to be an attorney—the one that almost threw me over to become one. You want to be a stay at home mom?”

             
“Yes,” I confirmed and didn’t even mind his teasing. The old Maggie would have been furious. This newer, softer
pregnant
Maggie, well, she wanted it all. The whole fairy tale. The happily ever after I believed I was so close to having. And Jackson, well, Jackson was determined to give it to me.