She held his hand and his eyes opened again.
“There was a man who asked me to tell you that he understands and gives you his blessing.”
“A man?”
“Aye, with gray eyes like yours and a slight limp.”
“Oh, that’s . . . that’s wonderful.” The joy inside her lifted higher still.
Oh Papa, thank you.
“Going to rest, just a little bit longer.” His voice sounded very sleepy. “Stay here. I like waking up to you.”
“Aye, I shall be right here.” She promised her heart so full she could burst.
“And Maura?”
“Aye?”
“I love you as well. I always will.”
She brushed her lips against his cheek and fell back to sleep stroking his hair.
Epilogue
“Come here, Mrs. Lynch.” Garrett pulled his wife into his arms and back onto the bed. She’d just finished feeding their son, and the babe, very cooperatively from his father’s point of view, had gone right to sleep.
She fell back against him with a laugh, her hair spreading across the pillows in dark shiny waves that gleamed in the soft lamplight. She was more beautiful now than he’d ever seen. And she was his forever. He turned and propped his head on his arm so he could look at her
“You are a very demanding husband, Mr. Lynch.” Her tone scolded, but her eyes shone up at him.
“Nay.” He kissed a pathway from her temple down into the warm hollow of her throat. “I am a pliant one. I succumb too often to your lures.”
“Oh really? My lures?”
“Aye, always looking so soft and touchable, with your begging smiles and pleading eyes. I am weary to the bone from keeping up with your demands.”
“Oh.” She giggled against his lips, then melted against him as he tasted her slowly. Heaven was right here, right now, in her arms.
As the first streaks of sunlight edged the sky, he stood at the windows and looked past the mews to the rolling green fields and paddocks now in his care. He drew in a deep breath of contentment. He was a lucky devil, indeed.
A year ago, who would have predicted this future? Married to a woman whose love showed in everything she did, father of a healthy son, reconciled with his own father, and managing the lands he’d roamed as a child. The wastrel and gambler, the adventurer and hero replaced by a staid family man who bred horses and tended his estates. The
Ard Tiarna
had said it would be thus, but he had never believed until he met Maura.
“Do you ever miss him?” Maura asked very softly against his shoulder as she joined him to look out at their home. Her hair was sleep tousled, her cheeks still rosy with sleep. She wore nothing but a sheet wrapped around her. How he loved her.
He smiled, knowing who she meant, the reassurance she sought. The Green Dragon. He flexed his hand, wondering when he had stopped feeling the ghostly weight of the heavy emerald signet ring on his finger.
“He will always be a part of me,” he answered honestly.
“Aye.” She fit so neatly against him as he drew her into his arms. “So . . . do you miss . . .
being
the Green Dragon?”
Being the Green Dragon.
There was so much more wrapped in that simple phrase than could ever be fully explained.
“I am proud of the work I did. Glad I was there to help the people we helped. But being the Green Dragon was never mine to claim as my own. Just as we protect the legacy, the legacy protects us—passed from man to man, generation to generation, like the ring and the sword. It is my honor to serve for life, but my time has passed.”
“We provide support and shelter—”
“—when called upon. There can only be one Green Dragon at any time, and he is no longer me. I would not have it any other way.”
He traced his fingers over her bared shoulder. “I would trade nothing. I yearn for nothing. Nothing could ever replace what I have right here.”
She leaned back against him and ran her fingers over the empty spot on his hand.
“Who wears the ring now?”
“Mmmm.” He kissed the edge of her neck. “I would have given the ring to Sean, that was always the plan.”
“But he married his Jane.”
“Aye.”
“So . . . who?”
“The ring, the sword, the power, and the responsibility passed to the man destiny chose. It is his job now, as it was another’s before me.”
“But—”
“No buts. We work in the light of day now and within the bounds of the law, just as the Green Dragon works outside the boundaries. His identity does not matter as long as his work goes on.”
She turned and smiled up at him, caught as she always was in that green Irish gaze in which she would spend her life. She could hardly believe her luck.
“I love you, Garrett Lynch. All that you were, all that you are, and all you are yet to be.”
“Amen, my love.” He pulled her against him for another satisfying kiss as the warm Irish sunshine spilled in the window and another day began.
The sounds of their son awakening pulled them apart. “We had best get dressed for the day ahead,” he whispered against her cheek.
She linked her arm with his as they turned together to face the future she had never before dared to dream possible.
“Thus we’ll be arrayed and armed.” She answered.
“Aye, my love. Always.”