Eight Years Later
Josephine snuck a look at her watch. Ten minutes to closing and she still had customers in the shop, but that wasn’t unusual anymore. Over the last eight years, the Golden Tee had built a reputation as a must-do experience on every Florida golf trip . . . and she currently had a waitlist for consultations a mile long. She’d let the guests finish navigating the drone footage they’d collected throughout the day before kicking them out. The upside to having the most original pro shop in Palm Beach meant a lot of customers.
The downside was they never wanted to leave.
And she adored the shop, but she also really, really loved being home these days.
She took a moment to marvel over the large number on the bottom of the day’s credit card report before stacking the papers and heading to the office, which was a more recent addition at the back of the Golden Tee. As she passed the gathering of golfers, one of them whispered, “That’s Josephine Whitaker. She owns this place.” She pretended not to hear them, but once she stepped into the office, she allowed a smile to stretch her lips.
Let’s face it, a lot of people mentioned her in the same breath as her famous husband, who’d climbed his way back to his rightful position among the top ten in the world. It was only natural. But just as often, she was recognized for building this place. Her love letter to her favorite sport.
She set the credit report down on the desk and looked around the office, her gaze drifting over the framed photograph of Wells proposing to her at the eighteenth hole at the Masters. Beside it, her caddie uniform had also been mounted in a glass box, along with her taped together Wells’s Belle sign.
Josephine couldn’t get enough of the reminders of that roller coaster series of weeks she’d spent falling in love with her husband—love that had only deepened considerably over time. But the picture sitting on her desk? She loved that one even more. Wells asleep on the couch in their living room, his golf cleats full of dirt and grass, a tiny baby girl sleeping on his chest. He’d wanted to get home so bad that afternoon, he hadn’t bothered to change into street shoes before flying back from the tournament.
Josephine could relate.
She gently booted the remaining customers, locked up the Golden Tee, and drove home to Palm Beach Gardens. She and Wells had purchased the house before the wedding just over seven years ago and he’d immediately replaced the normal, perfectly fine bathtubs with the biggest, most obnoxious ones he could find. The one in their en suite played music and had twenty-seven jets and nine color settings. He’d also soundproofed the walls.
Suffice it to say they spent a lot of time in that bathroom.
She parked and headed for the front door, taking a moment to smile through the glass at the scene that greeted her. Wells, hat on backward, standing in the living room with an infant strapped to his chest. A portable putting green was spread out in front of him, their four-year-old daughter poised to take her shot with the miniature club he’d given her for Christmas. Her auburn hair was in its usual tangle, poking through the edges of her skewed princess crown, her toes painted a familiar blue.
They matched Josephine’s.
As soon as Mabel finished taking her putt, Josephine walked into the soundless celebration—out of deference to the sleeping baby—and immediately had a four-year-old gunning straight for her, grubby arms wrapping tightly around her legs.
“Mommy!”
“Nice shot, Mabes! You’re amazing!”
As she stooped down to hug her daughter, Josephine locked eyes with Wells a few yards away and couldn’t stem the fountain of emotions that plumed inside her chest. Her breath ran short, hot pressure spreading behind her eyes. It was always like this when he came back from a four- or five-day absence during the season. He looked more than a little haggard and she knew it was from missing them. They’d been falling asleep on FaceTime for the last few nights and waking up the same way. But December was just around the corner, which meant a full month without traveling—and she was counting the days.
“Hey,” she murmured when her husband approached, reaching up to cradle his stubbled face, her heart sighing when he closed his eyes and leaned into her touch. “You’re home now.”
He nodded. Opened his mouth to speak and closed it again. “Belle,” he said raggedly, like it had taken all of his strength.
Something was up. He needed to talk to her. She could read him from a single word.
“Okay.” She lifted onto her toes and kissed him, flutters carrying through her stomach and beyond as he slid unsteady fingers into her hair and deepened the kiss with a low, lingering groan. “Are you all right?” she whispered when they parted for air.
Wells kept their foreheads pressed together. “I’m so much better than all right. You’re here. It’s when I’m away that I’m not good.”
“I know.”
“My family is here.”
“And we’ll always be here.” She looked him in the eye until he got through a deep breath, but something continued to weigh on his mind. “Let’s get the kids to bed.”
Wells nodded and the four of them climbed the stairs together, Wells taking their son, Rex, into one room, Josephine herding Mabel into another. Half an hour later, she went looking for her husband. He wasn’t in their bedroom or the kitchen, but intuition told her where to find him, and she was right. Wells stood in the center of his trophy room, her gorgeous champion in sweatpants, no shoes, ink swirling high and low on his broad back.
If she tugged down his pants, she would find her name tattooed on his right butt cheek.
He’d threatened to do it for years and she’d assumed he was joking.
Nope. It had been her thirtieth birthday present.
Property of Josephine in bright blue ink.
Wells turned at her entrance with shadows in his eyes, but his arms opened automatically. On her way into them, she cataloged the changes in her husband over the last eight years. Lines fanning out from wise, contented eyes. The barest sprinkle of gray in his chest hair and stubble. He still radiated confidence, but it was quieter now, like he’d grown into it. And she had so much pride in the man he’d become, it almost hurt to breathe.
They swayed, locked in each other’s arms for a few moments while Wells hummed the first few bars of “California Girls” into her hair.
He pulled back and looked her in the eye while tracing her cheekbones with his thumbs, and she couldn’t help but fall even harder for this man, surrounded by accolades but directing all his affection at her. “Josephine.” He smiled, kissed her softly. “I’m retiring.”
A jolt passed through her. “You’re . . . what?”
“I’m done with the tour. I want to be home.” He stroked her hair, then whispered back the words he’d said to her eight years earlier. Words he said to her every time he returned from a trip. “You don’t know what it’s like to miss you, baby. No fucking idea.”
“I have some idea,” she said back, her chest swamped with bittersweet emotion. “Are you sure?”
“It’s the second most sure I’ve been about anything in my life. You are the first.” He pulled her into a bear hug. “I want to be home to love you more.”
She blinked back tears. “I’ll take all the love from you I can get.”
“Good. I’ve got a lot of it.”
“Me too.”
They stayed that way for a long time, Josephine sensing he needed the anchor.
“Retired at thirty-seven,” she said, finally, kissing his shoulder. “What are you going to do with so much time on your hands?”
“Coach Little League. Help out at the shop. Take the occasional commentating gig. Make love to my wife. Be her trophy husband.” He sighed into her hair. “Golf.”
They laughed their way into a kiss while he continued humming the rest of “California Girls” and they started to dance. And life stayed just like that.
Blissful.
Happy.
Together.
Forever.
