Slow and Steady Wins the Race

"Yes. Love," he said pulling his hand from hers and brushing a shock of hair from her eyes. "I don't want to scare you away or upset our delicate balance, but I already know."

"You do?" she said barely able to speak.

"Yes, I do," he told her as he kissed her. "I've known since we sat on the patio looking at the tennis courts." Her eyes were moving rapidly and he could feel her need to hear him say it; the words that confirmed what they both felt and knew. "I'm in love with you, Jaydan. Totally and completely."

He saw tears form in his eyes as a smile formed on her lips. "I...I didn't want to have to say it first again," she managed to say without crying. "I love you, too, Royce. I love you so much."

"While I'm pressing my luck, I want you to know I would love nothing more than to have you and Peyton in my life for the rest of my life."

Jaydan blinked away tears he knew were tears of joy. "If you're asking me...if you want to know whether...."

"I am," he said smiling at her. "I don't have a ring with me and I'm not on one knee, but yes, I am asking you to marry me. We don't have to rush. We can take as long as you...."

"Yes! Yes, I'll marry you. Anytime. Today, tomorrow, next week, next month. Yes, yes, and yes!"

He pulled her close and held as tears of happiness fell. "The last time I cried was when he told me he didn't love me," she shared. "I really wondered if I'd ever find someone; someone special; someone who'd love me and Peyton."

"I don't know if I'm special, but I do you love you, Jaydan. I love you very much. And I don't need to know Peyton any better to know I already love her, too. I would be so honored to step in as her dad and if adoption is possible, I'm there."

Jaydan rolled back over on her back and kicked the bed with both feet very fast before saying, "I am so freaking HAPPY!!!"

Denise nearly did something as crazy when they told her. She did a kind of happy dance in circle as she said very loudly, "This so AMAZING! Oh, honey. We have to start planning your wedding. We've got to send out invitations and reserve a...."

"Mom? We don't even have a date yet so try and calm down, okay? In fact, we haven't even told Peyton." She looked at Royce and said, "Maybe we should do that now?"

He took her hand and they walked upstairs to Peyton's room where she was playing with her dollhouse.

"Hi, honey. Can we talk to you?" Jaydan asked.

"Do you wanna play with me?" was her reply. Both of them sat down next to her and her dollhouse.

"What should we talk about?" Peyton said as she told them which doll they could play with while keeping her favorite for herself.

"Well, we wanted to tell you something very important."

"Are you getting a shiny car like Roish?" she asked innocently without looking at her mom.

"Well...kind of," her mother told her. "Royce's car will be our car in a few months."

"Did you pay him a check for it?" she asked having seen her mother write checks before.

"Nooo," she told her. "But when two people get married, everything they have becomes the other person's. Does that make sense?"

Peyton stopped playing with her doll and looked at her mother with very big eyes. "Are you going to get married to Roish?"

"Yes, I am. Is that okay with you?"

Peyton nodded then looked at Royce. "So since I'm Mommy's will I be yours, too, just like your shiny car?"

He looked at Jaydan who smiled and nodded. "Not exactly. The shiny car is a thing, but you're a person. We can own things like...well, like you own your dolls. But we don't own people; we just love them and I love your mommy very much and I love you, too, Peyton."

"I know," she said matter of factly. "I love you too, Roish. And I love your shiny car. So you can love me if you want to."

"Well, I do want to and I also want to marry your mother."

"I already said it's okay. Were you not listening?" she said like a little grown up.

"I guess I wasn't paying attention. Maybe I need to be punished."

Jaydan elbowed him and said, "Hey, that's my line. And I've been very naughty lately."

"You will have to go to time out, Mommy. That's where I go when I'm bad."

"Or Mommy might even have to get a spanking. She's been very bad." She flashed a wicked smile at Royce who smiled back.

"I don't like spankings. They hurt," Peyton said as she moved her dolls around. "Just don't be bad anymore, okay, Mommy?"

"Okay," she said. She turned to Royce and whispered, "That doesn't sound like much fun to me."

"I do go for bad girls," he whispered back. They both laughed as Peyton continued play having no idea what was so funny.

The next evening, Jaydan met Royce's family and after a very emotional remembrance of Cassandra, she felt like a daughter who belonged in their family.

Four months later, they married several hours after Jaydan graduated from college and moved into Royce's home a week later after a honeymoon in Paris and Rome with Peyton in tow.

Jaydan took a job at Enterprise as a financial analyst but only worked six months before learning she was having another baby. As much as she enjoyed working, money was no longer a driving issue. Her first love was being a wife and mother so she resigned her position and became a full-time stay-at-home mom raising Peyton until her second child, a baby boy they named Hunter Allen Jones, was born.

Royce occasionally told the story about the tortoise and the hare and how sometimes speed isn't 'all that'. "In fact," he'd say, "Patience really is a virtue, and slow and steady often wins the race."