Make It Home For Christmas [COMPLETE]

Epilogue

Three Years Later

Frankie and Johnny were married six months later. They were operating under Dan's wise words.

"Why wait?" he said. "When you know you."

He said this while looking lovingly at his own wife of forty years, whom he had married after only know her three months.

And Frankie and Johnny knew.

To celebrate, they invited a few friends and family members to a small ceremony on the lawn in front of the Stephens' house on a warm afternoon in June and the whole town to the reception afterwards.

The driveway was cleared and lights strung from the house to the farm, with a dance floor put down over the gravel.

Everyone Frankie knew and loved was there. Even her sister made it. She was the only person in attendance who needed to be told 'No cell phones.'

During toasts, it was Dan's turn to hand Johnny an envelope. A wedding gift, he called it, for the happy couple. Inside was the deed to the Romero farm across the street. It was theirs. All theirs.

Lacey cried happy tears from her matron-of-honor seat as Frankie and Johnny both embraced Dan and Hannah.

They lived in the apartment above the garage for the first year as renovations began on the Romero farm. The house had been abandoned for too long and after a thorough inspection, they decided to upgrade the place in the process.

By the time they brought their daughter, River, home from the hospital, they brought her home to their new farm. Once work on the house was finished, work on the barn began.

Frankie had no trouble still running Hummel Farms while pregnant and even after she had River. She simply took River along for the ride. While she was counting inventory or discussing plans for the stables with Dan and Aaron, River sat happily in a front pack. And when Frankie drove around Hummel collecting merchandise for the store, River went with her, meeting every vendor who worked with Hummel Farms, charming each of them with her tan skin, dark hair and Johnny's bright green eyes.

By the time River's first birthday rolled around, things seemed settled. The house was complete. They had successfully moved in and made it their own. The barn was finished. Johnny's vision for the space done to a T. Even the work on the staples across the street that Johnny had over seen for Dan as part of his gift were complete. Hummel Farm now ran a service for people in the area who needed a place to stable their horses.

Dan had given Johnny the decision on the color of stables, insisting since it was his money that had paid for it. Johnny went with a deep red and white trim that matched the rest of Hummel Farms.

And so, with everything seemingly in it's place, Frankie and Johnny sat down and started to discuss music. Frankie didn't bring up the band. She had asked enough questions, heard enough stories to know it was going to take time for the three of them to even be in a room together, let alone reunite. No, it was time to discuss Johnny's music, his next chapter, the reason they had renovated the barn.

Their answer for what next came by way of a hand-written letter, postmarked in Boston, MA. It was a cordial greeting and introduction from someone Johnny knew very well but had never had the chance to meet before. They were both invited down to Boston to talk a possible record deal with a new start up company and so Frankie and Johnny went, leaving River in Hannah and Dan's capable hands.

They were shown up to a wide open room above a cafe in a part of the city several blocks from downtown. Two people were waiting for them and Frankie was greeted with a warm handshake from a woman with light brown hair and warm eyes and a shorter man with round glasses and jet black curly hair.