11.

Feb 2, 1995

She married me. She didn't realize what a royal idiot I really am and run off screaming. It was not the wedding I wanted to give her, but it was what she says she wanted.

Tonight she was worried I'd be bent out of shape because it seems that morning sickness and a honeymoon don't mix well, but hell, why would I be upset? I have the rest of my life to be with this amazing woman . She needs to sleep through some of the queasiness and I can handle that. It's enough to sit here and watch her sleep and realize that without a doubt, I got it right this time.

Hell, in the history of people getting things right, no one has ever gotten anything more right than I got this.

We did have the wedding I wanted. We got married surrounded by our closest friends, and we knew that their happiness for us was real. I never had that vision of a big wedding in a church, and I don't think I had considered marriage as something I wanted until after the first time Ian kissed me.

Still, I didn't think that our honeymoon was the time to beg off with a headache and massive queasiness, but he honestly didn't seem to mind. I think that started his habit of watching me sleep; it's one of the few times he can sit still and not try to do three things at once, and sometimes I'll start to wake up and I can feel that he's there, watching me breathe. I woke up after a long nap on our honeymoon and he was sitting by the bed, and the way he was looking at me made me feel utterly, completely loved.

And that hasn't changed. I catch him in unguarded moments, and the way he looks at me still makes me feel like my legs are going to turn to water, and when he's not at home I still find myself ticking off the time until he'll be back. His kisses still turn me to jelly inside, and I still melt at his fingers sliding across my skin.

But more than that, he is an amazing father, and I don't think our children can truly appreciate how wonderful he is with them. He loves them fiercely, unconditionally, and he respects them as individuals in a way that sometimes surprises me. He cultivates their interests and is willing to spoil them, just a little, so that they can really explore the world. He listens to them and considers their opinions, even when he can't let them have their own way. If I've pestered him to consider adopting again, it's because he is such a good father, and he has so much love to give.

Fifteen years ago I was certain that we would still be together now. I couldn't have known how many times I would come close to losing him in those first few years and how painful that would be. I didn't stop to think that just because we were over the moon in love that might not be enough; it might not be enough to save him from the ravages of toxic shock and a heart attack, or the agony of losing his mother at a time when we were as emotionally exhausted as we were physically. And I could never have imagined how broken he would be at the chance that he might lose me. Of everything that happened with my accident last year, that's what sticks with me the most. I had fractures and injuries, but he was broken.

I have never doubted, not since those early days when I was caught up in wondering what was wrong with me, that he loves me. He has never had a problem with showing me just how much, even when we've been at our angriest. He can be mad as hell and envisioning my head exploding, but he will always, always stop to tell me he loves me. In a dozen little things he does every day, he shows me.

I've never had that ability, I don't think, to show him so easily how much he means to me, and how empty I would be without him.

All those years ago he wanted to know what I had been waiting for. I couldn't have given him an honest answer then, because I couldn't see the bigger picture. But I think back to that moment when we met, the crushing feeling of being told he was married, and that every man I dated after that just didn't measure up. I think back to every time he sought me out just to hand over routine paperwork, and the smile he didn't seem to have for anyone else. I think back to the sparks I wouldn't have admitted to at the time, and that no one was surprised we wound up together, and I know what I was waiting for.

I was waiting for him.

We both got it right. I am so grateful for the gift of having fifteen years with him and I can only hope for fifteen more, and fifteen beyond that. He amuses me with his nearly paranoid levels of secrecy—I doubt he'll ever be open with people online about where we live and what he used to do, even though most have guessed—and he sometimes surprises and irritates me with his otherwise open frankness, but I can't imagine wanting him to ever be anything other than what he is.

What he is is wonderful, patient, kind, devoted, passionate, heartfelt, and sexy as hell; sometimes I think I fall short of what he deserves, but I am so, so grateful that I'm the one he loves, and I'm the one he wants to be with, and I pray that I never take that for granted.

This still isn't the love letter I wanted to write and I think that he deserves, but my tongue is mentally tied and this is the best I can do. This is the man that I want to annoy me with underwear that falls just this short of the hamper, the man I want to pester every day about the food he eats and the cookies I won't allow in the house, and the man I want to grow very, very old with.

In every way that counts, in the way he would want to hear it, he totally rocks my world.