“I’m okay,” I say automatically.
He shakes his head. “Don’t do that. Not with me.”
The dam breaks and I tell him everything, the gun, the accusations, the screaming, how Preston dragged me out of my house, how I dropped my earrings because I knew he would look for something, how I slowed Preston down on purpose, how I never once doubted he would come for me. Trace listens like every detail is a brick he is stacking inside himself, building something terrifying and calculated.
When I finish, he pulls me into him, burying his face in my shoulder. “He’s not touching you or anyone else again.”
“I know,” I whisper.
We take hot showers, first me, then him, I put on pajamas he puts on sweats. We crawl into bed without talking as he wraps around me from behind, one arm under my pillow, one arm over my waist, holding me like an anchor. His face presses into the back of my neck and his breathing slowly matches mine. Minutes pass maybe hours, the time feels stretchy.
Then he shifts behind me and says, quietly, voice rough from everything tonight put him through:
“I almost lost you.”
My throat closes. “But you didn’t.”
“I know.” He swallows hard. “But I thought about it, and I thought about how I’d live if you didn’t make it home tonight, and I couldn’t find an answer that didn’t kill me.”
I turn around slowly. He’s propped up on his elbow, looking at me like I’m the only real thing in the world.
“I should do this better,” he says. “I should have a ring. I should take you somewhere nice. I should ask you with a plan and a speech and everything you deserve. But tonight…” His voice breaks just a little. “I can’t wait. Not after this. Not after thinking I’d never see you again.”
My breath is gone.
He cups my cheek with one hand and says, steady and certain:
“Delta Whitmore… marry me. Be my wife. Come with me into whatever life we get. I’ll spend every day earning you. I’ll love you the way you should’ve been loved the first time and every time after.”
There isn’t a single romantic flourish and I don’t need one, it’s perfect.
“Yes,” I whisper, and the word is a release, a vow, a promise. “Trace, yes.”
He exhales like oxygen just came back into his body, pulls me in, kisses me once slow and reverent like he’s sealing the answer into his soul. Then he holds me against his chest and we lie there in the dark, storm fading, adrenaline finally easing. I said yes.
EPILOGUE
Trace
It feels like déjà vu in Miss Evie’s dining room, same table, same notebooks, same too-many-opinions, except now it’s flowers and venues instead of birthday decorations, it’s a wedding this time.
Miss Evie is fully dialed in she has linen samples spread out and is reading vendor reviews and enjoying every minute—after all it’s her meddling that started it all.
Paige and Lena are arguing over centerpieces versus favors. Cash looks like he wants to chew through the wall to escape, but he’s here because he’s my best man and Delta’s family. I’m next to my fiancée doing something smart: staying supportive, staying out of the line of fire, and keeping my mouth shut.
Storm cleanup is behind us; fences replaced, debris cleared, everything reinforced. Preston body was found, the police called and the investigation was opened and closed. When we began planning our wedding Delta remarked on the cost and I let her know “You don’t have to worry about cost.”
She gives me the look she uses when she thinks I’m not living in reality. “Trace, we’re not planning a wedding off a therapy-ranch salary.”
I don’t blink. “Delta… I’m a millionaire.”
Silence.
She studies me slowly. “You have a ranch account with ninety-nine-cent peanuts and gas-station beef jerky.”
“I’m a frugal millionaire,” I say. “When I was bodyguarding, the celebrity I pulled that stalker off of? She gave me a payout big enough to set up investments. Then when the Marine Corps pushed me out, they gave me another lump-sum bonus. And I’ve been collecting my military pension every month since I left.”
“Well damn,” she says clearly trying to wrap her head around what I just told her. Delta says, “Wait! I can’t have a wedding without my Sorors.”
