“It’s beautiful,” she whispers, staring at the diamond now adorning her hand.
“You’re beautiful.” I cup her face, brushing away tears with my thumbs. “Mine.”
“Yours.”
I kiss her then, slowly at first, savoring the salt of her tears and the warmth of her lips. She presses closer, fingers curling into my shirt, and the kiss deepens, becomes something hungry and fierce. A promise.
When we break apart, she’s breathless, eyes glassy. “We’re really doing this?”
“We are.”
“You, me, and Ryan.” She says it like a prayer. “A family.”
Family. It used to be just Ryan and me at home. But not anymore. Now, we have her. Rayne with her soft eyes and steel spine, Rayne who faced down threats and debt collectors, sacrificed for her Mom, and still found room to love my son.
“A family.”
“I love you,” she whispers. “I love you so much.”
I pull her into my lap, wrapping my arms around her as the fire crackles beside us and the ocean roars its approval. The diamond on her finger catches firelight as she brings her hand up to touch my face.
“I’ll spend the rest of my life making sure you never regret this,” I tell her, the vow as binding as any we’ll exchange at the altar.
She smiles. “I could never regret you.”
Above us, stars emerge one by one in the deepening blue. Around us, lanterns glow like earthbound constellations. The air smells of salt and smoke and her perfume. I commit every detail to memory: the weight of her in my arms, the sound of waves keeping time with our heartbeats, the exact shade of joy in her eyes.
For my entire life, I’ve lived by simple rules. Take what you want. Never apologize. Trust no one. Love was a liability I couldn’t afford.
But holding her now, watching the ring on her finger catch and scatter light, I understand what I’ve been missing. Thisisn’t weakness. This—her, us, the family we’re building—is the strongest I’ve ever been.
For the first time in my life, forever doesn’t seem like a prison sentence. Forever sounds like her laugh, like Ryan’s excited chatter, like waves breaking on a shore that belongs to us alone.
Forever sounds like home.
EXTENDED EPILOGUE
Rayne
Istill forget sometimes that this is my life now.
The long mahogany table gleams under warm lighting, polished to a mirror shine but scattered with the beautiful chaos of family dinner. Ryan’s homework peeks out from beneath his placemat. Ronan’s phone sits face-down beside his water glass—a rule he never broke before me. My ring catches the light when I reach for my wine glass, then hesitate, settling for water instead.
Three place settings where once there had been only two. Sometimes I look around and wonder if I’ve wandered into someone else’s dream.
“Pass the potatoes, please,” Ryan says, already eyeing his second helping. His dark hair falls across his forehead in a way that mirrors his father’s, though Ronan would never allow his own to be so unruly.
I slide the ceramic dish toward him. “Easy on the sour cream, buddy. You already had plenty.”
“Dad lets me have as much as I want,” he protests, blue eyes wide with practiced innocence.
Ronan looks up from carving the roast chicken, one eyebrow arched. “Don’t drag me into this. Rayne’s right.”
Ryan sighs dramatically but compromises with just one more dollop of sour cream. I hide my smile behind my napkin. A year of being married, of living here full-time, and already we’ve developed these rhythms. These unspoken understandings that weave us together.
“We had show-and-tell today,” Ryan says, mouth half-full. “I brought in the fossil you got me, Dad. The trilobite one.”
“Swallow first, then talk,” Ronan reminds him, his tone gentle despite the correction.
