The sound cracked through his chest like a heartbeat skipping its place.
Another door followed. Then bright laughter, Ayla’s, carried across the open yard in a gleaming ribbon of sound that tangled itself around his throat. Bear straightened slowly. The fence rail creaked beneath the shift of his weight. His pulse steadied, then climbed.
The second voice reached him.
Bailee.
Sweet. Low. Singer soft. A voice that had undone him in jungles and safe houses and hospital rooms. A voice that could pull him out of silence without trying. With her he’d found his own voice, and he was never going to lose it again.
“I heard you were a little grumpy,” she called, amusement threading every word. “How about a little honey to sweeten your disposition?”
Bear turned.
The world tilted, not violently, but with a deep, settling certainty that felt as old as prayer. Bailee stood beside the car with her hand on the door, hair tumbling over her shoulders, a small, leather pouch around her neck. Something moved through her, a quiet radiance that didn’t come from the sun at all. Her silver-blue eyes caught the light and threw it straight through him, but there was more now, something touched by the ancestors, something he felt before he understood.
A shimmer lived along her cheekbones, subtle as breath, yet powerful enough to stir the air between them. It was not the glow of grief or the soft shine of emotion. It was the luminous mark of the ceremony. The kind the elders spoke of in hushed tones. The kind that clung to the women chosen to walk a sacred path.
Bailee Thunderhawk didn’t just stand in the morning light. She burned with starlight.
She breathed with fire. She carried the echo of the ancestors in the quiet lift of her chin.
Bear felt the truth of it settle in his bones. She had found her path, and the path had found her.
Her eyes, bright and alive with purpose, met his with a fierce clarity that reached past her skin and straight into his spirit. For the first time, he saw all of her, warrior, seeker, woman, beloved, and the land had never felt so still.
Bailee’s smile softened, as if she felt the recognition bloom in him.
She had returned to him marked by destiny, and he knew with absolute, soul-deep certainty that he would walk beside her until his last breath.
Ayla leaned against the hood with a grin that said she saw everything he felt and planned to tease him for it. He shot her a smile, genuinely ready for her sweet, little barbs.
Bear walked toward Bailee. Not fast. Not slow. Just steady, like the ground shaped itself under his steps.
Bailee’s smile curled warmer when Bear reached her. Her gaze traveled over the sweat on his chest, the rise and fall of his breath, the steadiness in his eyes that he hadn’t felt until she stood there.
“You look like you survived your grumpy spell,” she murmured.
Bear lifted a hand and brushed a damp strand of hair from her cheek. The touch anchored him. Her eyes softened, and something in his chest unclenched in a quiet, grateful surrender.
His voice came low. Soft. Only for her.
“I love you, Bailee.”
Bailee’s breath caught. She leaned into his touch like she had been waiting for it since the moment she drove away. Bear pulled her against him, reveling in the feel of the weight of her.
Ayla whooped behind them. “Finally,” she said, arms crossed, grin wide. “About damn time.”
Bailee laughed. Bear didn’t. He only looked at Bailee, every part of him settling into a truth he no longer needed to fight. The woman he loved had come back.
The land breathed around them. The ancestors watched in the wind. Bailee stepped closer, her voice dropping so only he heard it.
“Ready to go inside, Dakota? I can’t wait to meet your family.”
Bear leaned in, his forehead brushing hers, his breath warm against her mouth.
“Been ready since the day I met you.”
The world went still. The wind slowed. The earth waited.
