He always is.
Epilogue
Caleb
ONEYEARLATER
The leaves outside our window blaze gold and crimson, dancing in the crisp October breeze. It smells like firewood, cinnamon, and the unmistakable scent of fall settling into the hills.
And I swear, she’s more beautiful than the season itself.
Nya stands in front of the window, her hands resting lightly on the swell of her belly. Five months pregnant, glowing like something divine, and still somehow mine. Dressed in a soft knit sweater that stretches lovingly over her curves, she gazes out over the edge of our new porch, where sunflowers still bloom defiantly into the cold.
"You remember last year?" I murmur, stepping up behind her and wrapping my arms around her waist. I press a kiss justbeneath her ear. "Fall festival. You claimed me in front of the whole damn town."
She laughs, low and warm. "You mean when you kissed me like I was already yours?"
"Exactly that," I grin. "I didn’t just kiss you. I marked you. In public."
"I liked it."
"I married you three months later, didn’t I?"
She turns her head to meet my eyes, that wicked little smile tugging at her lips. I kiss it right off her face.
Our home smells like baked apples and the faint traces of sawdust, like it hasn’t forgotten it was born from work and love and a whole lot of muscle.
It took all of us to build this place. The Damned Saints, half the damn town, and Murphy supervising like it was his own kitchen going up. We broke ground last winter. Nya’s old apartment was too small, and my clubhouse room was never going to cut it for a life built together. So we made something new.
Something ours.
We said our vows in the meadow behind Wild Petals. Flowers everywhere. Nya barefoot and laughing like she didn’t have a care in the world. Cassie cried. Reaper held their kid and stared down anyone who looked at my sister too long.
Havoc said he’d bake a cake if Nya ever made me smile.
He kept that promise.
Made our wedding cake himself. Enrolled in a baking class two weeks before the wedding, got his ass handed to him by the instructor on day one. Said she was tougher than any SEAL drill sergeant he'd ever met. Wouldn’t shut up about her either, all growly and flustered. We gave him hell for it, right up until the two of them got together.
I rest my hand over Nya’s, both of us cupping the curve of her stomach.
“Charity ride’s next weekend,” I say softly. “If it does even half as well as last year’s, we’ll be able to fund new beds for the shelter, schoolbooks, food supplies for winter.”
“It’ll do better than last year,” she says. “I’m sure of it.”
“You worked hard making toys.”
She hums. “Wedid.”
I chuckle, brushing my nose against her temple. “You mean you were patient as hell while I fumbled around with yarn and stuffing like a damn bear trying to thread a needle.”
“You weren’t that bad,” she says, grinning.
“I broke two needles and glued a plush elephant’s ear to the kitchen table.”
She laughs, full and sweet. “But you kept trying. That’s what mattered.”
I turn her slowly in my arms, brushing a strand of hair from her face. “You still love me?” I ask.
