He’s been at the hospital nearly every day, and the Club is rallying to make sure she has what she needs when she’s finally discharged.
But those are issues for another day. Tonight is for celebrating, despite the hard times.
“Beautiful,” I murmur, looking at the view.
“Yeah.” But when I glance at him, he’s watching me, not the town.
“Corny,” I tease, but my voice is soft and warm.
“Swan.” His expression shifts, serious now. “There’s something I want to give you.”
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small box. My heart stutters.
“I know I already gave you the cut,” he says, his voice a little rough. “Made you my old lady officially. But there’s something else. Something I’ve been planning since you decided to stay.”
He opens the box and I stop breathing.
It’s a ring. A gorgeous diamond ring with an intricate band that—when I look closer—has tiny swans engraved all around it with a small diamond in the body of each.
“Emma Armstrong,” Bones says, taking my hand. “I’ve loved you since I was sixteen years old. I’ve watched you leave and come back and leave again, and every single time, I told myself I’d wait as long as it took for you to realize what I already knew—that we belong together. That you belong here, with me, in Stoneheart.”
Tears are already streaming down my face.
“You chose to stay. Chose this life, this town, me. And I want to spend the rest of my life proving that was the right choice. So will you marry me, swan? Will you be my wife?”
“Yes,” I gasp, nodding frantically. “Yes, of course yes.”
He slides the ring onto my finger and it fits perfectly. I stare at it through tears, at the swans circling the band, at the way it catches the light.
The way it looks like there might be a button . . .
“There’s a tracker in this, isn’t there?” I say, half-laughing, half-crying.
He grins. “Of course there is.”
“Bones—”
“But it’s different.” He takes my hand, showing me a tiny button on the inside of the band. “It’s not me tracking you. It’s an emergency beacon that you control. You’re in trouble, you press this, and I get your exact location. But otherwise? It’s just a ring. I’m not watching you, not monitoring where you go. I trust you, Emma. I trust that you’ll call if you need me.”
I look up at him, this man who’s loved me through everything, who put a tracker in me because he was terrified of losing me, who’s learned to let go while still keeping me safe.
“Show me how it works,” I whisper.
He demonstrates the mechanism—a small button that’s flush with the band until you press it, sending an instant alert with GPS coordinates. Simple. Elegant. And entirely in my control.
“Thank you,” I whisper. “I love it. I love you.”
“I love you too, swan.” He pulls me close, pressing a kiss to my forehead. “Always have. Always will.”
We stand there as the sun sets over Stoneheart, and I think about the girl who came home last Christmas—bruised, lost, running from a life that had stopped fitting. I thought Stoneheart was a detour. A place to catch my breath before going back to who I was supposed to be.
I was wrong.
This ring on my finger. This cut on my back. This man beside me. This town spread out below us like a promise kept.
I’m not the ballerina who left. I’m not the scared girl who got kidnapped. I’m not even the woman who let someone leave a tracker in her skin because she was too broken to ask for what she really needed.
I’m Emma Armstrong. Property of Bones. Daughter of Stone. Teacher, fighter, old lady. I’m a woman who loves this complicated, protective, infuriating man who’s never given up on me. I’m home.
