The movement in the kitchen stills. Tenley, the only person still doing something, stands up with a sheet pan she's just pulled from a cabinet and makes a racket when she sets it down on the stovetop. "What was that?" she asks.
"I don't know why any of you are acting surprised. I'd be a damn fool to let this one get away." I cup the back of Jo’s neck. My next words are meant only for her. "I spent a long time feeling like a person who wasn't quite right. Nothing in this life felt like it fit. And then you came along, and I understood why. A car can't run without oil, and that's what you are in my life. You are what I need to make everything else work. I could live without you if I had to, but damn, I don't want to. I want you, and Travis." Her eyes have begun to shine, the moisture beading at her lash line, and I offer her a smile I can feel in my heart. "Will you be my wife, Josephine?"
The tears spill over now and she laughs in disbelief. "Yes," she whispers. All around us, my siblings and their significant others erupt into applause. I kiss Jo, long and hard, and then the kiss deepens, and everyone around us groans. Dakota says, "Get a room," and Tenley jokes, "Let's keep it PG."
Beside me, I see Jessie holding up her phone. "Are you recording?"
She presses a button and puts the phone back in her pocket. "One day you will thank me for that."
Tenley takes food from the oven and tells us all to dig in. She's made my mom's tater tot casserole, and I'm glad she made so much because suddenly I'm ravenous. Warner takes three plates into the living room for Peyton, Travis, and Charlie, and Dakota pulls apart pieces of tater tot and lets Colt do his best to pick them up from her flattened palm.
While we're eating, I catch Jo's hand and hold it up. "What kind of ring do you want?"
"The kind that doesn't mind hard work," she answers.
I kiss the space on her finger where a ring will soon be. When we're finished eating, Jo and I go find Travis. We tell him I proposed and his only response is, "Cool." I think I see him tap his fingers against his leg in excitement, but it’s hard to know what that really means.
Jo gives me a side-eye on the way out of the room.
"Cool," I mouth, and she laughs.
Jo hangs back in the kitchen helping Dakota clean up, while Tenley says she's going to feed Lyla. Unlike Dakota, Tenley is less comfortable breastfeeding whenever and wherever.
The storm continues outside, not quite as ferocious as the day Jo and I took shelter at her ranch before we got together, but close to it. I step out the front door and find Wes, Warner, and Jessie sitting on the porch. Colt sits on Wes's lap, his whole body slumped back against him. I walk over and hand each a beer, hesitating when I get to Jessie.
She swipes it from me and gives me a challenging look. "I'll be twenty-one soon, asshole."
I wink at her and take the last open seat, which happens to be between Warner and Jessie. I wonder if they did that on purpose? We're sitting in our birth order.
Lightning appears, and the thunder that follows sounds like the crack of a whip. "Beautiful storm," Wes comments, his ankle crossed over his opposite knee.
"Sure is," Warner says, taking a pull from his beer. I feel his gaze on the side of my face. "Heard you got called out to help rescue some people from Devil's Canyon. How'd that go?"
"They drowned when a bunch of water from up the river filled the canyon."
Nobody speaks, and then Wes asks, "Do they know how they fell?"
"Sheriff believes their knot technique is to blame."
We're quiet again, watching the storm from the safety of the front porch with a beer in our hands. The rain slows, the clouds part, and a rainbow shines over the sky. I hear Dakota and Jo laughing in the house. Wes and I glance at each other, and I wonder if he's thinking the same thing I am.
He made it. I made it.
Away from that place where I spent so much of my life, living in anger and shame and sadness that directed my thoughts and actions. I'm still a person who thinks rules are flexible, and prefers justice served in unconventional ways, but the tornado inside me is gone. Jo helped to quell it, and this morning, my dad eliminated it.
This family of mine isn't perfect, we each have our wounds and scars, but they're mine. And today, they showed up at Devil's Canyon and showed me I'm theirs.
When it's time to part ways, I surprise the hell out of them by hugging them. "Dad hugged me earlier today, so be ready when you see him next. It might be your turn."
Jessie says, "Dad hugs me all the time," and earns a dirty look from all three of us.
"Oh, by the way." I stop beside the lineup of boots outside the front door. "Thanks for getting red dirt on the bottom of your shoes. Don't forget to wash them."
Nobody says a word, and we never speak about it again.
Epilogue
Six MonthsLater
