Later, after the crowd had thinned and the family had retreated to quieter conversations, Wyatt found me standing under the wedding tree. The lights strung through its branches cast everything in a soft glow, and I could hear the creek singing its eternal song in the distance.
"Overwhelming?" he asked, pulling me back against his chest.
"Perfect," I corrected. "Absolutely perfect."
"You know Mom wasn't joking about the wedding planning, right?"
"I figured." I turned in his arms, looking up at him. "Is that a proposal?"
"That's a warning. The actual proposal will be much better."
"I don't need better. I just need you."
He kissed me then, soft and deep, while the wedding tree stood witness to another generation's love story. When we pulled apart, he studied my face in the string lights' glow.
"Home looks damn good on you," he murmured, thumb tracing my cheekbone.
I smiled up at him, feeling the truth of it in my bones. "Feels even better."
We stood there as the party wound down around us, as his family—my family—began the ritual of goodbye hugs and promises to do this again soon. The night was warm, cricketsbeginning their symphony, and somewhere a mockingbird was showing off its repertoire.
This was home. Not just the ranch, not just Copper Creek, but this—standing in Wyatt's arms under stars that had watched us fall apart and come back together. The journey had been longer than it should have been, the road harder than necessary, but we'd made it.
We were home.
And this time, it was forever.
Epilogue
Liam
The string lights in the wedding tree turned the whole ranch to gold. Every branch glowed soft and warm, a halo over the people who’d built this place from nothing but love and grit.
I stood at the edge of it all—beer in hand, Stetson low, trying to look casual while my chest ached in that familiar way. This family had been my saving grace once. Still was.
Ivy’s homecoming had drawn out damn near half the county. There was laughter and two-stepping, kids chasing lightning bugs, and Aunt Lou’s peach cobbler making the rounds. Wyatt hadn’t stopped smiling for three straight hours. My brother in everything but blood finally had his girl back. And it was about damn time. Fourteen years of carrying that ghost around, and now he looked alive again.
“Careful, Ranger,” Maggie said, slipping up beside me with her smirk firmly in place. “You keep thinking that hard, you’re liable to sprain something.”
“Just enjoying the view,” I said, tugging on one of her braids like I used to when she was a kid and followed me everywhere.
“The view of Wyatt finally getting his head out of his ass?”
“Language, Magnolia,” I scolded with a smirk.
“You sound like Mom,” she teased.
Mom. Aunt Lou had earned that title ten times over. She and Uncle Owen had taken Sophie and me in after our parents were murdered—no hesitation, no questions about whether they could handle two more broken kids. I’d been fifteen. Sophie, ten. They already had five kids, a ranch to run, and still they made room for us.
I glanced toward the porch where Aunt Lou stood laughing at something Uncle Owen whispered in her ear. They still danced likenewlyweds under that old oak, their shadows swaying in the golden light. Seeing them like that—the love, the peace—always hit me right in the chest. They’d saved us, built us a home out of the wreckage. The least I could do was make them proud. Hence the badge, the land I’d bought next door, the life I’d built from ashes.
“When’s it gonna be your turn?” Clay asked, swaggering over with a grin that said trouble was close behind. “Can’t let Wyatt be the only one getting a happy ending.”
“When I find someone who can put up with the badge and the baggage,” I said, voice even, though the words sat heavy in my chest.
Because the truth was, I already had. Except she was off living her dreams, and I was here, watching from afar.
Stevie Wilson, country music’s golden girl. LA lights, tour buses, red carpets. Her face on billboards. Hundreds of thousands of fans are all vying for her attention.
