The way he said my name made my heart stumble.
“I built this house because I wanted roots,” he continued. “Not just walls. Not just a place to sleep. I wanted somewhere we could come back to. Somewhere safe. Somewhere real.”
My eyes burned.
“You helped me choose every piece of it,” he said. “Every detail. You made it a home before it even existed.”
He took a breath and then he dropped to one knee.
The world tilted.
“Harmony Bellerose,” he said, steady and sure and utterly Eric, “you are my choice. Every day. I don’t want a life without you in it. I don’t want a future you’re not part of.”
Tears slipped free before I could stop them.
“Will you marry me?” he asked. “Will you build this life here with me?”
For a heartbeat, I couldn’t speak.
Four months ago, I’d been running. From my past. From fear. From the belief I was too damaged to be chosen fully. Now, standing in a house built by the man who had never stopped choosing me, the answer felt as natural as breathing.
“Yes,” I whispered.
His breath left him in a broken laugh as he stood, hands shaking just enough to give him away. He slid the ring onto my finger; simple, elegant, perfect, and pulled me into his arms.
I pressed my forehead to his chest, laughing through tears.
“This is home,” I said.
He kissed my hair, holding me like he always did, steady, grounding, and sure.
“I know,” he murmured.
Outside, the ridge bloomed under the late spring sun. Inside, the house filled with light, laughter, and the quiet certainty of a future finally chosen. And this time, I wasn’t running toward it. I was home.
EPILOGUE TWO
One Month Later
Harmony
The house was quiet in the way new places become once they learn your rhythms. I was curled on the couch, a blanket pulled over my legs, my engagement ring catching the late-afternoon light when I moved. Outside, the orchard stretched green and full, early summer settled deep into Maple Valley. The life we’d built here felt real in a way I was still getting used to.
The television was on low when my father’s name slid across the bottom of the screen.
Marcel Bellerose shot outside private medical clinic. Condition critical.
I sat up slowly.
They said it calmly. No speculation. No emotion. Just facts delivered from a safe distance. They mentioned it almost as an aside, he had been released on bail five months ago. His appeal had gone through. Charges were dropped. He had been a free man. I had experienced a whirl of emotions when he was released. I had risked everything to put him away and he had found a way out. I shouldn’t have been surprised. After all thistime I hadn’t seen him. From what I understood he was laying low. He didn’t return to Val-Du-Lys. I was worried about how angry he would be with me, even if I understood from Olivier that our father made him promise he wouldn’t touch me. My family wasn’t exactly honorable, so keeping a promise wasn’t an expectation.
One moment Marcel was FREE, until he wasn’t. He had been shot in broad daylight. Fear came first, old and instinctive. Then relief, sharp and immediate. And then the feeling that hurt the most to admit.
Grief.
Not for the man he was, but for the man I’d once hoped he might become. The one who could have let me go without forcing me to burn everything behind me. He never did.
He was the man I feared. He was also my father. Both things lived inside me, and I didn’t try to untangle them. I turned the television off before the footage looped again and sat there until the house felt steady around me. When the truth had come out that I was the one who testified, the one who put him away, the town hadn’t turned its back. The casseroles came instead.
