She tilts her head to look at me. “You’re going to start coming around more? Helping people? Letting them see you?”
I nod slowly. “I think it’s time. I’ve spent too long on the outside looking in. I want to be part of this place. With you.”
Her smile is soft, sleepy, perfect. “I’d like that.”
We talked a while longer, all about quiet plans and small promises. About fixing the last of the roof leaks together. About teaching self-defense classes at the center, so no one else feels as helpless as she did. About maybe getting a dog someday, something big and loyal that’ll bark at strangers. About nights like this, just us, no walls between us.
Eventually, her breathing slows and evens out. I listen to it for a long time steadily, until my own eyes grow heavy.
I press one last kiss to her hair.
“I love you,” I whisper into the dark.
She murmurs something soft and happy in her sleep, nestles closer.
I close my eyes, hold her tight, and let sleep take me.
Epilogue
Ronan
The sky is the softest pink when we step onto the sand, the kind of color that makes the whole world feel new. I’ve been up since before dawn, coffee already gone cold on the kitchen counter because sleep wouldn’t come. Not the restless kind I used to have—the kind where every shadow reminded me of failure. This was anticipation. Quiet, steady, the good kind that settles in your bones like the tide coming in slow.
Isla’s hand is warm in mine. She’s wearing one of my old flannel shirts over leggings, sleeves rolled up, hair loose and catching the first real light. The wind off the Pacific is gentle this morning, carrying salt and the faint sweetness of kelp drying on the rocks. Our boots leave shallow prints in the wet sand that fill almost immediately, like the ocean is erasing our path behind us and promising there’s always more ahead.
We don’t talk much at first. We never need to when we walk like this. Her thumb brushes slow circles over my knuckles, andI feel every small touch like a reminder: she’s here. She stayed. We stayed.
The lighthouse stands sentinel on the bluff to our left, beam already switched off for the day. I used to avoid looking at it, too many memories of sitting alone up there, talking to a ghost. Now it just feels like part of home.
We reach the stretch of beach where the sand curves gently and the waves roll in long, lazy curls. I stop. She stops with me, turning to face the water, hair whipping across her cheek. I reach into my jacket pocket, fingers closing around the small velvet box I’ve been carrying for weeks.
“Isla.”
She turns, eyes curious, a little sleepy still from the early hour. The sunrise paints her face in rose and gold, and for a second, I can’t breathe.
I drop to one knee.
The sand is cold through my jeans. Doesn’t matter.
Her hand flies to her mouth.
I open the box. Inside is a simple band of white gold, thin, set with one small diamond that catches the light like a drop of captured ocean. Nothing flashy. Just honest. Like us.
“I’ve spent too many years believing I didn’t get to have this,” I say, voice low but steady. “Believing I didn’t deserve it. You changed that. You looked at me and saw past the scars, past the guilt, past the man who thought he’d never be more than what he’d lost. You made me want to be more. You made me believe I could be.”
Tears shimmer in her eyes. She doesn’t wipe them away.
“I love you,” I tell her. “Every quiet morning, every storm we weather, every time you laugh at something I say that isn’t even funny. I love the way you fight for what matters, the way you trust me even when I’m still learning how to trust myself. I want forever with you, Isla. Not because I need saving. Because I wantto build something good with you. Something safe. Something ours.”
I hold the box up between us. “Will you marry me?”
For one heartbeat, the only sound is the waves rolling in.
Then she laughs—soft, joyful, the sound that still stops my heart every time I hear it.
“Yes.” Her voice cracks on the word, bright and certain. “Yes, Ronan. Yes.”
I’m on my feet before I realize I’ve moved. She throws her arms around my neck; I lift her off the sand, spin her once, twice, until she’s laughing harder and clinging to my shoulders. When I set her down, her hands frame my face, thumbs brushing the scar on my jaw like she’s memorizing it all over again.
