Claire takes my hand again. Together, we walk back to the rental car, leaving the quiet cemetery behind.
The flight home is long, but Claire sleeps through most of it, her head on my shoulder, her hand resting protectively over herbelly. I stay awake, watching the clouds drift past the window, thinking about everything that's changed in the past two years.
We got married six months after that night in my shop. Small ceremony, just the Grizzly Ridge family gathered in Logan's backyard. Claire wore a white sundress and wildflowers in her hair, and I'm pretty sure I cried more than she did.
Sarah was her maid of honor. Logan stood up for me. Little Lucy Creed scattered flower petals down the aisle with more enthusiasm than accuracy. Afterward, we all crowded into Maggie's Diner for dinner, and the whole town showed up to celebrate.
It was nothing like the wedding Claire had planned with Derek. No church, no ceremony, no three hundred guests she barely knew. Just the people who mattered, witnessing something real.
Two months later, we found out she was pregnant.
I still remember the moment she told me. Standing in our kitchen, the one we'd renovated together over the summer, holding a white stick with two pink lines. Her hands were shaking. Her eyes were bright with tears and terror and hope.
"Max." Just my name. Nothing else.
I swept her into my arms and spun her around until she laughed and begged me to stop before she threw up.
That night, lying in bed with my hand on her still flat stomach, I made a new promise. Not to Marcus this time, but to the tiny life growing inside the woman I love.
I promised to be the father I never had. To show up for every milestone, every scraped knee, every nightmare. To teach my son what it means to be a good man, even when the world makes it hard. To love him fiercely and unconditionally, the way Marcus loved Claire.
The way I love Claire.
We land in Billings after midnight. The drive to Grizzly Ridge takes another two hours, winding mountain roads illuminated only by headlights and stars. Claire dozes beside me, and I let the familiar rhythm of the road settle into my bones.
Home.
I never thought I'd have one. Growing up in foster care, bouncing from house to house, family to family, home was a concept I understood intellectually but never experienced. Even in the Teams, surrounded by brothers who would die for me, I always felt like an outsider looking in.
Then Claire walked into my shop, and everything changed.
She gave me roots. A place to belong. A reason to stop running from the man I was and start building the man I want to be.
Our cabin comes into view around the last bend. We built it together over the past year, on land adjacent to my shop. Two stories of timber and stone, with a wraparound porch and a nursery painted soft green. Claire's touches are everywhere. Photographs on the walls, plants in every window, the quilt her grandmother made draped over the couch.
It looks like a home. It feels like one too.
I carry Claire inside and tuck her into our bed. She murmurs something and curls into her pillow, one hand still resting on her belly. I stand there for a long moment, watching her sleep, overwhelmed by the magnitude of what I've been given.
Then I go to the nursery.
The crib sits in the corner, handmade by Brian Givens as a wedding gift. The walls are covered with murals that Maddox painted, mountains and eagles and stars. A mobile hangs above the crib, tiny metal shapes that catch the moonlight through the window.
I made those shapes. Hammered them at my forge late at night when I couldn't sleep, when the nightmares came and theonly thing that helped was the rhythm of creation. Eagles for strength. Bears for protection. Stars for hope.
My son will sleep beneath them soon.
My son.
Marcus Maxwell Reaves.
I press my hand against the cool wood of the crib and close my eyes.
"I'm going to tell you about your grandfather," I say softly. "Every day, I'm going to tell you stories about him. About how brave he was. How kind. How much he would have loved you."
The words come easier now than they used to. The grief is still there, but it's softer. Less like a wound and more like a scar. A reminder of what I've lost, but also what I've gained.
"And I'm going to tell you about your mother. How she drove two thousand miles to find me. How she saved me from drowning in my own guilt and fear. How she looked at me like I was worth something when I'd forgotten how to believe it myself."
