“I’m ready now. And I’m sorry it took me so fucking long to get my head out of my ass. But I’m here. I’m all in. And I’m asking you to believe that I’ve changed.”
A tear slid down Pepper’s cheek. I brushed it away with my thumb, heart clenching at the sight. She’d shed way too many tears over my actions, and it killed me that I’d caused any more.
“You’re really doing this?” Her voice wavered. “Making these changes?”
“Already done most of them. Just waiting on the official word.” I cradled her face between my palms. “I love you. Never stopped. But I finally figured out that loving you means showing up for you. Being present. Building a life together instead of expecting you to fit into the cracks of mine.”
She pressed her forehead against my chest, shoulders shaking. I wrapped my arms around her, breathing in the familiar scent of her shampoo mixed with hints of the diner’s kitchen.
“I was so scared.” The words came out muffled against my shirt. “That we were falling into the same patterns. That you’d...”
“Never again.” I pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “I swear to God, Pepper. Never again.”
She tilted her face up, tears still glittering on her lashes, but a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “You better mean that, Rhett MacAvoy. Because if you make captain and still manage to mess this up, I’ll never forgive you.”
Relief flooded through me. I bent and captured her lips with mine, pouring out years of regret and promise and love. Her fingers curled into my shirt, pulling me closer as she rose up on her toes to take the kiss deeper.
I was losing the thread of everything but the taste of her when she finally eased back. “When do you hear?”
“In a week or two. Enough time for me to wrap up the last of these projects around the house before I actually go back to duty.”
Her lips curved with an unquestionably wicked smile. “I have a better idea.”
Without another word, she towed me toward the bedroom.
Epilogue
Pepper
“Is that your engagement ring?”
Austen’s high-pitched squeal cut through the end-of-lunch hubbub in the diner, causing several heads to turn. Her hand flew to her mouth, eyes wide with mortification. “Oh God, was I not supposed to say that out loud?”
I laughed, feeling the weight of the diamond on my finger—both familiar and new. “It’s fine, Austen. Half the town’s been gawking at it since I started my shift. Honestly, the fact that you haven’t heard yet tells me you’re really behind on the gossip tree.”
“I can only blame inventory for the fact that I haven’t surfaced long enough to talk to a human. Oh my God! I can’t believe it! Finally.” She bounced on her toes, leaning forward to get a better look.
I couldn’t stop staring at the ring myself. The same white gold band with the princess-cut diamond that had adorned my finger for all those years before our divorce. The ring I’d returned to Rhett with tears streaming down my face, convinced we’d reached our end. He’d given it back to me last night, and I’d asked him to move back in. For all my talk about taking things slow, once I knew he was serious about making changes, I hadn’t seen the point in wasting any more time for formality’s sake. We wanted to be together, and we were committed to making sure we did things differently this time.
“Let me see!” Rhett’s mother practically lunged across the counter, grabbing my hand. Her eyes welled up immediately. “My boy finally came to his senses.”
“We’re back together,” I confirmed, running my thumb along the bottom of the band. My hand had felt naked these past three years without it. “For good this time.”
Chief MacAvoy cleared his throat, clearly fighting emotion the same way Rhett always did. Warm and squishy weren’t in the job description for the chief of police, but I knew he’d always had a soft spot for me. “Always knew you two belonged together. Just took that thick-headed son of mine some time to figure it out.”
“Took us both some time.” I could admit now that we’d both had some growing up to do. Maybe if I’d communicated better what I needed early on, we’d have done more of that growing together. Or maybe we’d needed the time apart to see what life was like without each other really crystalize what we wanted.
“Have you set a date?” Mrs. MacAvoy still clutching my hand like she might never let go. Her eyes shone with an unmistakable maternal excitement and I could practically see the wheels turning in her brain thinking about weddings and grandbabies.
I gently extracted my fingers. “We haven’t gotten that far. It just happened last night.”
“You can’t elope,” Austen insisted. “I mean it, Pepper. Don’t you dare run off to some courthouse. We all missed celebrating you two the first time.”
I laughed, remembering our first wedding—a hasty affair at city hall between Rhett’s shifts. We’d been so young, so eager to start our lives together that we hadn’t wanted to wait for the big production our families had hoped for.
“No plans to elope,” I promised, though privately I was thinking the sooner the better. We’d already lost so much time. “But I’m not sure I want some huge production either.” That wasn’t who we were. But maybe Austen had a point that, this go round, it was worth making a bit of a fuss to celebrate all we’d overcome to get here.
The bell over the door jingled, and I looked up to see Rhett standing there. My heart tripped at the sight of his familiar frame in the doorway, and a smile automatically tugged at my lips. Then I noticed his expression. Serious. Tense.
