A laugh spilled past my lips, and his mouth curved into a slow smile that I felt all the way down to my toes.
“How about three?” I offered, afraid of where our negotiations might land.
“That’ll work too.”
I was still smiling when I asked, “Should we get started tonight?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he growled, and the words were simple and certain, containing everything he felt for me.
He kissed me slowly, and I thought about the names penciled on that wall, and about the nameswemight add someday.
And I kissed him back, a woman who had gone a thousand miles only to find her way home again.
Epilogue
Mallory
One Year Later
The coffee maker gurgled and hissed on the kitchen counter, filling the farmhouse with that deep, rich smell that had become a fixture in my life for the past year.
Today I was making two batches.
A dark, full-strength brew for Zane, and decaf for me.
I stood at the counter wearing his flannel shirt, the worn gray one with the frayed cuffs that he’d stopped claiming ownership of sometime around October, feeling completely and totally content.
This would be my first morning drinking decaf, and it wasworthit.
In fact, I was buzzing with excitement about it.
Outside, the world was white.
A late-season snow had come in overnight and blanketed our hundred acres in that particular hush that only a heavy snowfall could produce.
Zane’s boots were missing from the back door, the big worn pair he kept for barn work. My winter boots sat next to the empty spot.
I pulled up my laptop while the coffee finished and fired off a quick reply to the Hendricks account. They were a mid-sized outdoor apparel brand out of Denver that had become one of my steadiest clients.
They needed approval of the Q1 campaign calendar before their internal meeting on Thursday. I hit send, closed the laptop, and poured myself a mug.
Quincy bounced into the room, his tiny nub tail quivering back and forth. He didn’t have enough tail to wag properly, so it often turned into a full butt wiggle.
“Baby, there you are!” I squealed in the high-pitched, sugary voice I reserved just for him. “Let’s get breakfast.”
He ran right over to his food bowl and sat, waiting patiently.
Zane really was my hero.
A few weeks after we made it official as a couple, he disappeared on a “work trip” with Amos.
Which everyone in town knew was a bald-faced lie, because they were loggers. Their work was right here on the mountain. And Amos didn’t even work for Zane anymore! He worked at the Harrison Brothers’ logging camp.
No one knew what trouble those men were getting into, and I was curious about it for sure.
Then, three days later, the two trouble-makers had reappeared holding one wiggly bundle of joy.
“How did you?” I’d asked.
