“I’ve been thinking,” I say quietly. “About what happens when you get back to your real life. The job, the city, the noise. I’m just a lumberjack, Sloane. I live in a cabin I built myself. I smell like sawdust most days. I don’t do fancy restaurants, rooftop bars, or whatever it is you’re used to. I keep wondering if you could really be happy here. With me.”
The words hang heavy in the quiet room. I hate saying them out loud, but I need her to know I’m not blind to the difference between our worlds.
I feel the bed shift as she moves closer. Her small hand slides over my shoulder, gentle but firm.
“Forrest,” she says softly. “Look at me.”
I turn. She’s kneeling behind me on the bed, wearing nothing, her hair messy from sleep. Her eyes are bright and steady.
“I spent the last few days falling in love with you,” she says, voice clear and sure. “Not the idea of you. Not some fantasy mountain man. You. The way you laugh when I tease you. The way you listen like everything I say matters. The way you touch me like I’m something precious. The way you showed me your land and your mill and told me about your family.”
She crawls forward until she’s straddling my lap, her hands framing my face.
“I don’t need fancy restaurants or city noise,” she continues. “I need someone who makes me feel seen. Who makes me laugh. Someone who makes me feel safe, wanted, and loved. And that’s you. I love you, Forrest Kane. I’m in love with you.”
Her words hit me like sunlight breaking through the trees after a long winter. I stare at her, heart pounding so hard I can feel it in my throat.
“You love me?” I ask, voice rough.
She nods, thumbs stroking my beard. “I do. I think I started falling the moment you smiled at me in that parking lot instead of yelling. Every hour since has just made it deeper. I love you.”
Relief and joy crash over me so hard my hands tremble as I grip her hips. I pull her closer, forehead resting against hers.
“I love you too,” I say, the words coming out raw and honest. “Been in love with you since you hit my truck. I was scared you’d wake up and realize you wanted your old life back. Scared I wouldn’t be enough for you.”
“You are more than enough,” she whispers. “You’re everything.”
I kiss her then, pouring every bit of the love I feel into it. She kisses me back with the same intensity, her hands sliding into my hair, body pressing closer until there’s no space left between us.
We make love right there on the edge of the bed, slow and tender. I lift her just enough to slide inside her, both of us groaning at the perfect fit. She rides me with gentle rolls of her hips, eyes locked on mine the whole time.
“I love you,” she breathes against my mouth.
“I love you,” I growl back, hands gripping her waist, guiding her movements. “My wife. My everything.”
The pleasure builds gradually, deep and consuming. We move together like we have all the time in the world, every thrust a promise, every moan a vow. When she comes, it’s with my name on her lips and her walls clenching tight around me. I follow right after, burying myself deep and spilling inside her with a low groan of her name.
Afterward, we stay tangled together, foreheads pressed, breathing the same air.
“I’m not going back to Denver today,” she says softly. “I’m staying. I already emailed my boss asking to work remotely.”
Joy floods through me so strongly it almost hurts. I tighten my arms around her, pressing a kiss to her temple.
“You sure?” I ask, even though I can hear the certainty in her voice.
“I’m sure,” she whispers. “I choose you. I choose us. I choose this life.”
I hold her close, heart full to bursting. The doubts that had been gnawing at me are finally quiet. She loves me. She’s staying. She’s choosing me.
I’m going to spend every day making sure she never regrets it.
We stay wrapped in each other for a long time, talking softly about what comes next, how she’ll set up a workspace in the cabin, how we’ll tell my mom the good news at dinner tonight, how we’ll make this marriage real in every way that matters.
Epilogue
Sloane
One year later
