She closes the distance and then I've got her. One arm around her waist, one hand at the back of her head. She's trembling and so am I. And I don't know who's holding who up.
Her arms wind around my back, holding onto the fabric of my shirt, and she's half-laughing, half-sobbing, and Riot is leaning his big dumb head over the fence snorting.
I tip my forehead back enough to look at her. "You’re the best thing that's ever happened to me, Laurel Dempsey. I want you to hear that part real clear. And I'm gonna spend the rest of my life trying to be worthy of you."
"Beck—"
"Hush for a second." I brush a tear off her cheek with my thumb. "I’ll always be there for you, however you need me. Whether that's standin' behind you or standin' next to you or sittin' down and shuttin' up while you do your thing—you tell me, and I’ll do it. I just want to be yours."
A wet laugh slips out of her. "Mine…and I’m yours."
"You know it."
She laughs again, tugging at my shirt, then pulls me down into a kiss. And I kiss her back like I've been starved for days.
Because I have been.
When she pulls back, her cheeks are wet, and the porch light has clicked on, as if the house itself was waiting for her to come up the steps.
"Come inside," I murmur against her mouth. "I'm makin' you something better than pretzels from a vending machine, woman. You need a home-cooked meal.”
"Because I’m home."
I press a kiss to her cheek and smile so wide my face hurts. "Hell yeah, you are."
EPILOGUE - LAUREL
It may be thirty-six degrees on the porch, but my coffee is still hot in my thermos.
I gaze out at the paddock, watching Riot in a green winter blanket, breath steaming, hay sticking out of his mouth at a jaunty angle, as he keeps track of the two newbies in the next pen.
He’s gotten fat despite our workouts, and kinda smug. He is, as Beck likes to say,thriving.
I take a sip of my coffee and pull my coat tighter around me.
Down in the valley, you can already see the festival lights. Every December, the whole town of Hollow Peak strings big white globes from the lampposts, across Main Street and up the fronts of the brick buildings, and from up here (mostly at sunset) the valley looks like somebody dumped a constellation into a soup bowl.
It’s magnificent and I love it more and more the longer I’m here.
I also love this cabin.
I love it in a way that feels almost embarrassing, because eight months ago I was not the kind of woman who loved a building.
But then, now I have a barn with my name over it.Laurel & Co. Equinein stenciled black letters above the door. I have two paying clients on the books, a third lined up for January, and a website Lark insisted on building me that has a little form people can fill out and a photo of me and Riot looking much too serious.
But it’s working so far.
The new horses are a buckskin gelding named Cricket who came in green and afraid of his own shadow, and a small chestnut mare named Apricot who is, as far as I can tell, the most dainty horse I’ve come across.
The funny part is that Riot adores both of them. He spent the first week pretending he didn't, then I caught him grooming Cricket's withers like a man teaching a boy how to tie a tie, and now we're all just admitting that he's the herd boss and that's that.
And yesterday, Riot opened Apricot's stall door and walked her to the round pen. Honest-to-god, he waited until I was in the tack room, popped her latch with that magic mouth of his, and escorted her out by the halter rope. He was standing there in the round pen looking expectantly at the gate likewell, are you going to lunge her or am I?
I told Beck and he laughed until he wheezed. "That's my boy," he said, wiping his eyes. "Always managing the staff."
The screen door creaks behind me. "It’s colder than a witch’s tit out here, woman."
But he comes out anyway, in jeans, his Carhartt, and bed-mussed hair. He lowers himself into the rocker next to mine without one single hitch.
