“Always.”
“I want the hotel restaurant to be affordable and delicious too. A place for guests and locals alike to come and have a good meal. And I was thinking, you seem to love cooking, and so many of the recipes are your mom’s?—”
“You’d put my mom’s recipes on the menu.”
“Only if you’re okay with it.”
“Fuck, Margot.” My voice gets thick. “Of course I’m okay with it.”
“You can have as much or as little involvement as you want. I know—I know there are things you wanted?—”
“You. I want you. I want to be by your side. The rest of what I do—I’ll be happy doing anything as long as I’m with you.”
She presses a kiss to my neck. “Bea has some family recipes too. I’d ask her?—”
“Fuck yes, Margot. She loves you like a sister too, you know. Embrace all of your family. You deserve it.”
She sucks in an uneven breath. “Why does love make me cry so much?”
“You’re still getting used to how big it can be.”
“It’s the best, isn’t it?”
I squeeze her tighter and bury my face in her hair. “The absolute best when it’s real. And, Skillet, this is real.”
Real and the absolute best.
“It was worth all of the pain to get here,” she whispers.
I can’t hug her tightly enough. “And if I have my way, you’ll never hurt like that again.”
“I love you so much, Rhys,” she whispers through tears.
I kiss her hair again. “I love you forever.”
EPILOGUE
AND THERE’S THE OOPS
Margot
Snaggletooth Creekat the end of September is a beautiful place.
Rhys, Daphne, Oliver, Bea, Simon, and I spent all afternoon at a local art festival, and now we’re back at the cabin.
With the triplets, of course.
And, to my utter surprise, their parents too.
“Don’t be so loud or the moose won’t come back,” Lucky says to Daphne, who just snort-laughed at a very terrible joke Oliver told as we sit around in lawn chairs while the sun sinks low in the sky.
“You don’t want the moose to come back,” Rhys says. He has an arm around the back of my chair, and both of us keep inching our chairs closer together, which is only mildly bothering Bandit, who’s decided my feet are his favorite place to lie. “It’s a wild animal.”
“It likes Margot,” Lucky says.
“IthatesMargot,” I correct. “It’s rushed me twice.”
“I think it was trying to give you a hug.”
