Page 40 of Stealing the Runaway Bride

It beats under my palm, steady, like it trusts me to keep count.

The morning will bring the fight. It will bring the drought and the lawyers and the rage of an oil tycoon who thinks he can buy anything. But they’ve never met a Kramer who’s finally found his reason to win.

They’re about to find out that the most dangerous thing in the world is a man with nothing left to lose and everything to protect.

I drift off to the sound of her breathing, the rhythm of it a steady, grounding force. The cabin skeleton around us feels less like a ruin and more like a promise. A promise of shelter. A promise of a future.

The ghosts are gone. The silvered wood is just wood again. And I’m just a man who loves a woman.

I dream of water. A deep, cold well that never runs dry. I dream of green pastures and the sound of Juliette’s laughter in the workshop. I dream of a life that isn't defined by what was lost, but by what was found.

And in the dream, I’m not whittling a bird. I’m building a cradle.

I wake up for a split second, the thought so clear and powerful it makes my heart ache. I look down at Juliette, her face pale in the moonlight. I press a kiss to her forehead, the taste of salt and magnolia on my lips.

"You’re here," I whisper into the quiet. "Stay here with me."

The night air is cold now, but I’m warm. I’ve got the heat of her body and the fire in my soul. I’ve got the easement and the truth. And I’ve got the name of every person who ever tried to hurt her etched into my memory.

They think they can take what’s ours.

They have no idea what they’re up against.

At first light, we take the easement to the lawyer and force Black Aspen to answer it.

We don’t wait long. The phone in my truck rings before the courthouse opens, and the voice on the other end isn’t a lawyer. It’s him, calling his daughter on my line because she won’t take his.

She puts it on speaker and sets it on the dash between us and lets him talk. He offers her the studio back. He offers the funding. He offers to walk the filing back, quietly, no admission, if she comes home and lets the merger close.

Juliette lets the silence sit until it’s uncomfortable.

"There’s a covenant with your grandfather’s signature on it," she says. "Certified copy filed at nine this morning. You can walk it back or a judge can, but the water’s coming down that creek by Friday either way. And I’m not the thing you trade to make it easier."

He doesn’t threaten her. That’s the part I didn’t expect. He goes quiet, the way a man does when he’s already recalculating, and then the line clicks dead.

She hands me the phone with a steady hand.

"That’s it," she says. "He doesn’t come at a thing twice when it costs more than it returns. He taught me that himself."

EPILOGUE

JULIETTE

The scent of beeswax, fresh wood, and newly unwrapped silk is something I never expected to find in the middle of a high-country ranch, but here it is. It’s better than any glass-walled studio I worked in back in the city. Even morning light pours through the broad north window, every pane scrubbed clean by the man who rebuilt the frame it sits in. The workshop he built for me—for a woman he didn’t even know yet when he started—shimmers. It’s more than just a room with sewing machines and cutting tables. It’s the first workspace I’ve ever controlled completely, from the deed in my name to the designs waiting beneath my hands.

My fingers trace the polished edge of the old cast-iron pressing table. The metal is cool and solid. Benjamin had grunted, wiped sweat from his brow, and told me Cag’s grandmother probably haunts the thing, so I’d better keep the steam low unless I want a lecture from the grave. I like the idea of a ghost in the rafters. It makes the place feel crowded in the best way.

My name is stitched into the labels stacked beside the sewing machine, and every design leaving this room belongs to me. I’m a woman with a needle, a hell of a lot of silk, and a man who looks at me like I’m the sun and the moon and the only reason the grass grows.

The sound of a heavy boot on the porch makes my heart do that annoying little skip-thump. I don’t turn around. I know that rhythm. Slow. Certain. Unmistakably Cag. It sounds like a man who has finally finished something he started.

"You’re staring at that window again," Cag’s voice rumbles. It’s low, gravelly, and does things to my internal temperature that should probably be illegal in a place of business.

"It’s a good window, Kramer. You did a decent job." I finally turn, leaning my hip against the table. I keep my expression neutral, but it’s a struggle. He’s standing in the doorway, framed by the wide sky, looking like a god in dusty denim and a flannel shirt that’s seen better days. His dark hair is wind-mussed, and the scar along his jaw is a pale line against his tanned skin. "Though, if you wanted a compliment, you could have just asked."

He doesn't smile. He doesn't need to. The heat in his eyes is enough. He crosses the room without taking his eyes off me, stopping close enough that the workshop suddenly feels much smaller. He doesn't stop until he’s in my space, his scent—saddle oil, pine, and that raw, masculine heat—overwhelming the lavender and silk. He reaches out, his thumb grazing my cheek, right over the freckles he’s spent the last few nights counting with his tongue.

“I don’t need compliments, Juliette.” The words come slowly, his attention fixed entirely on me. "I need you to stop working for five minutes so I can make sure you’re still real."