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“Ready.”

I get into the car with Hunter. The other two climb into the truck. They pull out ahead of me and I follow them through the city, up the highway, and into the mountains. We start to climb the mountain.

“Feel familiar?” Hunter asks.

I laugh. “The last time I drove this way, I was wearing a wedding dress and had all my wedding makeup smeared all over my face. I was panicked and heartbroken and miserable and had no idea where I was going or how I was going to get there.”

“And now?”

“Now?” I glance at him, smiling. “Now, I have three men escorting me up the mountain and I know exactly where I’m going.”

Conversation ebbs and flows like water as we drive. The city melts away around us, giving way to smaller outposts, then the occasional building, then nothing but trees. We go around a turn and the flat gray of civilization disappears entirely as the trees close behind us. We climb higher and higher on the winding road until I spot the place where I spun out weeks ago. The truck hits its blinker and turns onto the driveway. Excitement bubbles in my chest as the cabin comes into view. I park next to the truck and step out of the car.

The cold mountain air hits my face and fills my lungs. The smell of pine and fresh-cut wood fills my senses. The snow is deep, the pines are tall, and there’s a cardinal looking at me from the branch by Beau’s window.

I stand there for a moment, just breathing. The guys are already moving toward the truck to start unloading, but I don’t move yet. I look at the cabin, the porch where I stood up for myself, the living room window where I sat and edited a hundred photos, the woodpile that Beau keeps stacked with a precision that borders on love. A few weeks ago, I crashed into this place wearing a ruined wedding dress and threw a book at a stranger’s head. I had nothing. No plan, no money, no idea who I was without the life I’d just destroyed.

Now I’m standing in the same spot, and I have everything.

Hunter comes back and kisses me. “Welcome home, Josie.”

Beau grins. “You better not throw anything at my head this time.”

I grin back at him. “No promises.”

He laughs and kisses me. Emmett scoops me up just as we break the kiss, carrying me over his shoulder into the house.

EPILOGUE

JOSIE

The cabin is cozy and warm, making me feel like I’m bundled up in a little cocoon. It’s early December again, and it’s so very different from the early December of last year. So much has happened this year that it’s overwhelming to think about.

A grin tugs at my lips as I think about watching my men as they worked to expand the cabin over the summer. Shirtless in the heat, all that muscle and sweat and heavy lifting. It was the hottest thing I’ve ever seen and I took about a thousand photos of it… for my own personal use, of course.

This place feels like it’s ours now. All four of us, the family that we’re becoming. The expansion they built over the summer was a massive main bedroom that we all share now. We converted Beau’s old room into my office. My photos are all over the walls and my camera gear has its own space. Our bedroom has a bed big enough for four people, which was a project in itself.

The cabin is decorated for Christmas. Properly this time, lights strung and real ornaments mixed in with the scrappy makeshift ones from last year. None of us wanted to throw those out. The guys are fully into Christmas now. Not just for me, but because they met me during the holidays so they love the holidays now too.

I’m at my desk editing my photos. I can see Beau through the window, filling the bird feeder he built in the front yard so that I would always have something interesting to look at and shoot while I’m in my office. Emmett is in his workshop, where he’s spent most of his time lately. The whole house smells like the cider that Hunter has been making all morning.

I click to the other tab and smile. My photos are selling consistently, and I’m building up a real client base. I’m making decent money, money enough that even Courtney couldn’t say anything negative about it. Although I’m not sure Courtney would say anything negative about it these days, anyway. She’s changed. She’s divorcing her husband, and I’m happy for her. I hope she finds something real.

Stretching, I put a pause on my editing and uploading. It’s just about dinner time. I bite my lip, suddenly nervous. Swallowing hard, I put it out of my mind. Get through dinner first, then get nervous. Right? Right. I head downstairs and smell the distinct spices of Hunter’s pea stew mixing with the spices of the cider. My stomach growls.

“Heard you coming,” Hunter says, grinning at me as he hands me a bowl. “Your stomach is telling on you. You’ve been working too hard.”

“It’s not hard work, it’s just all-consuming work,” I shoot back.

“It doesn’t have to make you miserable in order for it to be hard work, you know,” Beau adds as he comes into the kitchen.

“But it isn’t difficult, it comes easily to me.”

“Doesn’t have to be difficult to be hard work,” Emmett says gruffly. He comes into the kitchen with a pair of tweezers. He’s working a splinter out of his hand.

“Let me,” I tell him. He gives me his hand and I get a grip on the splinter, pulling it out. I grab the antiseptic out of the bathroom cupboard and spray his hand down with it, then wipe it clean. “Better?”

“Better,” he grunts. “Thanks.”