Epilogue
ONE YEAR LATER…
B ennett Hayes walked through the doors of the Fire Creek Distillery and all heads turned. It was still an odd thing. A Hayes walking into the Darcy family business and no one shouting for security or calling the cops. After all, family feuds in the Bluegrass State tended to be of epic proportion. But those days were over. With Samuel Darcy’s toxic ass gone from the town of Fontaine and out of the lives of his children, they were all finally at peace—even if they didn’t know what the hell to make of it.
“Hayes!”
Bennett looked up to see Mia’s older brother, Clayton Darcy, making a beeline for him. That wasn’t good. They might have called a truce but they’d never be friends. “Clayton,” Bennett acknowledged.
The eldest Darcy sibling stopped directly in front of him. “Do me a favor and don’t leave big ass hickeys on my baby sister before we have important board meetings. In fact, just don’t leave big ass hickeys on her at all. I don’t need the visual confirmation of what y’all do when I’m not around.”
Bennett didn’t say anything in response to that. Informing Clayton that he had a matching bite mark in a well concealed location would not make anything better. Instead he just ignored the whole thing. “Is Mia in her office?”
“She is,” Clayton replied. “And you all are expected this weekend for Emma Grace’s birthday party. Two o’clock at the Pizza Spot. Don’t be late.”
Bennett nodded as he walked away, heading straight for Mia’s office. The smell of sour mash filled the air in the distillery. There wasn’t a Kentuckian alive who didn’t know that particular aroma and got a little misty eyed over it. And for his money, there was no better bourbon around than Fire Creek. Even when the very name Darcy had made him cringe, he’d still taken a nip or two of the product from time to time.
With a sharp knock, he opened the door to Mia’s office and stepped inside. She was in the middle of a conference call, smiling into the camera on her laptop and looking like the Southern royalty she was. Just out of frame, she held up one finger to shush him and simultaneously let him know she was almost done.
It took another minute or so for her to wrap up the call and shut everything down. Then she leaned back in her chair, stretched and let out a tired groan as she rolled her neck from side to side. “Remind me to tell you no the next time you decide to get amorous in the middle of the week.”
Bennett grinned. “That was all you. I was just lying in bed minding my own business and you had to walk in dressed like every fantasy I’ve ever had since I was a seventeen-year-old boy?—”
“I was wearing a T-shirt!” Mia protested.
“Like I said, every fantasy I’ve ever had since I was a boy,” he doubled down. “Now, get your purse. I’ve got a surprise for you.”
“I can’t just leave. It’s only four in the afternoon.”
“You can. Your last name is Darcy, Mia. That does come with some perks,” he pointed out. “Let’s go. The truck’s running.”
She sighed but grabbed her purse just the same. Slipping the strap over her shoulder, she rose from her desk. “You’re a bad influence on me, Bennett Hayes.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” he said, ushering her out the office door with a smack on her perfectly curved behind. There were a million and one things he loved about her body, but her ass was truly perfect. And if things went the way he hoped they would, that luscious behind would be his for life.
They were in Bennett’s truck. She had scooted all the way to the middle and was seated right beside him. He had one arm thrown around her shoulders and the other hand on the wheel. It was a perfect moment—perfect in the present and a perfect representation of their past. How many times had she sat in the front seat of his beat-up old car, pressed to his side with his arm slung around her and some obnoxious music on the radio? Even thinking about it made her smile.
“What’s that for?” he asked.
“The past. The present. Us,” she mused. “It’s good, isn’t it? Where we are now?”
He looked at her strangely for just a moment, shadows in his eyes that hadn’t been there just a minute before. “Is this all you want, Mia? Just the present? Just the memories of our past? What about the future?”
Her heart did that funny little skip that always happened whenever they started to talk about the future. She was afraid to want it. Afraid that if she let herself think too much about it, it would all disappear again. “Let’s not borrow trouble, Bennett.”
He eased the truck off the highway and onto the gravel road that would lead to the springhouse. She should have known that when he said he had a surprise for her it would involve their spot. It had always been their spot. Every day after school they’d slipped away and spent hours there. Sometimes it had been innocent—sweet, even. Other times it had been heated and sensual.
When the truck rolled to a stop and Bennett climbed out, she waited patiently for him to come around and open the door for her. It would have been easier to just get out. But he liked to do those things for her, and she secretly enjoyed it.
When the door opened and he took her hand to help her out, she smiled at him. As her heels sank into the dirt, she pressed a kiss to his cheek. “I love you, Bennett.”
His expression remained tight. “I’ll remind you of that shortly. Let’s get inside. It’s cold as shit out here.”
The truck door slammed as she walked away from it. Bennett took a couple of quick steps and was once more at her side. At the door to the springhouse, he pulled a set of keys from his pocket and within seconds, the padlock sprang free and he removed it from the latch, slipping it into his pocket. When he pulled the door open, Mia was not prepared for what she saw. Inside, the old wooden building had been transformed. Strings of light had been draped from the ceiling. In the far corner, a nest of blankets and pillows had been created for them.
“Did Savannah help you with this?” she asked.
He looked at her balefully. “I am capable of completing a romantic gesture without asking for my sister’s expertise.”
“Those pillows are from the international market and cost half the earth, Bennett.”
“I borrowed them from her,” he said. “Now, hush before you ruin it.”
Mia laughed and made a production of zipping up her lips before stepping deep into the springhouse. Beneath the wooden floor, she could hear the gurgling of the stream that had been the sole purpose of the building’s existence at one point.
Next to the nest of silk blankets and embroidered velvet pillows was a tote bag from her favorite restaurant in Lexington. “Did you get fried chicken from the Merrick Inn? And chocolate cake?”
He grinned. “Of course, I did. What else would I get from there?”
A bucket of champagne was chilling as well. “Did I forget an anniversary?” The feeling of panic was intense. Bennett was so much better about that sort of thing than she was.
“No. It’s not an anniversary—not yet, anyway.”
Mia turned to him then. “All right, I’m getting nervous. What’s going on, Bennett?”
“I had this whole scene planned,” he admitted ruefully. “I was going to ply you with good food, then kiss you until you were nothing but a boneless heap. But I forgot for a minute about your suspicious nature and unwillingness to take anything at face value.”
She just nodded, waiting for further explanation. When he dropped to one knee in front of her and pulled a small black velvet box from his jacket pocket, her heart began to race in her chest, beating like the entire drumline of a marching band. “Bennett?”
Bennett, with his eyes shining with all the love he had for her, held up the ring—the same ring he’d been holding on to for all those years. “We’ve waited long enough, haven’t we? Ten years apart and I never stopped loving you. Never stopped wanting you, and for the last year we’ve been existing in the moment—just one to the next. Both of us too afraid to reach out for more. But I don’t want just a moment, Mia. I want forever. I want to know that all the minutes going forward are minutes that we’ll share.”
She wasn’t even aware of the tears that flowed freely down her face. “Bennett…”
“Don’t tell me no. Tell me you need more time. Tell me you need to think. Tell me anything you want to except no. Just don’t tell me no.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Of course, it’s a yes. I’ve never wanted anything else as much as I want that. Since I was too young to even know what being someone’s wife meant, that’s all I ever wanted to be.”
Mia didn’t know if it was his hands that were shaking or her own as he slid the ring over her finger. The weight of it was both comforting and terrifying. When it was settled firmly at the base of her finger, the diamond winking in the light, she sank to her knees in front of him.
“I love you. I love you so much, Bennett. I cannot wait to be Mia Darcy-Hayes. I’d marry you tomorrow if I could.”
He pulled back, looking at her strangely for just a moment. “No big wedding?”
“No. I don’t care about any of that. I just want to be your wife.” It was true. Mia had never meant anything more.
Bennett grinned. “Well, I happen to know that there’s this grocery store across the state line in Tennessee. It worked out pretty well for Carter and Josie.”
That grin of his was her undoing. Every single time. It took him from gorgeous to god-like and she had never been able to resist it. “Fine. I don’t care. As long as it’s legal and binding, but I’m not your wife yet, Bennett. Tonight is the last night on earth that we get to have sex like we’re just dating. You think maybe you could take those pants off and we could commit a few sins before we’re protected by the sanctity of marriage?”
She didn’t have to ask twice.