Epilogue
Sara’s been travelling for over eighteen hours by the time she makes it to Reno-Tahoe airport.
It’s ten o’clock at night and she’s bone achingly tired.
She’d tried to catch a couple of hours sleep on the plane, but between the crying baby and her excitement to see Leon, she hadn’t stood a chance.
She’d called him during the two-hour layover in Atlanta to let him know she was back in the country and that there were no delays with her connecting flight.
“I can’t wait to see you,” he’d told her, the tone of his voice sending a rush of heat surging through her body.
“Me too,” she says, a smile gracing her lips. “It feels like it’s been a lifetime.”
When she lays eyes on him in the arrivals lounge, he still looks as good as the day they met.
Those black jeans hug his lower body just right, his khaki green shirt buttoned all the way to the top, his cut thrown over the top, proudly displaying his patches.
When his eyes meet hers, a grin crosses his handsome features and something inside her just lights up.
She’s in his arms in an instant, his aftershave filling her nose as he holds her close.
He smells like leather, lavender and patchouli, scents that make her think of home.
“It’s so good to have you back Mami,” he whispers into her hair, and she nods because right now there’s all this emotion rising up in her chest and she just can’t speak.
It’s been a journey over the past few days, facing up to the reality of her patterns, the ones that have been ingrained since childhood. She realises it’s time to change, time to put something permanent in place and she wants that to be with Leon in Sunridge.
He draws away, his palms clasping her face. His thumbs chase away the tears that leak down her cheeks, his forehead coming to rest upon hers.
“Hey, hey, it’s alright,” he soothes, his mouth brushing over hers. “You’re home now.”
The End