Unexpected Christmas with the SEAL

EPILOGUE

Six months later …

“That’s the last box … I think,” Hannah said, plunking a big moving box filled with her life into the middle of Cal’s living room.

His green eyes went wide as he gazed around his small cabin at the mountains of boxes. “I think we’re going to need to get a bigger place.”

She bounced on her toes over to him and looped her arms around his neck. “Or we use the boxes to build a sex fort.”

He wrapped his arms around her waist. “Well, yeah, of course. We do that first . Then we think about getting a bigger place.”

“We knew this place would be too small for both of us.”

“I know, I just didn’t consider that with you moving in, that also meant all of your worldly possessions. Which seems to be a lot.”

She cleared her throat and gave him a poignant look. “I quit my job and moved across the country to be with you, Peter.”

“And your best friend gave you a job at her speech path clinic, and I’m madly in love with you. I don’t think you’re that hard done by.” He returned her cheeky look with one of his own, moving his hands down to her butt and cupping it. “But a bigger place is a must. I’ll start putting out feelers tomorrow. Or maybe we can just build.”

“Maybe I can sweet talk my uncles into letting us build on their land. They have enough of it.”

His nod was non-committal.

They’d done the long-distance thing for six months while she tied up loose ends in Manhattan and gave her clinic enough time to hire and train her replacement. But every time she came back to Colorado to be with Cal, she knew it was where she was meant to be. She loathed having to return to New York and wanted to get back to him and the wide-open spaces of the country the moment she stepped foot back in her cramped little apartment.

And they were getting a dog!

A merle Aussie Shepherd just like Bruno. The puppy was seven weeks old and absolutely gorgeous. They picked up John McClane or Mack for short, in just two weeks. Anytime Hannah thought about the puppy, butterflies filled her belly and she got giddy.

But yeah, she had a lot of stuff, and Cal lived minimally.

She did not.

And she thought she’d done a pretty good job purging before she left New York. They’d need to get a bigger place or find somewhere to store her stuff.

All of that could wait, though.

Right now, the sun was shining, the birds were chirping, there was a robin’s nest in a tree next to where she parked her Chevy Blazer, and she was finally, at long last, with the man she loved.

Stuff could wait.

Celebrating could not.

“Let’s say we take this celebration to the bedroom,” she said, backing him up toward the one bedroom in the cabin. But they didn’t get very far until they bumped into boxes, then more boxes. “Crap.”

Cal chuckled. “Let’s say we take this outside.” Then he scooped her up and carried her over the threshold in the other direction outside the house to the small veranda Cal had built on the south-west side of the cabin. It provided the best view of the sunset, the hills and the river down below. He had a hibachi barbecue, table and chairs and an umbrella. But what she hadn’t expected was the picnic on the picnic blanket, complete with candles, a picnic basket and sparkling wine on ice.

“When did you do this?” she asked, sliding down to her feet and gazing at him in amazement.

“Sometime between box fifty-nine and box sixty-seven,” he teased, taking her hand and pulling her down to the blanket.

She stuck her tongue out at him. “Okay, okay. I have a lot of shit. I’ll do some more purging, and sweet talk my uncles into letting us build on their ranch.”

He deployed the cork for the Prosecco and poured them each a flute, then he lifted his glass in the air. “To being just the right amount. Being a team player. And asking for help.”

Tears burned the back of her eyes as she met his gaze and swallowed past the lump of emotion in her throat. She clinked her glass with his. “To being enough. Being part of a team. And accepting help when it’s offered. I love you, Peter ‘Cal’ Callahan and I can’t wait to start my life with you.”

“You, me and John ‘Mack’ McClane,” he said, taking a sip of his Prosecco. “I think it’s going to be one heck of a good life.”

She beamed up at him. “The life we both deserve.”