Epilogue
Jace, Ten Months Later
“I’m going to miss this place,” she says quietly.
My head is in her lap and she’s running her fingers through my hair, over and over again, nails scratching lightly against my scalp, the scent of flowers and Marie surrounding me.
“I am too,” I say softly, looking around her now-empty condo.
We’ve ended up selling both of our places to the same man, a grumpy older billionaire that Jean-Michel knew was looking for a new place to live after his wife died. His name is Thorn Wilkenson, and he’s as thorny as his name implies.
He’s also grieving the loss of the woman he spent twenty years building a life wife.
And he needed a place to start over that wasn’t filled with her memories.
So, he bought up both condos and is going to take over this entire floor.
But that means it’s not going to be our place any longer —not going to be the place where we started.
Which is fine, totally fine, because we’ve just finished building our home. Our home. And it’s amazing, beautiful, ours . But it’s not this place, not where we got our start, not the beginning of us.
But…it can be the beginning of something else.
I slip my hand into my pocket, touch the edge of the velvet-covered box I’ve been carrying around all day, and hesitate.
Is this the right time?
Does she deserve something bigger and better and more Instagram worthy?
Maybe I should do this at our new place, celebrate the beginning of a new chapter of us there instead of the ending of a previous one.
Maybe I should sweep her away to a private beach, get down on one knee at sunset, pledge my heart to her forever.
Hell, maybe I should?—
“The answer is yes, handsome.”
My fingers spasm on the box. “What?”
“Well,” she says, “scratch that…”
My heart spasms, words stoppering up in the back of my throat. But before I can force them out, rasp out something that resembles a proposal—or maybe a plea for her to take pity on me and agree to be my wife—she keeps talking.
“My answer will be yes”—she shifts, nudging me up and then onto my back before clambering on top of me—“if, and only if , you”—she drags her hand down my front, fingers drifting toward my suddenly hardening cock—“tell me why you call me cookie.”
Lips twitching, I settle my hands onto her hips. “I told you already.”
“About your dog named Cookie and our matching fur, er, hair?”
“Exactly.”
A roll of those pretty eyes. “Or maybe you’re talking about the time you told me it was because I had a chip on my shoulder, much like a chocolate chip cookie.”
I snort, slip my fingers into the waistband of her pants.
“I believe I said much like Molly’s peanut butter chocolate chip cookies,” I correct, stroking lightly over her silky flesh.
A sigh. A droll look. “That’s not any better.”
“It’s significantly better. Molly’s cookies are your favorite.”
“Jace,” she warns.
And I can’t resist sitting up and pressing my lips to hers for a short, blazing kiss.
“And…” she puffs out, “it’s not because your favorite late-night sugary cereal is Cookie Crisps either.” A beat. “So don’t even try it.”
I grin. “Okay, gorgeous. I won’t.”
“Okay, cookie ,” she says sternly.
“You really want to know?” I ask softly, touching her cheek.
“The hundred times I’ve asked over the last year haven’t made it clear that I want to know?”
I chuckle. “Well, you’re persistent.”
“And so are you.”
“Strong.”
“Ditto.”
“Well-dressed.”
Her lips curve. “Right back at you, handsome.”
“And,” I murmur, cupping one cheek, “I took one look at you next to that Lyft and knew without a doubt that…you’re a tough cookie.”
She stills, mouth dropping open.
“But that’s a bit of a mouthful,” I tell her, sliding my free hand up along her spine, cupping the back of her head, allowing her curls to fall over my fingertips. “So…just cookie.”
Her mouth opens.
Closes.
Her gorgeous eyes are watery pools of emeralds.
“Not that”—I lift up, nip lightly at her jaw—“you aren’t tasty.”
She laughs softly. “I can’t believe it was so simple all this time.”
“It popped in my head about two seconds after you browbeat me into not getting in the Lyft.”
A wince. “Did I ever apologize for that?”
“Hmm.” I press a row of kisses along the line of her jaw. “I’m not sure.”
“I’m sorry, handsome.” She turns her head, presses her mouth to mine, stealing my breath with a deep, searching kiss. “But I’m also not.” She settles her forehead against mine. “Because it brought me you.”
And that’s when I know.
That this is the perfect moment.
I reach back into my pocket…and I pull out the box. “Marie Austen, will you?—”
“Yes!”
Laughter bubbles up in my chest and I open the lid, slide the obscenely large diamond onto her finger (the better for the world to know she belongs to me). “Just to make it clear, since you didn’t let me finish, I’m asking you to be my wife, not to make that delicious lasagna of yours again.”
“And here I thought you just earned that for dinner tonight.”
My stomach rumbles. “God, I love you.”
“Right back at ya, handsome.” She climbs to her feet, extends a hand and draws me up to mine, her face going suddenly serious.
“What is it?” I ask.
“I love you.”
“I know.”
Her mouth curves. “And in honor of that,” she says, “I think it’s time we…”
I wait.
Brace myself.
And what she tells me after she draws me out into the hall, to the elevator, down to my car don’t disappoint.
“Go home.”
Yup. The most beautiful words a man can hear.
I take her hand, hold her stare with my own.
“I’m already there.”
Brooks, Years Before
She’s beautiful.
She’s walking toward me in a wedding dress, crisp white and fitted in a way that mixes innocence and sin.
Sleek fabric clinging to breasts I’ve dreamed about, hips I’ve imagined grasping as I thrust deep, splitting on midthigh to give just a glimpse of silken skin.
Mine.
Mine.
The thought ricochets through me so violently, I know.
Know.
The truth.
The reality.
The…future.
But by the time I process it, what that reality means for my— our —future, she’s there.
Her bright blue eyes glimmering with love and hope, with tears of happiness.
She…is beautiful and good and…
I’m a monster.
I’m going to destroy her.
Her hand finds mine and she steps close, fingers tightening in that soft way of hers, silently telling me she’s here.
Her plump lips are painted pink. Her freckles are softened by her makeup. Her lashes look longer than normal, darkened with mascara, and they don’t need help. They already rest gently on her cheeks when she sleeps.
“Dearly beloved we are gathered here today to…”
I nearly jump out of my skin at the soft female voice coming from between us. The officiant is holding a book even though it’s clear she has her spiel memorized, even down to the timing of pauses, waiting for chuckles or laughter or whatever feedback she normally receives from a wedding ceremony.
But there aren’t rows and rows of chairs, filled with loving family and friends.
There aren’t many voices to lend their approval to the quiet jokes and idioms.
Just two stoic witnesses—one my bodyguard, who I trust with my life…and hers, and the other my best friend, Jace. Who I trust just as deeply.
The mountains are behind us.
A narrow swathe of pine trees surrounding us, their branches intertwining to form a canopy overhead.
It’s a peaceful place.
Her place.
And I’m going to ruin that too.
Boom!
Thunder rattles through the air, vibrates through my chest, my stomach. It even shakes the pine needles overhead. Clouds gather, clinging together, darkening the sky. A darkness that is split by a sudden flash of lightning.
Fat, wet drops of rain began plopping to the ground, darkening the dirt, splattering onto my head, my suit.
Her dress.
Laughter in the air—and it’s painful and beautiful all at once. Because the sound that so captivates me in this moment is also what has drawn me to this sweet, beautiful, innocent woman against every single reservation that I had.
It’s not a sound I deserve to hear.
It’s a sound I won’t hear.
Not ever again.
Not after this.
Briar laughs as the drops began gathering on her skin like glittering diamonds.
The officiant stops, closes the book in her hands, glancing at them then up at the clouds. “Should we stop?”
“No!” Briar says again, slipping one hand from mine and extending it, droplets splashing onto her thumb. “I love the rain!” she cries, tilting her head back, embracing the drops as they fall onto her hair, darkening the blond strands, straightening the curls, soaking the fabric of her dress.
A pause from the officiant. Then she reopens her book.
Briar’s eyes slide to mine, buoyant with joy. “This is perfect,” she whispers as thunder booms again.
As lightning cuts across the sky.
As rain continues to fall.
Isn’t it beautiful, Brooks? How the rain washes everything clean for a fresh start?
“Perfect,” she whispers again, her damp palm coming to mine, fingers wrapping tight again.
No.
It isn’t perfect.
It’s my nightmare…and it will soon be hers too.
Because I’m going to ruin everything.
Before I can say something, can find the strength to pull my fingers from hers, the officiant continues.
“Do you, Brooks Saxton, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife, to live together in matrimony, to love her, comfort her, honor and keep her in sickness and in health, in sorrow and in joy, to have and to hold, from this day forward, as long as you both shall?—”
“I don’t.”
The words are ripped from my soul.
Spat into the air.
Shock reverberates back.
From the officiant.
From the witnesses.
From Briar.
“I don’t,” I repeat.
Fingers convulse around mine. “You’re supposed to say I do, ” Briar whispers.
My lungs seize. “No,” I say. “I’m not.”
“Brooks—”
I slip my hands from hers. It’s not easy, not when she’s clinging to me so fiercely. Not when she’s looking at me like…
I can’t allow that thought to form, can’t allow the words to coalesce in my mind.
I might do something that’s worse than this.
I might…stay.
“I don’t,” I say for a third time.
Though this time I pair it with putting distance between us, enough and so quickly that I see it break off a little chunk of that innocence, that sweetness, that essence that is purely Briar.
It falls to the side.
Gone.
Forever.
“You’re supposed to say I do ,” Briar says again, more forcefully.
I shake my head, commit her ravaged face to memory, know I need to hold it tight, know it’s the only memory of her I deserve.
Then I turn away. Turn from the sputtering of the officiant, turn from the shattering beauty.
I move toward Jace and Max. They’ve been with me from the beginning.
Long enough to not question anything.
“Max.” I flick my eyes in the direction of Briar.
He nods…just as footsteps echo across the earth, louder than the rain, which is coming down in sheets now, drenching me, the earth.
Briar.
“Brooks!”
Max has been with me a long time.
Long enough to step behind me, to intercept Briar before she can touch me.
Because if she touches me, I may lose my resolve.
“Brooks!”
I start walking.
Keep walking.
Down along the narrow winding trail, the faint imprint in earthen ground that Briar knows by heart.
Her place.
Our place.
I keep walking…
Out of her life.
I think for forever.
Turns out, I’m wrong.
About so many things.
Briar, Present Day
I never thought I would be this person.
But…when it comes to the choice between doing something right and moral and surviving the next few months, I know I don’t have any options.
Know I stopped having choices years ago.
On a rainy mountaintop that I thought would be the beginning of a happy life.
Instead, it became a nightmare.
My nightmare.
I adjust my gloves, knowing I can’t risk leaving behind even a trace of evidence that I was here.
Hating that I am here with every fucking fiber of my being.
“Just suck it up and do it,” I whisper. “Then you never have to face it again.”
And I would never have to be here again.
I tug at my beanie, making sure it completely covers my silver blond hair. I used to love it, used to love the unique color, the way other people reacted to it, long and sleek and bright like moonlight.
I brushed it obsessively, carefully detangled each and every knot. Oiled the ends. Used a protective spray every single day. Slept only on silk pillowcases.
That stopped being my life on that mountaintop.
I let it get so bad, so matted and tangled, I had to cut it all off. Even now, I’m still growing out the unfortunate pixie style I ended up with.
And today, it’s more nuisance than asset.
It’s why I chopped the shoulder length tresses to above my chin, hacking away with a pair of rusty scissors I found in the dumpster behind the thrift store.
Sometimes the best stuff never makes it to the shelves, and those discarded treasures, the items no one saw value in are what I seek out.
Because I’m one too.
Or, at least, that’s what Brooks used to say.
My throat tightens, but I ignore it, ignore the fact that I’m one of those discarded items.
Just not a treasure.
Trash that’s carefully tossed aside…or into the dumpster.
My hair is tucked up into my hat, my gloves are fully covering my hands, secured by the long sleeves of my black sweater. My leggings are dark and go straight down to my ankles, an inch of which are exposed. I scowl, even knowing I can’t do anything about that—I’m tiny, but I am wearing another one of those thrift store finds, these being children’s leggings. Still, I do my best to tug them down, to cover the slight gap of skin showing.
I know the security system.
But…I need every advantage I can get.
So blending into the shadows.
Wearing all black.
And gloves.
And tucking my hair carefully into my hat.
And—
“Stalling,” I whisper softly. And I am.
Because the self-preservation portion of my brain can’t imagine I’m doing this. Then again, the self-preservation portion of my brain has shriveled up into nothing over the last years.
Lockpicks in my pocket.
It’s just after two in the morning, so the guards will be rotating soon.
Cloudy night. New moon. Guard change.
This will be my only chance.
I squint at the screen of my analog watch—another thrift store find—then up at the house. The shadows shift slightly, and, yup, there they go, the guards pushing away from the wall, walking in pairs.
I move before they disappear around the corner, knowing I have to risk it or I’ll be unable to clear the wide expanse of lawn before the next pair of guards comes forward.
As it is, I barely make it into the garden before the new guards round the side of the house.
Heart pounding, I slide between two hedges and try to slow my breathing.
My hands shake, but I clench them into fists, tightly enough to cut off circulation. Tightly enough to bruise. Tightly like I used to hold?—
Move .
I pop out of the hedges, cursing internally when the leaves rustle.
It’s not a breezy night. There isn’t a lot of sound to disguise my movements.
I don’t stop, though. Just continue moving until I reach the shadows of the fountain and gazebo. Only then do I breathe. The cameras are focused on the entrance and exit of the maze I am currently making my way through. I can take a second, catch my breath, allow my eyes to adjust to the growing darkness.
There .
Another gap in the hedges, just wide enough for me to squeeze through.
I suck in another silent breath.
Release it.
Move .
This one is tighter, and I have to inch my way through, holding my breath at every rustle, every branch, every crackle of a leaf .
But then I’m through.
And my quarry is just ahead, the French doors of the office dark, hiding the interior of a space I know is filled with leather that is a deep brown and butter soft. Hiding a huge glass and mahogany desk, the gleaming surface always somehow completely free of fingerprints.
Even though he isn’t one of those men who pretends to work.
He works .
Hard.
That’s never in doubt.
Only, the man has to sleep sometime.
Hence why it’s two o’clock in the morning and I’m making my approach.
He’ll be in bed and?—
I glance at my watch, realize I’ve nearly missed the next interval and burst forward out of the shadows of the hedges, sprinting for the huge potted palms that adorn either side of the entrance.
Not approaching the door—that will be watched on the cameras.
But instead, I move toward the trio of windows on one shadowed wall.
Ivy crawls up the old wooden cases, the glass clear enough that I can see inside, see the shadows of furniture, of the desk.
I left prints on his big, glass-topped desk—from my fingers, my palms, my…ass.
Prints that were cleaned off within the hour.
As though I hadn’t existed. As if what I experienced hadn’t happened.
A familiar feeling.
Pushing that aside, I tug my picks from my pocket, studying the metal latches. There are sensors on the windows, but I know that the one on the right swells during the summer, the humidity wreaking havoc with the old wood.
The sensor is there, but the contact plate was removed.
That is my way in.
I eye the lock near the latch then select the correct pick from my set, pull out my tension wrench.
Ten seconds later, the pins in the lock have been shifted, the latch opened, and I’m sliding open the heavy sash. I haul myself in, stash away my tools, and close the window almost all the way.
My muscles are screaming from having to drag myself through the opening and my heart pounds, bile rising in my throat. Not from the exertion.
But from being here…in this room, in this place.
It’s just another scene in the nightmare that became my life.
But I don’t have time for this—for a mental breakdown, for a trip down memory lane. I need to get what I came for, and then I need to get the hell out, and not look back.
Never look back.
Blowing out a silent breath, I take stock of the office.
It’s exactly the same, with the exception of books on the shelves lining the far wall.
My breath catches, pulse speeding further.
He doesn’t read—hadn’t from the moment he got his degree. He had to force himself through too many dry tomes during his college years to ever find joy in it again…or at least, that’s what he always told me.
So those shelves filled with books is such a dramatic change that I wonder what the titles are, that I actually take a step in that direction, intending to find out, until I remember myself.
Focus .
Deliberately turning away, I shift behind the desk, ignoring the hint of his cologne— that hasn’t changed. The scent settles heavy on my senses as I feel for the hidden latch.
It’s been a long time and I only saw him do it a handful of times, so it isn’t easy?—
Click.
The painting behind the desk slides to the side, exposing a steel safe, the black handle basically just shadows in the darkness of the office. But next to it is a silver keypad, the gleam of LEDs nearly blinding.
Throat working, I rise on tiptoe, recall the series of numbers he didn’t bother to hide from me, and begin punching them in.
It’s been years.
It’s likely this won’t work, that all of this prep and waiting and sneaking will be for naught.
That the code has been changed and?—
Two-six-nine-five. Enter.
The lights on the keypad turn green and there’s a soft click.
“Holy shit,” I whisper and reach for the handle…
Right as an arm winds tightly around my middle and yanks me back against a hard, strong chest.
And I hear Brooks growl,
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
Thank you for reading! I hope you loved Jace and Marie’s love story as much as I enjoyed writing it! The next book in the Oak Ridge series is THE BACHELOR
And in the meantime, do you want more than a taste of those yummy Eagles hockey players? Once lucky, twice shy. Three times…and I might claim a sexy hockey player as my own. Read LUCKY LACES now.
And do you want a sneak peek into my brAND NEW hockey series?
If you love big, bearded hockey players who fall hard and fast for the women they love, pick up book one in the Grizzlies Hockey series, MARRIED TO NUMBER TWENTY-TWO NOW . I signed the contract. I just didn't expect her to show up ten years later, ready to cash it in.
CLICK HERE TO READ MARRIED TO NUMBER TWENTY-TWO NOW
Read on for a sneak peek below!