Epilogue - Paige
Eight Months Later
The early summer fair is in full swing. School is out for the kids, everyone’s enjoying the climbing temperatures, and I can’t wipe the smile off my face.
My dessert stand is a hit among everyone in town and Ryder’s happily by my side, talking with some of the students he now has.
He teaches bull riding and runs a rodeo camp while I still work with Maya when I’m not enjoying the finished cabin.
He finished it two months ago and insisted I moved in.
After all, it’s only proper. We’re doing plenty backwards or out of order, but I can’t care.
Not when we enjoy rocking in our side-by-side chairs on the porch enjoying misty mornings and nights evenings with fireflies lighting the woods.
The house he made for us, three bedrooms, a lovely kitchen that opens to the “modest” living room.
Everything is modest by Aspenbrook standards according to Ryder who insists I deserve more of everything.
It’s overwhelmingly huge based on city standards.
We’ve talked a lot about it, but moving in felt as natural as dating after having a silent gap between us and fixing it with conversation and sex.
Great sex. Unbelievably, mind-melting, can’t-catch-your-breath kind of sex.
I’ve felt like I’m glowing for months and considering I’m now five months pregnant and just starting to show, all of Maya’s comments about my radiant skin, my happiness, my extra energy and everything else feels like it makes sense.
Now that I’ve stopped overthinking Ryder, my place in Aspenbrook, and what I feel, life has fallen into place.
The man of my dreams is happily handing out sweets next to me, slipping extra dollars into our already overflowing tip jar whenever he isn’t beaming at me like I’m his whole world.
When I bend over, his hand finds the ledge of our stall so I don’t hit my head.
If I start to get off balance, he’s right there, stabilizing me like it’s second nature.
When my back hurts, he pulls he has me sit just to ‘save the chair’ as if someone is going to steal it from under me.
Not to mention the t-shirt that says ‘TAKEN BY THE BAKER’ across it that he bought and surprised me with this morning.
He tugs me towards him when our customers leave and kisses me slowly, like it’s the first time all over again.
Impatience and relief, tenderness and hunger, he’s a constant war that hasn’t simmered.
Just like the heat between us, the way my heart always thunders louder when he touches me, and the way we ‘gaze’ at each other according to customers and Maya.
“I’m the luckiest bastard in the state,” he says while gently rubbing my belly.
“What does that make me?” I tease while blushing.
“The woman I love. The best woman in the world. The woman of my dreams. Take your pick, sunshine,” he says before kissing me a second time. He can’t ever stop at one.
I love him all the more for it. “I love you.”
“Again, I’m the luckiest bastard in the state. I’ll say it to everyone,” he chuckles, then he raises his voice and shouts, “I’m the luckiest bastard in the state!”
He gets some laughs, some cheers, and some claps. He winks at me while I flush red. Laughter spills out of me anyway and I tug him closer, rubbing his back. Before I can say a word, Maya bounces over to me, beaming.
She looks at Oliver – now her husband after a quick, small, and intimate ceremony – then pouts. “Can I?”
“Of course, baby,” he says with a grin.
“What? Are you okay?” I say in a rush.
Maya presses a hand to her flat belly, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “Our babies are going to be besties too!”
“Our?”
“I’m pregnant!” She yells, then hugs Oliver. “We’re pregnant.”
He looks at her with total adoration, so much love and warmth in his eyes that I’m afraid he’ll cry like he did at his wedding. I beam. “That’s great news!”
“I know. I can’t believe it. Also, for the record, Ryder. You’re not the luckiest man in the state until she says yes,” Maya insists.
“She does, regularly. To many things,” he answers before taking a seat and guiding me down onto his lap. He rubs my thighs.
“You know exactly what I mean. Paige does too,” Maya says.
She and Oliver order some food. While Oliver talks about baby names, about what to prepare, about what Maya will need, Maya comments on how healthy my baby must be, how good my sweets are, how I barely need her. It’s pure happiness, love, and more than I thought I’d find here.
I feel Ryder watching me and glance over as he traces my ring finger again and again.
I nibble my bottom lip. I already found the ring – he never hides things well – and love it.
I just have to wait for the question if I even let him get it out since I want to be his wife so much.
A best friend. Babies on the way. A job I love.
A man who’s both my safe place and my wildest adventure.
And the perfect little town to build a forever in.
Becoming Ryder’s wife won’t change any of it, it’ll only make everything more certain. It’s my way of telling him, every single day, that I choose him. This life. Us.
And for the rest of our lives, I’ll keep choosing him. No more doubt. Just joy, love, and the future we’ve built together.
If Ryder made your heart race, just wait. There are more dirty-talking, sinfully protective cowboys waiting for you in Dirty Cowboys. Saddle up, sweetheart—your next book boyfriend is ready.
If small towns and protective men make your heart melt, Aspenbrook is waiting for you.
Meet the firefighters who burn hotter than the flames they fight and the women who bring them to their knees.
Fall for every slow burn, every stolen glance, and every happily ever after in Aspenbrook’s Protective Firefighters.
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