Epilogue
Coop
Six months.
Six months since the mine tunnels. Since Oliver’s hunt. Since I’d carried Mia out of that darkness and promised myself I’d never let her go again.
I leaned against the split-rail fence at Pawsitive Connections, afternoon light warming everything it touched. The kind of light photographers dreamed about—soft and rich, making even the dusty paddocks look like something out of a magazine.
Mia stood in the middle of it like she’d been born there.
She had her camera up, circling the therapy animals Lark had arranged for the sanctuary’s new marketing materials. The goats were cooperating. The horses were cooperating. Even Fernando the llama was maintaining his regal composure long enough for decent shots.
Al Pacacino was absolutely not cooperating.
The cream-and-brown alpaca had planted himself at an angle that ruined every composition Mia tried to set up. When she moved left, he moved left. When she crouched for a low shot, he swung his head directly into frame and stared at the lens like a disappointed aristocrat.
“Al. Al, I need you to turn. Just a little. To your right.” Mia gestured with one hand while keeping the camera steady with the other. “Come on. Work with me here.”
Al Pacacino flicked his ears and did not turn.
“I will give you treats. So many treats. An entire bucket of treats.”
The alpaca’s dark eyes conveyed his complete indifference to bribery.
I bit back a laugh. She was bossing him around with the same commanding tone he used to boss everyone else, and neither of them was winning. The standoff would have been hilarious even if I weren’t already half drunk at the sight of her.
This was the Mia I remembered from before everything went to hell—the one who’d crawled onto a rusted fire escape four stories up just to catch a sunrise, who’d dragged me to the top of a parking garage at three a.m. because the city lights looked like fallen stars.
She’d been studying graphic design back then, but even I should have seen the photographer in her. The way she noticed light. The way she framed the world.
She was absolutely breathtaking. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Because she was in her element. Confident. Commanding. Alive.
Standing there in jeans and a worn flannel shirt, her blonde hair escaping from its ponytail, gesturing at an alpaca who couldn’t care less about her artistic vision.
The scars on her legs were hidden, but I knew they were there—battle wounds from a war she’d survived.
Then survived again in a totally separate battle in that tiny tunnel.
She was here. She was mine.
The debriefs were finally over. Oliver was in federal custody, denied bail, facing enough charges to keep him locked up until he died. Bishop had flipped within forty-eight hours—names, locations, everything—and the buyer network was being dismantled piece by piece. Diesel and Tommy, both arrested.
And then the buyers: Mia’s composite sketches had helped identify eleven people.
Eleven faces she’d memorized while playing the role of a terrified captive. Hell, she hadn’t been playing anything. She’d been truly terrified. Yet she’d still refused to cower.
She’d sat with Travis’s software for hours, adjusting cheekbones and brow lines until the images matched the monsters in her head. Turned her photographer’s eye into a weapon against the men who’d hunted her.
She did that. Not the FBI. Not me. Her.
“Your turn.” Her voice carried across the paddock. She’d spotted me at the fence and was waving me over. “Get over here.”
“Absolutely not.”
“I need a human in the shot for scale.” She gestured at Al Pacacino, who had finally deigned to stand in an acceptable position. “He looks better with contrast.”
I pushed off the fence but didn’t move toward her. “Did you just call me a contrast element?”
Her grin could have lit the whole valley. “Move it, Coop.”
I grumbled the whole way across the paddock. Made sure she heard every word about the dignity of former Marines and how I hadn’t survived Oliver’s militia to become a prop for alpaca photography.
She just kept grinning.
Al Pacacino regarded me with his usual derision as I took my position beside him. Those dark eyes swept over me like I was something unpleasant he’d found on the bottom of his hoof.
“He hates me.”
“He hates everyone.” Mia crouched to get a better angle, camera clicking. “That’s his charm. Now look natural.”
“I’m standing next to an alpaca.” I tried to arrange my face into something other than mild bewilderment. “Nothing about this is natural.”
She laughed.
That sound. God, that sound.
Spilling out of her like she couldn’t contain it, like joy was something her body couldn’t hold anymore. Six months ago, I wasn’t sure I’d ever hear her laugh again. Six months ago, she’d been running through mountain darkness with Oliver’s hunters on her heels.
Now she was laughing at me and an alpaca, and I’d listen to that sound every day for the rest of my life if she’d let me.
“Stay there.” She straightened, adjusting something on the camera settings. Her attention dropped to the display screen, checking the shots she’d already taken. “I want to try one more angle.”
The ring was in my pocket.
I’d been carrying it for a week, waiting for the right moment. Not some planned romantic gesture—I’d learned my lesson about grand plans. Life threw militia compounds and mine tunnels at you, and the only thing you could do was hold on to the people who mattered.
I reached into my jacket and pulled it out.
Not antique. Not someone else’s history. Something new. White gold, simple setting, a stone that caught the afternoon light and scattered it into fragments.
I’d bought it at Quinn’s Jewelry last week. Mrs. Quinn’s face had done something complicated when she’d realized what I was looking for—eyes wide, then soft, then she’d pulled out three trays and talked for twenty minutes about settings and cuts and what kind of woman Mia seemed to be.
Everyone in Garnet Bend loved Mia. They’d embraced her as their own within weeks—the grocery store owner setting aside produce for her, everyone at Deja Brew knew her order by heart. Not that I was surprised. She had that effect on people.
I’d sworn Mrs. Quinn to secrecy. Made her promise not to tell a soul.
Somehow my Warrior Security brothers had still found out.
Turned out Travis had hacked the jewelry store’s system. Nosy bastard. But when I’d confronted him about it, he’d just responded with a thumbs-up emoji. Then Beckett called to give his approval. Then Hunter. Then Aiden sent a text that just said “Good”—practically a speech from him.
It felt right. Knowing the family I’d found here wanted Mia to be part of it as much as I did.
“Kitten.”
Something in my voice made her look up from the camera.
Her eyes found the ring. The white gold band between my fingers, that stone catching fire in the light.
She went completely still.
“I’m done running from what I want.” I moved closer. My voice came out rougher than I’d intended, scraped raw by six years of regret and six months of gratitude. “And I don’t want to wait any longer. I don’t care if we’re going too fast.”
Her camera lowered slowly, hanging forgotten from the strap around her neck.
“You’re what I want.” Another step. Close enough to see the tears gathering in her honey-brown eyes. “All of you.”
The words I’d practiced dissolved. Everything I’d planned to say—the pretty speeches, the careful explanations—none of it mattered. What mattered was her.
What mattered was us.
“The nightmares and the courage and every part you think is broken.” My free hand found her face, thumb brushing across her cheekbone. “I want to give you all the pieces of me that are broken. We’ll continue to heal together.”
A tear slipped down her cheek, catching on my thumb.
“I want to build something with you. Here.” I glanced at the paddocks, the mountains in the distance. “With my people who have become family. And even this ridiculous alpaca.”
Al Pacacino chose that exact moment to spit in my general direction.
The glob of saliva missed my shoulder by inches. Mia’s face crumpled and rebuilt in the space of a heartbeat—a laugh that broke into a sob, then back into a laugh. Her hands came up to cover her mouth, tears streaming, shoulders shaking.
“Is that a question?”
I dropped to one knee. The grass was damp, soaking through my jeans immediately. I didn’t care. The ring caught the light between us.
“Will you marry me?”
She pulled her hands away from her face. Reached down and grabbed the front of my jacket with both fists, hauling me back to my feet with surprising strength.
“Yes.” She said it against my mouth, already kissing me, not waiting for the ring or the formality or any of it. “Yes. Absolutely yes.”
I was laughing when I finally got the ring on her finger, her hand trembling in mine, both of us a mess of tears and joy. The camera bumped awkwardly between us as I pulled her close. Neither of us cared.
Behind us, Al Pacacino made a sound of supreme indifference and wandered off to find better grass.
I held her in the warm light, feeling her heart beat against mine, feeling the ring on her finger where my hand clasped hers. Six years ago, I’d walked away from this woman because I thought I was too broken to deserve her. Six months ago, I’d almost lost her to a monster’s twisted game.
She pressed her forehead against my chest, still laughing, still crying. Her fingers curled into my shirt like she was making sure I was real.
Every wrong turn. Every terrible decision. Every year I’d spent convinced I was beyond redemption. All of it had led me back to her.
I pressed my lips to her hair and held on.
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Thank you for reading COOPER.