EPILOGUE
SASHA
Six months later, and Mahogany Grace has a new sign out front — hand-painted, gold lettering on forest green, hung by Jax and Tyson while Gavin stood on the sidewalk barking instructions neither of them followed.
The gallery sits two doors down from Della’s Antiques, on the same street where I got myself arrested on my very first afternoon in this town.
I like walking past that spot every morning.
It reminds me how far I’ve come from the woman who thought Lupton was going to be a two-day detour.
I still keep a desk at the sheriff’s station three days a week because apparently nobody else can file a report the way I can, and because I like watching Gavin pretend my desk being empty on the other days doesn’t bother him.
It bothers him. He brings me coffee on gallery days anyway, shows up at lunch with some excuse about needing to check on a case in the area, and every single time I let him think I believe him.
Mom drove up from Charleston last month, finally, once I told her everything.
She cried for an hour, then laughed for another one, then made me show her exactly how the sparks work off my fingertips, standing in Gloria’s tent with her hand pressed to her chest like she was watching a miracle instead of her own daughter finally catching up to a truth she’d been carrying alone for thirty years.
Turns out Tara really is a witch too. She’s terrible at it so far, but Gloria says that’s normal, and I’ve got the scorch marks on my mother’s dining room table to prove it.
The festival is back this weekend — the whole town in string lights and funnel-cake grease again, one year older, nobody dead in the lake this time, which the deputies keep saying like it’s a personal achievement.
Tyson’s been walking around with his phone glued to his hand for two days, grinning at something he won’t tell any of us about, and I’ve got a strong suspicion it has a Tara-shaped explanation.
Jax got a call at his garage yesterday that turned his face serious in a way none of us have seen on him before — Genevieve asked him about it over dinner and he just said “old business” and changed the subject fast enough that I know we haven’t heard the last of it.
I find Gavin near the funnel cake stand, same spot as last year, Darryl already handing him a plate before he even orders.
“Whatever my little omega wants,” Gavin says, like it’s a rule of the universe instead of a running joke.
“I want you to admit hiring me was the worst decision you ever made,” I say, stealing a piece off his plate.
He pulls me into him, one arm banding around my waist, and breathes me in — caramel, lavender, sea salt, and under it, faint now, the ghost of a fire I set in a wooded lot a long time ago that he still teases me about.
“Still think hiring me was a mistake?” I ask, tipping my head back to look at him.
“The best one I ever made,” he says, and kisses my forehead like it’s a vow he’s renewing on purpose, every single day, for the rest of both our lives.
Behind us, the band starts tuning up. Somewhere in the crowd, my sister is laughing at something Tyson said. Somewhere else, Jax is quiet in a way that means trouble is coming, eventually, for somebody.
But not tonight.
Tonight, I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be — caught, claimed, and completely unwilling to run.
THE END
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