Epilogue
ARIZONA
The announcer calls my name, and the applause begins before I reach the center of the rodeo platform.
It rolls through the Colter Creek Rodeo Grounds, echoing off the grandstands while broncs wait behind the chutes, cowboy hats rise above the crowd, and a loud whistle draws laughter from every direction.
A few months ago, I drove into town with a guitar, a duffel bag, and every intention of leaving before anybody learned my middle name.
Tonight, they already know every lyric.
I settle the guitar strap over my shoulder, step up to the microphone, and smile. “Evening, Colter Creek.”
The cheers swell again, and I look toward the front row of the grandstand where my family is impossible to miss.
Sadie has climbed onto the bench, pink cowboy boots bouncing as she waves both arms over her head. “There she is!”
Emmett catches her around the waist before she pitches into the row behind them. “I think she knows where you are, peanut.”
“I still have to wave!”
Beside her, Willy jumps to his feet and hoists a glitter-covered sign over his head.
ARIZONA MCCAY BELONGS HERE
The letters lean in every direction, tiny guitars fill every empty corner, and enough glitter coats the cardboard to sparkle beneath the arena lights.
A laugh slips out before I can stop it.
Red studies the sign before looking at Willy. “You couldn’t have made it any bigger?”
“I could’ve,” Willy says. “Emmett stopped me.”
Sadie points proudly at the sign. “I helped!”
“I can tell.”
The crowd laughs with us, and that simple sound settles deeper than I expect.
When I arrived in Colter Creek, people watched me with the careful curiosity every small town reserves for strangers, waiting to see how long I’d stay before moving on to the next place.
Now Betty Lou waves both hands from three rows behind my family. Millie blows me a kiss from beside the aisle. Tommy Jones raises his coffee cup, and Sheriff Hank tips his hat.
I lean toward the microphone. “I was going to start with a song, but I think my welcoming committee deserves a little recognition.”
“We do!” Sadie shouts.
I grin at the sign again. “This might be the nicest welcome anybody’s ever made me.”
Emmett looks up at me then, smiling the same way he does every morning across the kitchen table, every evening on the porch, every time our eyes meet without either of us needing to say a word.
I spent years believing love asked people to become less of themselves.
Instead, I found three men and one little girl who made room for every part of me.
Sadie still wears the friendship bracelet I tied around her wrist after I unpacked my last box. Emmett rests an arm along the back of the bench behind her.
Red sits beside him, silver showing more through his beard than it did the night we met after a rodeo afterparty.
Once, I would’ve turned my laugh into another song about a cowboy I’d leave behind before either of us got too attached.
Now it belongs to the life waiting for me when I walk off this stage.
I settle my fingers over the strings and glance across the grandstand one more time. “This first song is called ‘Colter Creek.’”
The crowd falls silent.
I wrote it on the porch at Dusty Spur while Sadie colored beside me, Emmett helped break in a horse, Red found another fence that supposedly needed fixing, and Willy argued that every great song deserved a kazoo.
He still believes it.
He’s still wrong.
I brush my fingers across the strings, and the opening chord carries through the arena as I begin singing about the place I finally chose to call home.
The applause follows me all the way through the final chord, spreading across the grandstands until I lower my guitar with a smile. “You’ll make me think you liked it.”
“We loved it!” Sadie shouts from the front row.
I bow toward her. “I was hoping to impress you.”
“You did!”
“I’ll take that review.”
The crowd laughs as the announcer thanks everyone for coming and begins introducing the bronc riding. I wave one last time before heading down the steps, where Sadie launches herself into my arms the second my boots touch the dirt.
“You sang my favorite!”
“I figured I’d better,” I say, kissing the top of her head. “Otherwise I’d never hear the end of it.”
“You definitely wouldn’t.”
Emmett reaches us and slips an arm around my waist before kissing me. “You were incredible.”
I smile up at him. “I had the right audience.”
His eyes follow mine to Sadie, who grins from ear to ear. “And Uncle Willy,” she reminds me.
“Especially Uncle Willy.”
He appears right on cue, proudly carrying the glitter-covered sign beneath one arm. “I supported you before you became famous.”
Red takes the cardboard from him before another trail of glitter escapes onto the walkway. “You’ve still got glitter in your beard,” I tell him.
“I know.”
Sadie giggles before spotting someone farther along the midway. “Dakota!”
She bolts across the walkway, and Charlie meets her halfway. They disappear toward the ring toss together while the rest of us follow at a much more reasonable pace.
Dakota laughs as soon as she sees them. “I wondered how long it’d take.”
“They’ve been talking about this all week,” Clint says, shifting baby Olivia higher against his shoulder while she sleeps through the excitement.
Dakota shakes her head before pulling me into a hug. “You sounded amazing.”
“Thanks.”
She studies me for a second before smiling. “You look happy.”
Olivia stirs against Clint’s shoulder before settling again, while Charlie grabs Sadie’s hand and drags her toward the next game. Sawyer follows without hesitation, and Reid hurries after them, insisting the children clearly need professional supervision.
“You’ve never supervised anybody in your life,” Clint calls after him.
“I was a child once.”
Dakota slips her arm through mine as we watch them disappear into the crowd. “You fit here.”
“I finally figured that out.”
“The rest of us figured it out months ago.”
I look across the rodeo grounds where families wander between the food stalls and livestock barns, ranch hands wave as they pass, and half a dozen people stop to ask about Dusty Spur, my next show at The Silver Bit, or whether I have another opening for guitar lessons.
“Arizona!”
I turn toward the food tents where Abilene waves me over from beneath a striped canopy.
Her pregnancy is impossible to miss now. Marshall stands close beside her, watching the crowd while Wyatt balances two lemonades, and Jesse is busy chasing his twins before either of them can climb onto the livestock fencing.
“I told you two to stay where I could see you!” Jesse calls.
“We are!” one of them shouts while running even farther away.
“I should hope so.”
Wyatt heads toward the livestock barns with one of Jesse’s twins riding high on his shoulders, happily steering through the midway, while Jesse carries the other one under one arm and tries to convince him that climbing fences isn’t an Olympic sport.
Marshall never lets go of Abilene’s hand as he watches them disappear into the crowd.
“You’ve all got your hands full,” I say.
Abilene smiles, resting her free hand over the curve of her stomach. “That seems to be how we do things around here.”
The crowd erupts as the first bronc rider bursts from the chute, and I glance toward the grandstands.
“I should rescue Sadie before she talks Emmett into another stuffed animal.”
“You’d better hurry,” Abilene says as Marshall reaches her side again. “You should find Annie, too. She threatened to leave after Duke started explaining rodeo scoring.”
I chuckle. “That serious?”
“Cody joined in.”
“Then she’s definitely in danger.” I hug her carefully, mindful of the baby between us. “I’ll find you before the fireworks.”
“You’d better,” she says, rubbing her stomach with a smile. “This little one has been kicking every time the announcer gets excited, so I’m expecting quite a show.”
I promise I won’t miss it before weaving back into the midway, where kettle corn and grilled onions scent the rows of food stalls, children hurry past clutching oversized prizes, and game booth lights dance across a sea of cowboy hats.
“Hold still.”
The camera clicks before I can turn, and I laugh as Annie lowers it with a satisfied smile. Her electric blue hair catches the afternoon sun while Silas stands beside her with an easy arm around her waist.
A few feet away, Cody gestures toward the arena as he argues rodeo scoring with Duke, who refuses to admit he’s wrong.
“I should’ve known,” I say, walking over. “You couldn’t resist.”
“You were smiling,” Annie says as she checks the screen on her camera. “That’s always worth keeping.”
She turns it toward me.
My hair blows across my face, the rodeo fills the background, and I’m smiling so brightly I barely recognize the woman looking back at me.
Then I do.
She looks exactly where she belongs.
“I’ll print you a copy,” Annie says.
“I’d love that.”
Silas nods toward the camera with a fond smile. “She’s covered half the ranch house with pictures.”
“They’re memories,” Annie says, bumping her shoulder against his.
“They’re also every available wall.”
She kisses his cheek anyway, and I step in to hug her before she can disappear behind the camera again.
“You look happy,” I tell her.
“I am.” She studies me for a heartbeat before smiling even wider. “So are you.”
I glance down at the photograph still glowing on the screen, then back at my friends gathered around me.
“Yeah,” I say, smiling as I meet her eyes. “I really am.”
When I make my way back to the arena, Red is leaning against the fence while Emmett patiently works a stubborn knot out of the piece of saltwater taffy Sadie somehow managed to twist around itself.
Willy catches sight of me first and nudges Red with his elbow. “There she is.”
Red looks over, reaches for my hand without a word, and I lace my fingers through his as naturally as if they’ve always belonged there.
The announcer introduces the next rider, another bronc bursts from the chute, and the crowd erupts while music spills across the rodeo grounds and fireworks wait for sunset.
Nobody asks where I’m headed after tonight.
They already know.
I’m going home.
The end.