Chapter Forty-Four
Sienna
Eighteen Months Later
If anyone had told me a year ago that I’d be standing in the great room of Honey Leaf Lodge, barefoot, wearing Carson’s puffer vest like it was my second skin, talking about the house we just bought… I would’ve laughed myself straight into a ravine.
Not the small kind. The cinematic kind.
The kind with dramatic music, echoing cliffs, and a swooping camera shot.
But here I was.
And none of it felt dramatic at all.
It felt like breathing.
The lodge was quiet in that late October way: soft lamplight pooling against cedar walls, crackling fire in the stone hearth, faint smell of cinnamon drifting in from the kitchen.
Outside, the night sky hung clear and cold over the lake. October stars in the Midwest were sharp enough to make you believe you were being watched in the best possible way.
And inside… Carson was standing at the big table, studying the property map spread across the dining table like a man preparing to conquer a tiny, adorable kingdom.
“Our house,” he murmured, more to himself than to me, “has the best sunrise access on the whole ridge.”
I leaned against the table and watched him.
It was the same expression I’d seen on forest trails, on planning circuits, in gear sheds. Focused. Quiet. Strong.
But now there was something else layered under it.
Ease.
Peace.
The unguarded kind.
“You say that like you’re trying to convince me,” I teased, nudging his hip with mine.
He straightened, the corner of his mouth lifting. “I still can’t believe you agreed to it.”
I pretended to gasp. “Excuse you — I’m a woman who loves a good sunrise. Dormant winter foliage? Frosty lake reflections? That house was calling to me.”
“That house,” he echoed, sliding a hand to my waist, “is barely more than walls and optimism.”
“Yes, but it’s our walls and optimism.”
He pulled me closer, eyes softening. “You really like saying that, don’t you?”
Heat crept up my neck. “Maybe.”
“Maybe?” he said, amused. “You said ‘our’ nine times today.”
“I counted eight.”
“Nine,” he insisted, brushing a kiss to the top of my hair. “You said it when you told your mom we’d bring our potato salad to dinner, even though we don’t have a kitchen yet.”
I shrugged. “We have fingers. We can mix things in bowls.”
“Sienna…”
“Okay, fine,” I said. “We’ll buy a portable stove.”
He chuckled — low, warm, the kind that never failed to slip under my ribs.
It still amazed me how easily we fit into each other’s orbit now. Not without bumps. Not without awkward early months where I nearly put myself back on a plane to Alaska twice. But he’d never pushed. He’d never cornered.
He’d stayed steady.
And somewhere along the line…I’d stopped running.
He kissed my temple, then turned back to the map. “I still think we need to install a larger back deck.”
“We absolutely do,” I agreed. “A place for morning coffee. Birdwatching. Star gazing. All the domestic luxuries I swore I’d never care about.”
“And yet?”
“And yet,” I said, sliding my arms around his middle, “I find myself craving those quiet moments more than anything.”
He rested his hands over mine. “You’ve changed.”
“So have you.”
He shook his head slightly. “I didn’t change. I stopped hiding.”
“The term is growth.” I winked.
His honesty still disarmed me sometimes — not because he’d never been vulnerable before, but because he offered it so freely now.
With me.
“For the record,” I said lightly, “I want credit for not freaking out when you suggested buying a house.”
“Oh, you freaked out,” he corrected gently.
“I did not.”
“You said do you know who I am multiple times.”
“I was clarifying your expectations,” I argued.
“You also asked if homeownership was a gateway drug that eventually leads to secretly wanting children.”
I groaned into his shoulder. “I was having a moment.”
He kissed the side of my head. “I liked your moment.”
I leaned back enough to see his eyes. “Even when I spiraled?”
“Especially then,” he said. “Because you stayed.”
I swallowed. “Yeah. I stayed.”
“And I’m glad you did,” he murmured.
I cupped his cheek, thumb brushing the faint stubble. “You know… some people talk about falling in love like it’s an explosion. A burst. A singular dramatic moment. But with you?”
He waited.
“It was a slow sunrise,” I said. “Soft and warm and steady. And one day I looked over and realized the whole world was lit.”
His breath caught.
Then something shifted across his face.
“You want to know what it felt like for me?” he asked.
I nodded.
“It felt like coming home after being lost too long.”
My throat tightened.
He continued, voice low. “I didn’t know what home felt like. Not really. Not until you. Not until this.” His thumb stroked my jaw. “You’re my safest place. My sanity.”
A tear slid before I realized it had formed. He wiped it away instantly.
“Hey,” he whispered.
“Sorry,” I sniffed. “I’m emotional because the house we’re buying has a broken porch step and questionable wiring, and somehow I’m excited about fixing it up with you, which is alarming on multiple levels.”
He laughed softly. “That’s not why you’re emotional.”
“No,” I admitted. “It’s not.”
“Tell me.”
I pressed my palms to his chest, feeling the solid warmth beneath them. “Because this feels right. Because I never thought I’d get this. Because you make the lodge feel different. Because I used to think the future was something to outrun, and now when I imagine it… You’re in it.”
He kissed me with something so full of love I barely remembered to breathe.
When he pulled back, his eyes were bright. “Good. Because I plan on being in it.”
I grinned, wiping my eyes. “Well, you kind of have to be. We’re getting married in four weeks.”
“That’s true,” he said solemnly. “Contractually binding.”
“Four weeks,” I repeated, a mix of excitement and nerves fluttering in my stomach.
He brushed his fingers down my arm. “You sure you’re ready?”
“Yes,” I said immediately and laughed. “And I’m shocked how easily that came out.”
He cupped my face with both hands. “You’re allowed to want things now.”
“I know.”
“You’re allowed to stay.”
“I know.”
“And you’re allowed”—he leaned close, lips brushing mine—“to be ridiculously in love.”
I groaned against his smile. “God, you’re making it impossible to keep pretending I’m not.”
He kissed me again, slow and sure. “Good.”
We stood there for a moment, just breathing each other in, wrapped in the kind of silence that felt like belonging.
After a while, I pulled back and glanced at the plans again. “We need to talk about the upstairs layout. I still think the office should be facing the lake.”
“You want a lake view so you can procrastinate,” he said.
“You want the office facing the woods so you can pretend you live in a hermit hut.”
“I will neither confirm nor deny.”
I laughed and nudged him. “You know, for a guy who used to live out of a backpack, you’re surprisingly opinionated about floor plans.”
“And for a woman who used to plan spontaneous trips to remote places, you’re surprisingly excited about installing a dishwasher.”
I gasped. “Do not mock my dishwasher dreams.”
He kissed my cheek. “I would never.”
We leaned against the table side by side, fingers intertwined, studying the rough pencil sketches of what would eventually become our home.
Not my escape route.
Not his fortress of solitude.
Ours.
The word still sent a warm bloom through my chest.
He squeezed my hand gently. “You know, if someone had told me I’d feel happiest in a lodge kitchen, talking about paint samples and wedding playlists—”
“You would’ve run screaming.”
He smiled. “Probably.”
“And I,” I said, lifting his hand to my lips, “would’ve been booking a flight to Madagascar.”
“And now?” he asked.
“Now?” I looked up at him. “I don’t want to go anywhere.”
His eyes softened with something I wanted to see forever.
“Me neither,” he said. “Not as long as you’re here.”
We kissed again — slow, warm, the kind that said this is where we start, not end.
When he rested his lips against my ear, voice barely above a whisper, he said the words that wrapped themselves around my heart and settled there like they’d always belonged.
“You’re my home, Sienna.”
I closed my eyes, letting those words sink in.
“And you,” I whispered back, “are the one place I never want to leave.”
Outside, a breeze rustled the last autumn leaves.
Inside, the fire crackled softly.
And somewhere in the middle of it all, wrapped in his arms, I realized that falling in love hadn’t made my world smaller.
It had made it infinite, and for the first time in my life… I was exactly where I wanted to be.