EPILOGUE
One Month Later
Ryker & Jade’s Back Yard
Seeing her is a lightning strike. The world falls away. Every sound fades. All the movement stalls. Every man watching my six fades away on a single breath.
One second I’m standing in my own yard, boots planted in grass I’ve walked a thousand times.
Now nothing exists but my bride.
Light catches on the curls hanging at her shoulders. Below that…
Every inch of me snaps to attention.
The wind moves her dress, shifting the fabric against her soft curves and my heart constricts for the thousandth time since I met Jade.
But this time it’s not sharp or sudden. This is deep, and lingers. Whatever’s shifted inside of me isn’t ever shifting back.
I’m marrying her. Forever.
I drag a breath in, but it doesn’t feel like enough.
She looks… unreal.
Not in a fragile way, spun-glass way. Jade isn’t breakable and she looks like a beautiful gift I was never meant to have.
But I took her anyway.
The very moment I saw her, she was mine.
“You need to sit down, man?” Colt jokes. Or maybe it isn’t a joke because our team’s designated medic is probably picking up on the fact that I haven’t taken a breath in far too long.
“Stuff it,” I mutter, grinning.
I go back to devouring my fiancée with my eyes. Lapping up the way the fabric skims her body.
Tasteful, sexy. Utterly feminine and yet somehow not delicate.
The perfect balance of her grace and strength.
The distance closes, her gaze holding mine, hands tight around a bouquet of pink roses. The same kind I got her the very first time I bought something for her.
She’s choosing me.
My hands flex at my sides before I can stop the instinctive reaction she causes. Every part of me wants to move to close the distance.
Pull her in. Feel her and make this real in the only way my body understands.
Until I can’t take it any more and I close the gap and sweep my wife-to-be off of her feet and carry her to the floral arch.
“Ryker,” she pokes my chest. “I was supposed to—”
“I couldn’t wait.” I steal a kiss as I settle her to her feet. Close. Where she belongs.
God help me. The way she looks up at me is more powerful than any weapon on earth.
“Hey, sweetheart,” I manage with gravel hanging in my vocal cords.
Jesus, I smudged her lipstick. But I know how to fix that. I cradle her cheek and brush the errant shimmer away from her upper lip.
She melts. “Honey, you’re not following the rules.”
“Fuck the rules.”
It’s a good thing Scout got set up to officiate the wedding because he merely snorts and I can only imagine what a minister would have thought.
I chuckle at her adorable expression. “This crew knows we might not be polished, but you can count on us being honest.”
“That you are, have been from the first moment we met when you told me you weren’t leaving until I told you what was going on.”
I step in, wrapping my arm around her back. The roses release a puff of sugary scent from being crushed.
“I knew you were mine.”
“Are we having a wedding?” Scout says with a chuckle. “Because I’ve got stuff to say.”
Scout’s wife, Aria, makes the throat slitting sign to him from the small group of friends gathered around.
“Get on with it,” I tell Scout as I wink at Jade. “I’ve waited long enough for her to be my wife.”
I drop my gaze for half a second to her mouth, to the soft curve of it, the memory of what it feels like under mine when she’s unraveling. Parted, whimpering my name.
My pulse ramps up and I drag my focus back up because if I don’t, I’m going to forget where we are.
Scout clears his throat like he’s trying to pretend this is a normal ceremony. It’s not. Nothing about this is normal. Not the way I feel. Not the way she looks at me.
Definitely not the way we met or the things we survived.
I can’t help but glance down at the gold charm around her neck. A delicate heart with J & R. Right where that tracking collar sat. Replaced with love.
A tsunami of emotion hits me. Memories of that night try to push in around the edges of my mind, but I banish them. Forever.
Colt elbows me.
“Yeah, yeah,” I mutter.
“Alright,” Scout starts. “We’re here to make this official—though I think we all know these two skipped ahead a few steps.”
A few quiet chuckles ripple through the team, but I don’t look away from her. Don’t even hear half of what he says next.
Scout finally turns toward me. “Your turn.”
Someone grabs the bouquet as I find her hand. Giving her a soft warning, “I don’t do pretty speeches.”
A flicker of a smile touches her lips and the warmth of it steadies me. “But I don’t need them,” I add.
My thumb brushes the back of her hand.
“I’ll stand between you and anything that comes for you. Doesn’t matter what it is. Doesn’t matter how bad it gets. That’s not changing. Ever.”
I force a breath, through my tight throat. “You’re not walking through this world alone anymore. Not one step. If you fall, I’m the one catching you. If something tries to break you, it answers to me.”
Jade grips my hands, tears swelling and dropping over the long curve of her lashes.
“I’ll be the man you come home to and the one who keeps showing up. Especially when it’s hard. I don’t walk away. I don’t quit. And I don’t give half of anything. You’ve got all of me.”
It’s harder to steady my voice when I finish. “This love was forged in hell. Nothing can break it now.”
“Oh, Ryker,” she breathes. “You’ve stolen my heart a million times. I didn’t think it was possible to love you more. But I do.”
She sniffs, smiles brighter. “I had this all planned out, but now it feels wrong.”
Drawing a breath, she traces her gaze over my face.
“I’ll never forget the way you became my protector in an instant.
The things you’ve done to guard my body, my mind, and my heart.
I never knew a hand that wasn’t cruel until you held that ice-bag to my face.
But you didn’t just show up then. You held me when I was scared to sleep.
You literally fought my demons. You are my knight in shining armor.
I’m the luckiest girl in the world. I love you. Forever.”
I kiss her like there’s no one here. Like I do every night. With everything I have.
“Say, I do,” Scout interrupts. “You’re both supposed to say, I do, and exchange rings.”
Oh. Right. I pull back from the kiss, feeling the coating of lipstick on my mouth and not giving one damn.
“I do. Do you?”
She nods, laughing. “I do.”
I hold out my hand for the ring and Colt presses it into my palm with a remark I don’t bother processing.
Jade slides a big silicone band on my finger. Safety ring, she explained, because she wants me to be safe.
Everything she does is because she loves me and wants to take care of me.
I scoop her up again, holding her in one arm as I leave Scout and the groomsmen behind. June—a streak of black glossy fur—bounds out of the house, ignoring the stay command, her happy yips carrying across the yard.
“Where are you taking me?” Jade teases. “We have friends and food. And cake.”
“It can all wait.” I lower her to the grass. Standing back to look at her. “Wow. I mean, wow, honey. That dress…”
She blushes, her hands coming to my waist, smoothing down my black dress shirt. “I was thinking the same thing. I mean not that you’re wearing a dress, but, wow. Seeing you standing there, my heart did a loop in my chest. I mean, gorgeous.”
I brush the hair back that’s dancing in the wind. “Come on.”
“Now I’m curious.” She lays her hand in mine. Trusting. Like she did from the beginning. It still humbles me.
We cross the side lawn toward the fence. It’s a good thing I’m an operator because this took some serious covert action.
“Look over there.”
She blocks the sun adorably from her eyes with her hand, the diamond wedding band flashing like fire in the light.
“Oh, wait. Is that a horse in our field?”
We reach the fence line before I answer. “Would you believe me if I told you her name is Ruby?”
Jade gasps, covering her mouth.
“She’s yours, sweetheart.”
“I don’t know how to ride.” Her serious expression kicks me in the gut.
“It’s okay, I booked private lessons. If you want to ride. Only if you want to. If you just want her here to brush and pet, that’s fine too.”
When Jade turns to me, she breaks. I’ve never seen her lose it before and it nearly gives me a heart attack.
“Oh. Jesus.” I pull her into my arms. “I didn’t know it would upset you.”
“Not. Upset.” Her sobs are destroying me. “These are tears of joy.”
“Honey. God bless.” I bury my face in her hair, cradling the back of her neck. “You just aged me ten years.”
“I’m sorry, it just overwhelmed me.”
I rock her back and forth as we watch Ruby enjoying the grass in her new pasture.
“Can you ride?” She asks, surprising me, as she looks up at me with so much happiness I can barely stay in my skin.
“I can.”
“Oh my god, I married a hot SEAL cowboy.”
I laugh all the way back to the reception. “Now that’s going a bit far. I can ride. I can’t rope.”
“You lassoed me,” she teases, pinching my ribs.
“Hm, maybe I should show you my knot-tying skills.”
She chokes, burying her face in my shirt. “Behave.”
An instant later we’re surrounded by the team.
“To the bride and groom!” Thane toasts. “May the rest of your lives be slow and boring.”
“Amen!” Colt adds.
They poke fun at us about our not-so-wedding and I realize this is what life is supposed to be. Love. Friends. Belonging.
“Here’s to the team,” I lift a glass of champagne someone shoved into my hand. “But we’re missing one. Where’s Ranger?”
Someone points. “Coming this way.”
“Oh shit,” Thane says. “That expression.”
Ranger’s moving like a man who has a new mission.
“What’s up?” I ask as the men draw in closer to us.
Ranger grimaces, tugging at his tie. “It’s bad timing, but we just got the intel we’ve been wanting. There’s another hunt and it’s happening tomorrow. We’ve got time to stop it.”
“I’m in,” Thane.
Colt and Jake sit their drinks down. “Let’s go.”
Jade’s watching this unfold, even though there’s understanding in her eyes, I take her hands in mine and kiss the back of her knuckles.
“I’m not leaving. We already had all the plans in place in case something came up. They’ve got this locked.” As I hold her gaze, my thumb rolls across her wedding ring. “My only mission for the next two weeks is loving my wife.”