Epilogue
Two and a half years later.
I shrieked while I ran away from him, my yellow sundress flying behind me.
Clayton Armstrong had acted like a man possessed… or maybe obsessed ever since the first night I’d slept with him.
His cock was like a heat-seeking missile and it only had one target in mind.
Which I happened to love. I’d never met a man so singularly focused on me before.
It wasn’t why I loved him, but it was definitely one of the things I loved about him. The list was long.
I was still a career woman because that was important to me. But now I worked for the people instead of against them. I’d switched careers.
Now, I was no longer a claims adjuster working for insurance companies. I was what you call a public adjuster. I worked for a law firm that rented out my services on a case-by-case basis when a client needed to fight a denied claim or a low-ball claim from an insurance company.
With my background, I was like a shark. I knew all the ways the insurance companies tried to keep from paying out.
The one thing I wouldn’t do is cover up fraud. But if someone had a legitimate claim, I’d fight with everything in me until the battle was won.
The best part? I got to work from home. I’d negotiated that when I was hired on.
Other people went out to the claim sites, took video footage, and interviewed the homeowners. Then I’d look at everything they came up with to see if they had a claim.
I loved my new job.
And after we got married, Clayton and I bought a different house.
Between our two paychecks we’d bought a similarly sized home, but it was right on the shore of Hidden Lake. Now when the weather was good I got to work outside on the deck he’d built me. And when it was bad, I tucked myself inside our cozy home office.
Our place wasn’t fancy. In fact, we’d brought most of his furnishings along. We even had that old velour couch straight from the eighties. The one with the watermill design that reminded me of home.
With Clayton as an example, I’d grown closer to my parents, and we visited them regularly. My dad had walked me down the aisle on our wedding day.
Even though we’d been married for two years now, we didn’t have kids yet. I wanted to enjoy a little private time with my man first.
But recently, we’d started trying, even if we hadn’t made that public knowledge. Only our mommas knew, and they were rooting for us.
None of that mattered right now, though, because my man had just caught up with me.
Clayton grabbed me from behind, his thick arms wrapping around my waist. Then he whispered in my ear, “I found you, Rachel. Now you have to be my sex slave for the day.”
I turned around and swatted him with a smile on my lips. “What’s new about that?”
Then I looped my arms over his shoulders and planted a kiss on his beard. It was the highest I could reach.
Clayton’s eyes were glowing like he’d found the buried treasure.
And I supposed that’s what love was.
Something rare and wonderful that no one can really quantify.
But I knew without a doubt that it existed. Clayton and I were living proof.
Right when he started to lift the hem of my sundress, Nuts and Bolts started barking.
They barreled right into us, then bounced off our knees and ran around the side yard to the front of the house, barking the whole way as they ran.
“I guess we’ll have to take a raincheck on that ravaging you were about to give me. It sounds like everyone’s here.”
Clayton groaned and pulsed his hips against me. He was hard in his jeans. “Tell them all to leave for ten minutes. I just need a quicky.”
I laughed and rolled my eyes, then started walking to the front of the house.
His hand looped seamlessly into mine, and we went to meet our friends. It was our week to host a card night, and I was planning to beat the socks off everyone at the table. I had a great poker face.
“Come on, love. Let’s go see our friends.”
Life was good on Red Oak Mountain.
Life was real good.