Epilogue Evelyn
Six Months Later
Iron Peak in the changing season is almost too beautiful to be real.
The waterfalls are roaring. Snowmelt pours off the canyon walls in white ribbons that throw rainbows across Main Street every afternoon like clockwork. The hot springs steam softer now and thin curls of white drift through warm air.
The cliffs that felt like walls when I drove in five months ago don't feel like walls anymore. They feel like arms.
I wake up in James's bed. Well, it’s our bed now technically.
I haven't slept at my cabin in three weeks, and most of my books have migrated to his shelves here.
My shampoo is in his shower and there's a second mug in his cabinet that he bought without telling me.
Which I discovered on a Tuesday and cried about because apparently I'm a person who cries over mugs now.
He's already up.
The smell of coffee reaches the bedroom. I stretch in sheets that smell like him and me and I am so happy it feels illegal. I can’t believe this is my life. My mind drifts back to that day in the library when Laken came for me.
From the ladies at the library to Hank and Ryan, I was protected. The whole town closed ranks around me and that hasn’t changed. I was never going to have to do this by myself. Since then the library has become even more of a home away from home for me.
I’m setting up for our two week long read-a-thon kickoff.
It’s a program I built from the ground up.
June calls the best thing this library has done in a decade.
We have forty-seven kids registered and a waiting list. We also have a budget that Jocelyn helped me charm out of the town council with a PowerPoint and homemade banana bread.
And at the center of it all is a man who has captured my heart. He’s taught me how to trust again and in the months we’ve been inseparable, I’ve given myself to him in every way.
This morning, I find him on the porch. He’s shirtless in jeans with bare feet and coffee in hand. There’s nothing I love more than tattoos dark against tanned skin in the morning. He turns when the screen door creaks and his face does the thing.
Not the ghost smile. The real one.
I take the coffee out of his hand, drink from it, and hand it back. He pulls me in by the hem of the henley. James kisses me slowly and my heart races.
"I have to go set up the library," I murmur against his mouth.
"I know."
"You're not letting go of me."
"Nope. Never. I want to marry you."
My heart stutters and my mouth falls open. I need to hear it again because a life with James is too good to be true.
“Evelyn, will you marry me? I promise I’m here forever, you’re safe always, and I’ll hold you every night.”
Tears of joy well in my eyes. “Yes, yes. Oh my God, yes.” I wrap my arms around him.
That evening, I make it back to James’ place before he does. I’ve taken my shower and have Pinterest all cued up. I’m looking at wedding bouquet inspiration online and debating the merits of a French style bouquet handle when three taps come from the front door.
I check the time and it’s still too early to be James. When the knocks come again, my blood runs cold. We haven't heard from Laken since that day in the library, but I don’t put anything past him.
The taps are hesitant. It's the knock of a person who isn't sure they should be here.
I should just ignore it, but I don't. I get up anyway. Something pulls me. Some thread I've been trying to pull for weeks.
I open the door and my jaw drops open when I see Cece standing on the porch with Birdie on her hip. Behind them is a car packed to the roof with bags and boxes.
Cece's mascara is streaked. Her hair is falling. She's wearing shoes that don't match. She hardly looks like herself. In fact, she looks like me from a few months ago.
"Evie," she says. Her voice cracks on my name. "I didn't know where else to go."
My chest breaks open.
I pull her inside and I don't ask questions. She comes through the door and Birdie blinks at the warm kitchen and Cece's face crumbles and I take Birdie from her hip and pull my sister into me with my free arm.
She cries and it’s not the pretty kind. It’s the ugly, wrecking kind that shakes her frame and sounds like a person who's been screaming silently for months and finally found a room where the sound can come out.
"The divorce was finalized four months ago. He cleaned out the savings the day the papers were signed. The house is his. The car was his. Everything I thought was mine was just… his."
I hold her hand across the table. She squeezes back so tight my fingers ache.
"I've been sleeping on a friend's couch. I told you I was fine. Every time you asked. It wasn’t fine. I’m a total mess.”
"You're not a mess. You're my sister. And you drove to a town at the bottom of a canyon because you didn't know where else to go, and that's the same thing I did five months ago. It was the best decision I ever made."
She cries. Quieter. The last of it.
"This town saved me," I say. "Maybe it can save you too."