9. EPILOGUE
EPILOGUE
Neely
One year later
The RV hasn't moved in eight months. She sits on a gravel pad Tate graded himself, fifty yards from the house, under two ponderosas that drop needles on her roof all autumn like they're claiming her.
The wheels still hold air. The engine still turns over on the first try, because I run her once a month, out to the mountain pass and back, windows down.
But the dinette is gone, and in its place is a desk Caleb Foster built to fit the curve of the wall, and the bed platform holds bookshelves now, and taped above the desk is a sticky note in Ollie's handwriting that says DOUG'S DOING GREAT, stolen from the maintenance shed on my last official day as camp host.
This is where Tate finds me at six on a Friday evening in July, because this is where I always am when I lose track of time.
"They came," he says, nodding at the box on the floor.
"They came."
Ten author copies, shipped from the printer, and I've only had the courage to open the box and touch the top one. The Long Way Home, by Neely Benton. There's a ranger in it. He's fictional, mostly. I had inspiration.
Tate picks up the top copy with care and reads the dedication page again, though he's read it a dozen times in the original manuscript, which I printed out at the library.
For the park ranger of my dreams. And for my mother, who would have loved him.
His jaw does the thing it does, the small tightening he'd never admit to, and he sets the book down and pulls me up out of the chair and holds on for a while, my cheek against the badge, neither of us needing to say anything.
His thumb finds my wedding ring and turns it, once, an old habit now.
"Marla's already got the first reading at the library on the calendar," I tell his shirt. "It’s this Thursday.”
“I know,” he says, a smile in his voice. "I got the group text. Bev's catering it. And Jonas asked me if authors sign books for family for free or if he needs to bring his allowance."
“Awww. I love his heart.”
“Me too. I can’t wait to see how excited he is tomorrow.”
“I’m excited too.”
Ponderosa Flats has its first Bear Aware Family Day in the morning, the program Linda, the town manager, and I spent the winter planning. Station one is food storage, run by the new host, who's good, and who I trained, and who calls me ma'am despite being twenty years older than me.
Station two is track casting with the district biologist. Station three is Ollie with the game camera slideshow, capacity crowd guaranteed, because our mischievous bear is three now, ranging two drainages north, big and wild and scarfing down every berry he can find.
He hasn't touched a cooler in more than a year.
Tate’s hands slide to my hips, and then one of them travels, slow and deliberate, to the front of the sundress, and settles low on my belly, over the place where our future is still just a flutter, sixteen weeks, due after the first snow. We told the family at Sunday dinner two weeks ago.
"Bev thinks it’s a girl," Tate says. "She's started a pool. Marla’s money’s on a boy.”
"And you?"
"I’ll be a thrilled papa either way." He kisses me on the forehead. "Though if it’s a girl, Lia's already informed me the stuffed trout will be handed down. Apparently, it’s an heirloom."
“I know your niece is brilliant, but a three-year-old did not use the word heirloom.”
Tate chuckles. “Maybe not, but she does seem to grasp the concept.”
Outside, the evening breeze sends a soft scatter of pine needles across the RV roof. Tate keeps his hand on my belly, and through the window, I can see the house beyond the trees. The road is still there, and so is the RV. But for once, I don’t have anywhere else I need to be.