Epilogue
CARLISLE
“Alright, is that everyone?” Angelie asks, as she perches at the bottom of the stairs, having just helped Chuck with his shoes.
The toddlers look around, each of them carefully dressed in their summer clothes and walking shoes.
I look down at them and I can’t help but grin, seeing them all like that. They’re just too damn cute.
“I think so,” I reply, and I check the map once more to make sure the trail is going to lead us down to the river. “Ready to go?”
“As I’ll ever be,” she remarks, laughing as she straightens up again. “Okay, everyone, follow Carlisle, alright? And make sure you’re holding hands so you don’t get separated.”
She fusses over the toddlers until they’re out the door, but the moment the warm sunshine hits, something seems to uncoil in her, and she lets out a sigh of relief.
“God, it’s beautiful out here,” she murmurs as we stride out toward the path. I offer her an arm, making sure she can traverse the slightly uneven terrain with ease.
“Hey, careful,” I warn her, and she raises her eyebrows at me as the toddlers fall behind us.
“You know, just because I’m pregnant doesn’t mean that I’m more of a fall risk than normal—” she begins to protest, but then her foot skitters out from underneath her, and she grips hold of my arm tightly, letting out a short shriek.
I don’t have to say anything—I know she can tell from the hard look I’m giving her just what I’m trying to say.
“Okay, okay, point taken,” she laughs. “I’ll be careful. And keep hold of your arm. Hey, Chrissie, don’t go so far ahead, okay? Let Carlisle show us where to go.”
Chrissie falls back in line with us, pulling a face as though it’s the biggest affront in the world.
Now that I’m beginning to spend more time with the kids, I’m starting to see the ins and outs of their personalities with a little more clarity—when they’re bold or shy, the intelligence they already possess, the ways they still stand to grow a little more.
For how much they have in common, having come from the same parents, they’re all so different, with their distinct personalities and interests and abilities.
And that isn’t even counting the fifth child I haven’t had a chance to meet yet.
These weekend hikes have become something of a tradition over the last month or so of the summer.
Angelie insisted that I take some time away from construction, even though we’re just starting to close the gap on the last few days of work.
The others come down on their own time, Joe for dinner on Wednesdays, Callum and Dylan to take the kids out for ice cream on Fridays, and on Sundays, I take them to explore the woods behind their house.
Given that they’re not going to be living here much longer, I want to take every chance I have to show them more of this place.
To let them adventure the way they should as kids, when the world feels so enormous and like it stretches on for a lifetime around them.
The forest is already starting to right itself after the fires a few months ago.
There are still some charred branches and blackened leaves, but it’s nothing like the state it was in when we first came down.
I’m amazed at how quickly the world seems to be able to right itself here, like it was just waiting for a chance to bloom fresh when it got the chance.
“I’m going to miss having this place just around the corner when we move,” Angelie says, a little wistfully, when we reach the edge of the river.
It’s still low from the recent heat wave, and the kids can paddle in it without much danger, especially with both of us keeping watch over them.
Angelie sinks down into the soft earth, and I move in behind her, planting a hand behind her back for her to lean against.
“You’ll be able to come back here all the time,” I point out. “Not like we’re going to be far.”
“That is if it doesn’t burst into flames again like it did before,” she remarks, raising her eyebrows at me.
I groan. “Don’t even make me think about that,” I protest, rubbing a hand over my face. “We need to do everything we can to keep this place safe. That bonfire they have at the end of summer—”
“You’re never going to convince people to drop that,” she replies, shaking her head. “Besides, you really want to drop a piece of our history like that?” Her teeth rest playfully on her bottom lip as she gazes at me, and I lean in, dropping a kiss on her cheek, unable to resist.
“Point taken,” I concede. “But we still need to teach people how to be safer around here. How to handle it if something does go wrong…”
I look down into the creek, where the children are playing—splashing water at each other, fishing out rocks polished by the flow, placing sticks on the trickle to watch them drift further down the river. I feel a sudden swell of protectiveness, one that almost overwhelms me.
“You know, we should do more to educate the people in Devin Ridge,” I remark. “About fire safety, I mean.”
“You think so?”
“I know so,” I reply, shooting her a look out of the corner of my eye. “Starting with your parents, to be exact.”
She chuckles. “Okay, yeah, fair enough,” she agrees. “And I guess it would give you guys something to do again, right? When the school’s all finished and the house is built.”
I tap my finger against my chin, pondering the idea.
I haven’t given much thought to what we’re going to do when all of the work is done, but I guess we will need to find something to pass the time.
We’re all too restless to sit around doing nothing, and it would put our firefighting skills to good use, not to mention doing something with the equipment that’s currently sitting dormant in the cabin.
“I guess it would,” I murmur. “You think the others would go for it?”
“You kidding?” She laughs. “I think they’d jump at the chance. Anything to make sure that they could stay busy and feel like they were making a difference. Until the forest fire season starts up again, that is…”
“You’d be okay with us still firefighting?” I ask softly. “Even after the baby comes along?”
“You’ve helped so many people, Carlisle, all of you have,” she replies softly, catching my hand in hers and giving it a squeeze. “It would be selfish of me to tell you that you couldn’t keep doing that.”
“Yeah, but you’re allowed to be selfish with us,” I remind her.
She grins, and I can see a flicker in her eyes, her mind no doubt drifting to the last night we spent all together.
“Well, I guess if you do a good enough job keeping on top of the fire safety training, you’re not going to have to fight any fires in the first place, right?
” she reasons. “So I have nothing to worry about anyway.”
“I guess not,” I agree. I lower my mouth to hers, and I feel the smile on her lips before anything else—and that’s all I care about.
The knowledge that I can give her what she wants, that I can prove to her that I belong here, at her side.
As the sun dapples through the trees and on the bank around us, the sound of the toddlers splashing grows distant, like we might just be the only two people in the entire world at that moment…
Up until a shriek cuts through the air, and Angelie pulls back all of a sudden, clapping her hand to her mouth. “Oh my God, Stephanie!” She laughs as she springs to her feet and races down the bank. “What have you done? How did you manage to get your jacket off…”
As she fishes Stephanie’s jacket out of the water before it can be carried off by the flow entirely, I grin, leaning back on my elbows. It’s hard to believe that this is really my life now, that I really get to experience these little moments day in and day out.
When the construction on the house is finished, I’ll get even more of them, once my duties start to calm down.
For so long, I didn’t think that I had a place here at Devin Ridge, but with every passing moment at Angelie’s side, I’m starting to understand that I do—as a father, as a partner, as a friend to the three men who have been through so much with me and stood at my side every step of the way.
It might not be how I imagined finally finding a family of my own, a family I could be proud of. But sometimes, the least conventional ways are the once that wind up making the most sense—and right now, I can’t think of anything that suits me more than being here with her.
The End.