Epilogue
Four years later
“Hey, baby!”
I step off the plane in Skagway to see Aaron standing on the tarmac.
“What are you doing here?” I ask him, running into his arms.
“I flashed my badge, and they let me meet your plane.” He pulls me against his body and kisses me long and hard, before drawing back to smile down at me. “How does it feel to be done?”
“Amazing,” I say, taking his hand. “I still have to pass the state exam, but I am officially a college graduate.”
“Are they gonna be pissed they missed it?”
He’s talking about the fact that I graduated last week and didn’t invite my family to the ceremony. “ You were there,” I tell him. “That’s all that matters.”
“To you, maybe,” he says. “Your dad’s gonna be pissed.”
“My dad’s busy! They’re all busy!” I say. “Harper has two kids. Tanner has two with another on the way. Parker has the twins, and Emily Anne. Sawyer and Ivy have the new baby. Isabella’s still trying to figure out work and motherhood, and Hunter’s trying to be the best at-home dad there ever was. No one would’ve been able to make it, and they all would’ve felt bad saying no.” I lean up to kiss him again. “Instead, I had you all to myself. It was perfect.”
Aaron kisses the tip of my nose, then takes my rolling suitcase and leads us to the terminal.
A-hem!
Hello, reader!
HELLO! READER!
You! Yes, you!
Now, follow me, and follow me quickly because you’ve missed a lot in four years, and I only have a couple of minutes to explain where we’re at before we’re in his car headed home to the Stewart Campground in Dyea.
We had a great time that New Year’s Eve four years ago, but we ultimately decided to keep things loose…he didn’t ask me to be his girlfriend that night, and I didn’t pressure him to be my boyfriend. We shared some heart-stopping, dick-hardening, pussy-soaking kisses that night, said goodbye at one o’clock in the morning, and three days later I left for college.
But you know how his father lived ( and still lives! ) in Anchorage? Well, Aaron came up to see his dad with more devotion than ever before. He must have been up in Anchorage once or twice a month that winter and spring. He came up to Anchorage every damn day he could.
And anytime he texted me that he was in town?
I ran to him with wings on my heels.
Here’s something I learned really quickly: without the rest of my family around, I was much more—hmm…let’s say…— free-spirited.
We were free-spirited on the couch in the basement apartment at his dad’s house, in my dorm room freshman and sophomore years when my roommate was out, and sometimes—if we were celebrating something special—in a posh room at the Hyatt House Hotel because ( sigh ) Anchorage has the most beautiful hotels. We were free-spirited in the back of his dad’s truck more than once, in a frat house bathroom at least twice, and once—I’m sorry!—in the boob cube at the Anchorage Airport ( inappropriate, I know…) because we needed a private space before he jumped on his plane home.
By the time I moved into my own apartment off-campus for junior and senior years, Aaron may as well have been on the lease. He had a key of his own, of course, and visited me every other weekend, at least. By then, we’d said, “I love you” about a million times and made love a million more. Aaron Adams was my person, and I was his. That was in stone.
And the summers? Oh, Lord, the summers were amazing.
I worked odd hours at the clinic and for Belinda at ambulatory services, so sometimes I’d just crash at Aaron’s place in town for a few days on end. It was just easier, I guess. My things found their way to Aaron’s house, and his space became mine. And little by little, my life moved in tandem with his. I was one half of the being that was Aaron and Reeve, and he was the other half.
I guess the next normal development would be for Aaron to propose, but when he got down on one knee five minutes after I graduated last week, I shocked the hell out of him by yelling:
“No, no, no! Not now! Not here! Get up!”
He looked a little sad and a lot confused, so I put my arms around his neck and told him that I loved him more than it was possible for one human being to love another.
But I also asked him if he could save that question for Skagway. For home.
I’d be home in three days, after all.
And my Aaron—my sweet, thoughtful, loving man—said that yes, if that’s what I wanted, he could wait.
So now you’re all caught up.
Phew! Just in time!
“You get in,” says Aaron as we approach the truck. “I’ll pop your bag in the back.”
I sit down in the passenger seat. I’m buckling my seat belt just as Aaron swings into his seat beside me.
“All good?” he asks.
“Great,” I say, grinning at him. “Christmas Eve at Hunter and Isabella’s cabin is the best.”
“It’s a good time,” he says, but his voice is all nervous and weird.
“Wait. Are you good?”
“I’m…I’m fine,” he says, pulling out of the airport parking lot and pointing us toward home.
“I told you Belinda is retiring next week?” I chuckle. “She could barely wait for me to be certified.”
“She’s as old as Methuselah.”
“Paw Paw jokes that she used to be his babysitter.”
“I believe it,” says Aaron.
“How’s your dad doing?” I ask.
“He’s good. He’s…um…he went away for Christmas this year.”
“He did? He left Anchorage? Now that’s a shocker!”
Mr. Adams, who’s told me to call him Scott a million and one times, rarely leaves Anchorage. He loves being home.
“Yeah. He’s…actually, he’s here. This year, he’s here. In Skagway.”
“He is? That’s so nice! He never comes here for Christmas.”
“This year, he did.”
“Amazing,” I say, picking up my phone and texting Harper. I tell her we’ll be home in a few minutes. She tells me to go to the lodge for Christmas Eve, not to Hunter’s cabin. “Huh.”
“What’s up?”
“Harper says Christmas Eve is back at the lodge this year.”
“Oh, yeah. I heard that.”
“You did?” I ask. “But Hunter and Isabella have been hosting it ever since the chili night four years ago.”
He shrugs. “Time for a change, I guess.”
“So, where’s your dad tonight? At your place?”
“Your gran invited him to join us for Christmas Eve at the lodge,” he says.
“Aw! That’s nice. He’s there now?”
“He is.”
Aaron adjusts and readjusts his hands on the steering wheel, taking a deep breath and then letting it go in a long sigh.
“Aaron.”
“Reeve.”
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“What do you mean?”
“Christmas Eve is at the lodge this year. Your dad’s in town. And you’re about as nervous as a turkey the day before Thanksgiving.”
“Can you just…trust me?” he asks, glancing at me quick as he turns into the campground parking lot.
“Okay.”
All of my siblings’ cars and trucks are parked in front of the lodge, so Aaron needs to park a little ways away. We walk up to the lodge hand in hand.
“Are you gonna ask me again?” I blurt out.
“Yeah,” he answers honestly. “That’s the plan.”
We stop at the top of the lodge stairs. Inside, through the windows, I can see everyone I love mingling together, carols on the stereo, champagne glasses in hand.
There’s my dad talking to Aaron’s dad.
And there’s Joe twirling five-year-old Wren around the living room while Harper holds baby Talon.
Gran holds one of Parker’s twins, while Paw Paw holds the other, and Parker, Quinn, and Emily Anne dance in a jolly circle to “Jingle Bells.”
A pregnant McKenna checks out the Christmas ornaments on Gran’s huge tree with four-year-old Madden while Tanner sways to the music with their one-year-old daughter, Piper.
Sawyer and Ivy cuddle together on the couch with their newborn daughter, Rebecca, while Isabella and Hunter, expecting their second, coo over Sawyer’s first.
My heart swells with a million kinds of love, and I turn to Aaron.
“Ask me now, instead.”
“Here? On the porch?”
“Here. At home. With everyone I love a breath away.” I reach for his cheek and cup it tenderly. “But let’s have a moment to ourselves first.”
He grins at me, taking a small, red box from his pocket, and lowering himself to a knee. When he looks up at me, all the love in the whole world shines in his eyes.
“What’s going on in there? That sense of family? All those siblings and children and parents and love? I see it all, Reeve. I know it’s real. And yet, I can’t believe it holds a candle to everything I feel when I look at you.”
Tears burn my eyes, but I nod at him to continue.
“I’ve loved you for so long, baby, I don’t know what life looks like if I’m not loving you, if I’m not with you.”
He opens the ring box, and a gorgeous diamond solitaire catches the light from inside and sparkles.
“Marry me, Reeve?”
“Oh, yeah,” I tell him, plucking the ring from its velvet bed and slipping it onto my finger. “You’re all mine, baby. Forever.”
He stands up and pulls me into his arms, kissing me like we’ve never kissed before ( even though we have…a lot .)
When we walk into the lodge a minute later, I’m an engaged college graduate holding hands with my fiancé.
The youngest of the Stewarts of Skagway.
The last to find her happily ever after.
Unless we can convince my dad—
No.
Definitely not.
If anything, that’s a faraway story for another day.
A very, very faraway story for…
THE END (again)
(for now)