Epilogue
EPILOGUE
Candice
The next two years at Star Mountain pass in a beautiful, blissful blur. Ballantine retires, and spends his days munching hay and playing with Maggie and Brown Sugar. Nathan keeps competing though, and starts a new horse named Lily, who he trains in reining and cutting. Thankfully, his career isn’t tarnished by the incident with Brad in the long run, and a few months after he sends the report in, someone else reports Brad as well. An investigation is launched, Brad is found guilty of doping his horses, and is stripped of his titles and fined. Brad’s downfall makes Nathan’s wins on Lily feel even fucking sweeter.
Nathan and I work together training horses, and eventually he even starts offering ranch riding lessons for the local community. When he goes away to compete, I almost always go with him, and I find that I actually love traveling and seeing new places. Being away from the horses, and from home, starts to hurt less and less, until I’m actually content spending weeks with him at some of the biggest stock shows and rodeos.
Nathan keeps donating as much as he can to the rescue, which allows us to fix it up quite a bit—including buying brand new mattresses for the bunkhouse, much to Nathan’s delight. Going to competitions with Nathan means that I end up meeting a lot of other riders and trainers, and I convince more than a few of them to donate to the rescue. Nathan takes every chance he can get to talk about our mission as well, and as a result, the rescue actually starts to make enough money to expand. We’re finally able to offer sanctuary to the horses who need it. I get to give both Jenny and Tomás a raise, and Tomás uses the extra cash to finally move out of the bunkhouse.
Nathan and I get married in the summer. We have our wedding at the rescue, obviously, and I wear my mother’s wedding dress. Winnie alters it for me, reimagining the puff sleeves into something that makes me feel like a cowgirl princess. I pair it with the boots my Grammy got me and wildflowers in pink, orange, and purple in my hair. Nathan wears a custom suit designed for him by a denim brand, and he somehow manages to make jeans on his wedding day work.
Lila is our flower girl, and she processes astride Bubba, throwing flowers in front of her haphazardly, with Jenny hovering nearby. Beau walks me down the aisle and pretends not to be crying as he does it, and Cassandra acts as our officiant. We write our own vows, and Nathan’s are so sweet I almost start to bawl.
The party afterwards is perfect, too. We set up a huge white tent near the house Nathan built for us, which is next to the paddock where Maggie, Brown Sugar, and Ballantine spend most of their time. By the end of the night, my feet hurt from dancing, my eyes hurt from crying, and my cheeks hurt from smiling so hard. But I can’t remember a time I was ever this happy.
I tell Nathan as much as we sit together on our porch swing, waving goodbye to the last of the guests leaving.
“You’ll be happier tomorrow, Viper, I promise,” he says, rubbing his hand across my arm.
“When we’re busy cleaning this place up? I doubt it.”
“When you’re in Paris,” he whispers against my forehead, planting a kiss on top of it.
“What?” I reel away from him. “Paris? I told you I didn’t need a honeymoon.”
“And I told you I had no intention of listening to such a silly idea,” Nathan says. “We’re going to Paris, and then to the south of France.”
I scramble off the bench. “Oh my God, I need to pack!”
He pulls me back down onto the swing. “Relax, honey, Winnie has it all taken care of. She packed your bag for you earlier, though obviously you can add anything you want. And leave room in there for wine.”
I let out a squeal. “I am very lucky to have married you, Nathan Booth.” I slap a kiss on his lips and then get up and do a little dance around the porch, grabbing the bottle of champagne off the railing as I do.
I can’t believe it—I’m finally going to Paris.
Nathan
Candice in Paris is truly a sight to behold. Everything excites and interests her, from the early morning flower market we stop by, to the vendors selling vintage prints by the Seine, to the glass pyramids at the Louvre. She can’t keep the smile off of her face, and it makes me happy knowing that the city is living up to her expectations. It’s all new for me too, and together we relish being the most obnoxious American tourists. We take pictures of everything and get lost around every corner. Everyone else in the city is in black pants and white sneakers, but we’ve still got our jeans and cowboy boots on.
Right now, we’re standing in front of Notre Dame cathedral, in the very spot where her parents took a photo while on their honeymoon. Candice is looking up at the cathedral with awe in her eyes, like she can’t believe she’s here.
“How does it feel?” I ask.
“Like I’m a bit closer to them,” she says, eyes still glued to the facade of the cathedral. “There’s so much I’ll never know about them, and normally that stings. But today, I feel like I’m finding out something new about them.” She points up at the circular stained-glass window. “They stood here and looked up at that window—the same one that we’re looking up at today. I know it sounds simple, but there’s something wonderful about the fact that I’m seeing what they saw.”
“It’s not simple,” I say. “It’s beautiful and it makes complete sense.”
Candice snaps a few more photos of the cathedral and then asks another couple to take our photo, using the few French phrases she managed to learn on the flight here. She reaches into her bag and takes out the time-worn polaroid of her parents standing in front of Notre Dame, and holds it in front of us as we pose, arms around one another, smiles stretching our cheeks.
“C’est parfait!” the woman declares, and hands us back the phone.
In the photo, Candice looks radiant, and a bit like her mother does in the polaroid. They have the same smile, and the same nose.
“Thank you for taking me here,” Candice says. “I never would have done any of this without you.”
“You sure you aren’t missing the horses too much?” I joke.
“I don’t, actually,” she says. “Because I trust that they’ll be there when I get back. And I’d much rather be here with you than mucking out another paddock.”
“Good. That means I’m going to take you on vacation every year from here on out.”
“Next year I demand you take me to Rome,” she says, smiling brightly at me.
I nod, but don’t mention that I’ve already got a trip to Venice planned out for us. It shouldn’t be too difficult to squeeze Rome in as well.
“Let’s go look around inside for a bit,” I say, nodding towards the cathedral.
“Definitely.”
“And for what it’s worth, I never would have done this without you either, Viper,” I say to her.
Candice grabs my hand in hers, and together we walk towards the cathedral entrance and the line of other tourists waiting to get in. It strikes me that even here, thousands of miles from Montana, in a foreign city that I’ve never been to, I feel right at home.
And it’s all because of her.
Thank you so much for reading Nathan and Candice’s story! I hope you loved them as much as I do.