Epilogue
One year later
Standing up too fast from where I’d crouched in the closet, my head slammed into the corner of a wooden shelf with a loud bang. Pain ricocheted off my skull and rebounded behind my eyes. Mother-clucker.
“Gods fucking above,” I groaned, aiming my stare at Blaze, who gawked at me from our bed as if I were the animal instead. “What are you looking at?”
Dressed in a brown corset and tan skirt, I hobbled around with one boot halfway hanging on to my foot as I searched for the other one but came up empty-handed. We were going to be late—once again. For different reasons this time. We’d undoubtedly earned the “always late” title.
Grabbing my earrings, I thought maybe my boot hid downstairs.
Down the hall, I made sure not to touch the daggers sitting on the dresser.
I’d gotten used to seeing them out once again.
The house looked much different than it used to.
It actually showed evidence that someone lived in it.
My favorite blankets hung on the ladder we’d grabbed from his childhood bedroom, my shoes stayed by the door (when I didn’t lose them).
Gordon and Blaze had their bowl and enclosure in the kitchen, along with their tin food containers.
And on the wall above the fireplace, my most prized artwork—Laken and me standing in front of the sanctuary with all of our feathered, scaled, and stinking companions.
After seeing Wilson’s of him and his wife, I didn’t want to go without capturing this stage in our life.
And after hours of gathering the creatures, chasing Benedict twice, and saving Gordon from suffocation, we paid the artist well.
He’d even captured Roasted Chicken’s flames on the trim of my skirt.
What was I doing? I moved past the fireplace with a smug grin. Oh, yes—my shoe.
It wasn’t by the couch. It wasn’t in front of the door or the fireplace. And it wasn’t at the base of the stairs. Scatterbrained, I spun in slow circles and tried to remember where the hell I’d left it.
Opening the back door, I slipped through the narrow sliver and peeked around.
In his old wooden rocking chair, he sat with his gaze set on the green fields unrolling ahead.
A crisp spring breeze floated in the air, keeping it cool and fresh.
When he’d returned three months ago, the porch became our favorite place.
“Laken,” I called, grabbing his attention. At my voice, he peered over his shoulder with a faint, thin grin. Deep-blue eyes dragged up to mine and I could’ve drowned in them, even after all this time. “Do you know where my—”
“Under the kitchen table,” he answered, and I…
Looking back into the house, I arched my spine to see under the table, and wouldn’t you know, my boot was there. “Why did I leave it there?”
“If I recall correctly, we didn’t exactly make it to the bedroom last night before—”
I nodded. “Right, right.” Despite how late we already were, I couldn’t resist the urge to go to him. As I edged around his chair, he pulled me into his lap and hummed into my skin, kissing my shoulder as his hands wrapped around me.
It felt unnatural sometimes, looking into our backyard and not seeing feathers or creatures at all, save for the horses.
After the fundraiser, where we’d made exactly ten coins over what we owed, we’d paid it off.
I’d decided to move into Laken’s house upon his return and upgraded the sanctuary with an office and bigger storage rooms. Mostly because we couldn’t keep having sex on my tiny bed upstairs and moving into my father’s old room felt especially…
wrong. So I packed and moved next door. Maeve placed moon-hour enchantments, an extra safety precaution activated at night since we weren’t there.
“You already checked in on the animals and locked up?” I asked, squeezing his arms around me tighter.
“Yes, milady. They were sleeping in on their day off.”
I didn’t blame them. Soon after Laken had left, with hours of animal training and memorizing safety drills, I’d opened McCarthen’s for limited guided tours.
It kept coin coming in and the creatures loved the attention.
Our ties to the community strengthened. Of course, visitors were required to sign waivers, but I hadn’t had any accidents yet.
Laken started doing them, too, as soon as he came home.
Smiling to myself, I loved remembering the day he came home.
I’d been in the bath when I heard the door open.
Still living at the sanctuary and naked upstairs, I wrapped myself in a towel.
With the self-defense moves he’d taught me many months before replaying in my mind, I grabbed the wooden paddle I kept under my bed and tiptoed around my room to the doorway.
With an ear to the stone wall (where sound didn’t even travel), I listened for footsteps.
Hearing a loud thud and running up the stairs, my hands tightened on the wood.
Scooting back, my throat ran dry. The hurried footsteps came closer and the moment his body turned into my room—I swung. But this time, he was ready.
Laken caught the paddle, startled but not surprised, with a giddy grin. It was a good thing I was already naked.
As I sat with him in his chair on our porch, rocking with his arms around me, I knew I’d ended up where I was always meant to.
Call it fate, destiny, or pure stubbornness of a—
“Don’t we have somewhere to be?”
Shit. After the fundraiser last year and its success, Honey Brooke had decided to make it an annual event. Wilson’s library had been voted this year’s charity.
“Yes, yes we do.” I jumped up, spinning to pull him along with me.
Laken’s fingers intertwined with mine, groaning as he rose. He spun the ring on my finger and my stomach fluttered. In awe of the gem, I couldn’t wrap my mind around Laken wanting to spend forever with me. “How long till they notice, you think?”
I’d been wearing the ring for three days, but we’d been… busy… at home… doing busy adult things. “Should we tell them?”
He squinted an eye, debating deliberately with knitted brows. “The moment we tell them, my mother will have this town running circles for tablecloths.”
“Tablecloths? I doubt it; she already has them stored. She’s been planning our wedding for ten years now.”
“Ten years?” Laken wrapped an arm around my shoulders, leading us inside so we could leave. “Is that all?”
I laughed, breathing in all we’d done and become. If we even talked about a future wedding (what?), the little girl inside me wanted to panic. Love? Owning the sanctuary? It sounded like an entirely different person. But she’d grown up. And she knew she wasn’t alone.
Laken locked the front door behind us. We walked up our little stone path to the cobblestone street, where the sun spilled over in a rosy haze. I already anticipated the scent of Ruth’s pies and Maggie’s flowers—who’d become an annual vendor for the fundraiser.
With a familiar warmth in my heart and Laken at my side, I smothered a laugh. I guess she’d been right all those months ago.
Second time’s a charm.