Epilogue – Ivy
June
“You left out the blindfold when you pitched this.”
“You would've asked questions.”
“I am asking questions.”
“Yeah. They're just less effective now.”
I shift against the seat of Beck’s truck, hands folded uselessly in my lap, entirely dependent on his driving and his word that this will be worth it.
He picked me up from my place twenty minutes ago, told me he had something to show me before Sunday dinner at the Grangers', and produced the blindfold only after I was buckled in, which feels like a betrayal I'm still deciding how seriously to take.
“You do know there are laws about distracted driving.”
“I'm not distracted. You're just blind.”
“That's not comforting.”
“I'm an excellent driver.”
“You also voluntarily jump out of airplanes.”
“That feels unrelated.”
“It's extremely related.”
He laughs, and I try, uselessly, to track our route through turns and road noise, counting stop signs I can't actually confirm, losing the thread within the first five minutes. Nine years of driving these roads should count for something, but a blindfold has cancelled out most of my advantages.
Then the sound beneath the tires changes.
“We're on gravel.”
“Yes we are.”
“That wasn't a question.”
I run through the mental list of gravel roads within reasonable driving distance of home and come up with too many possibilities to narrow it down. Beck gives me nothing. A few minutes later, the truck slows, then stops, engine cutting off.
I reach for the blindfold.
“Not yet.”
I hear his door open, footsteps around the front of the truck. Then my door opens too, his hands finding mine, helping me down onto solid ground. Gravel under my shoes. Warm sun on my face, filtered through what smells like pine. A breeze. Somewhere, birds.
“Step here,” he says, guiding me carefully. “Watch this part.”
“This had better be worth it.”
“It will be.”
Then I hear it. Water, close, gentle, lapping against something.
I stop walking. “Beck.”
“What?”
“Is that water?”
“Could be.”
“We're at a lake.”
“There are a lot of those in Montana.”
I try to place it by sound alone and fail completely.
He keeps me moving, guiding me carefully around what I can only assume is the perimeter of something.
Gravel gives way to wood under my feet. Steps.
A few more. Then he positions me somewhere, hands settling on my shoulders, turning me gently in a specific direction.
“Okay,” he says. “You can take it off now.”
I pull the blindfold away.
I know this lake. I've known it my whole life.
It spreads out in front of me, blue and still, sunlight scattered across the surface, mountains rising green and dark beyond the far shore.
But I'm looking at it from a different stretch of shoreline, quiet and private, nothing like the public rope-swing beach.
“Alder Lake,” I say.
“Yeah.”
I turn to him, delighted and completely confused about why he’d bring me to Alder Lake.
Then I turn around fully and see the house behind us.
It's modest, wood-sided, a little weathered, a wide porch stretching along the back facing the water. Mature pines crowd close on either side.
“Is this a rental?” I ask.
“No.”
“Whose place is it?”
“Mine.”
I look at him. “What?”
“I bought it,” he says. “Closed last week.”
I stare at the house, then at him, then back at the house, trying to make the pieces fit together into something that makes sense. Beck Hale. The man whose whole life was built around leaving, never staying anywhere long enough to need furniture.
“You bought a house.”
“Yes.”
“You used to own four things.”
“I had at least seven.”
I laugh, mostly because I have to do something with the disbelief, and ask him why this cabin, out of everywhere he could have looked.
“Heard it was coming up for sale through somebody in town. Came out to see it. Saw the lake.” He shrugs, like it's simple, even though I know it isn't. “Knew pretty fast.”
We talk about it for a few minutes, practical things, easier ground than whatever's building underneath the conversation. Three bedrooms, he tells me. Kitchen needs work. Roof's solid, at least, which he says like it's the highest praise a roof can receive.
“You've bought yourself a renovation project.”
“I like projects.”
Then he nods toward the porch, wide enough for a full table and then some. “Plenty of room out here.”
“For what?”
“Sunday dinners.”
Something in me goes quiet, because he's not just picturing himself out here alone.
Then he goes still, his eyes steady on mine in a way they weren't a second ago, serious enough I know this isn't only about the house.
“I spent most of my life not thinking twice about staying anywhere,” he says. “Home was wherever I got sent. Then Blackpine happened. The people happened.” He looks at me. “You happened.”
I don't say anything. I don't trust myself to yet.
“I bought this place because I want somewhere that’s mine,” he says. “Not crew housing. Not a seasonal rental I'd be out of by spring. Somewhere I could picture staying.” He pauses. “And when I picture staying here, you're here with me.”
He reaches into his pocket.
I understand what's happening about half a second before he does it, and even that half-second isn't enough to prepare me for watching Beck Hale get down on one knee on a porch overlooking Alder Lake.
“Ivy Sawyer,” he says. “Will you marry me?”
“Yes.”
I don't hesitate, don't need time to think it over.
I've known the answer to this question for longer than he's probably realized.
He slides the ring onto my finger, and I pull him up and kiss him before he's even fully standing, both of us laughing against each other's mouths in a way that isn't remotely elegant but doesn't need to be.
When I finally look down at the ring properly, something about it catches my attention. It's beautiful, simple, but the gold has a softness to it, worn smooth in a way that new rings never are.
“This ring has history.”
“My grandmother's,” Beck says. “My dad's mother. My grandfather proposed with it. Dad's kept it since she passed.”
“Your dad gave you her ring?”
“I asked him for it.”
Simple, steady, exactly like him. It undoes me a little more than his proposal itself did, knowing he made that call, explained why, and that somewhere his parents have known this was coming.
Eventually he takes me inside, and the mood turns lighter again, easier, walking through rooms that are mostly empty except for a bed, a table, and not much else. Very Beck. I start imagining furniture, a couch there, curtains there, already thinking in terms of ours instead of his.
Then I stop in front of the fireplace mantel.
“I thought you gave that to Nolan.”
“I did.”
“Then why is it on your mantel?”
“Bought another one.”
He picks it up, considering it seriously enough I have to warn him with a look. After a moment he sets it back down, unused. For now.
I check the time and realize, with some alarm, we're supposed to be at Russ and Annie's already.
“We're late.”
Beck doesn't look remotely worried about this.
“Does Annie know we're going to be late?”
“Yeah.”
I narrow my eyes at him. He doesn't explain, just smiles and heads for the door. I follow him out to the truck with my ring still catching the light every time I move my hand.
We arrive at the Grangers' twenty minutes behind schedule, and I try, briefly, to keep my left hand tucked at my side while we walk in, some instinct toward wanting to tell everyone myself.
It lasts about four seconds. Annie takes one look at my face, then at Beck, and her whole expression softens into something that isn't remotely surprised.
“You knew,” I say.
“Maybe,” Annie says.
I turn to Russ. He's failing spectacularly at looking innocent. Then Reid, standing by the kitchen island with an expression that gives him away.
“You all knew. How many people knew?” I ask the room.
Tessa, halfway through pouring a drink, looks genuinely confused. “Knew what?”
I hold up my hand.
The noise that follows is immediate and total, Tessa nearly drops her glass. Annie hugs me so hard I lose my breath for a second. Russ shakes Beck's hand with the kind of grip that means more than words would. Reid looks at the ring, then at Beck, something unreadable passing between them.
“You actually did it,” Reid says.
“And she said yes.”
Dinner is loud but warm the way it always is at this table, everyone talking over everyone else, Tessa demanding every detail of the proposal. I sit here with my hand resting on the table where I can see it, Beck beside me, and think about a house a few miles from here, mostly empty, but waiting.