EPILOGUE
Three Months Later
AVA
The SAR base was organized chaos.
I stood at the planning table, coordinating a multi-team training exercise with Rafe, while Griffin prepped gear in the background. The rest of the team moved around us, efficient, professional, trusting.
We'd run fifteen rescues in the past three months. High-angle extractions, avalanche recoveries, and one memorable swift-water rescue that still made Griffin twitchy. Every call had been successful. Every person we'd gone after had come home alive.
The nightmares hadn't disappeared. But they'd faded. And when they came, Griffin was there, holding me, reminding me that I was safe, that I was home.
"Ava?" Rafe's voice pulled me back. "You good with the approach route?"
I studied the map, making final adjustments. "Yeah. This'll work."
Griffin appeared at my shoulder, his hand finding the small of my back, that unconscious touch that had become habit. "You sure about the anchor points?"
"Positive. Trust me."
"Always." He kissed my temple, not caring that the whole team could see. We'd stopped hiding weeks ago. Everyone knew. And everyone approved, though they gave us endless grief about it.
My phone buzzed. A text from Vivian: Valentine's Day party next week! You two better be there. I'm taking full credit.
I showed Griffin, who groaned.
"She's never going to let this go," he muttered.
"Nope. We're her crowning achievement." I grinned. "The fake marriage that led to a real relationship."
“Not fake anymore.” He pulled a small box from his pocket.
My heart stopped.
"Griffin..."
"Relax. Not that. Not yet." He opened the box to reveal a wooden pendant, a miniature version of the carved heart he'd given me, hung on a leather cord. "But I wanted you to have this. To wear on calls. A reminder that someone's waiting for you to come home."
I couldn’t speak past the lump in my throat. Just turned so he could fasten it around my neck. The wood was warm against my skin.
Warmth spread across my chest, grounding me in a way no gear or harness ever had.
"I always come home," I whispered. "Because you're there."
"Damn right I am." He turned me back around, his eyes fierce. "And someday, when the time’s right, I’m going to ask you properly. With the ring and the whole thing. But for now…”
“For now, this is perfect.” I kissed him, not caring that Rafe was probably rolling his eyes. “You’re perfect.”
“We’re perfect,” he corrected.
And standing there in the SAR base, surrounded by mountains and teammates and the life we’d built together, I believed him.
We were broken people who’d found each other in a storm. Who’d chosen to hold on when everything said to let go. Who’d decided that love was worth the risk.
Bitterroot Ridge hadn’t just given me a home.
It had given me a partner.
A future.
And a mountain man who carved promises into wood and kept every single one.
Six Months Later
GRIFFIN
The ridge behind my cabin had never looked like this—gold light spilling across the pines, wildflowers tied to an arch Vivian kept calling a masterpiece, and my entire SAR team pretending they hadn’t been crying five minutes ago.
Rafe stood at the front with a leather-bound notebook, trying to look official. He failed. The man was grinning like someone had offered him lifetime funding and a new rescue truck.
But none of them mattered.
Not when Ava stepped into view.
My chest went tight. Hell, everything went tight. She walked toward me in a simple ivory dress that moved with the wind, hair pinned with tiny mountain blossoms. She looked like storms and sunlight had made a deal and decided to share her.
I met her halfway because there was no universe where I could just stand still and wait.
“You sure about this?” I murmured, my thumb brushing the back of her hand. My voice wasn’t steady. Didn’t bother pretending it was.
She smiled—slow, soft, lethal. “Griffin Hayes, I packed up my entire life because I thought you wanted to meet me. Turns out your mayor did.” She rose onto her toes, whispering, “Still the best damn catfish of my life.”
I huffed out a laugh, low and sharp. “Mountain Mates owes us a refund.”
“Or a testimonial,” she teased.
Behind us, Rafe cleared his throat. Loudly. “If the bride and groom are done flirting, we can start the ceremony.”
The team snorted. Vivian dabbed her eyes with a pink heart-covered handkerchief. And Ava’s fingers tightened around mine like she was anchoring herself.
Or anchoring me.
The vows were simple. Honest. None of the flowery bullshit people put in wedding magazines. Just the truth. Just us.
When Rafe pronounced us married, I didn’t wait. I didn’t hesitate. I pulled Ava into my arms and kissed her like the world wasn’t watching—because I’d waited long enough, and she’d waited even longer.
The team whooped. Bottles popped. Vivian sobbed into someone’s shoulder and declared herself the patron saint of matchmaking.
Ava laughed against my mouth. Her hands slid up my chest, warm and sure, and for a second everything else fell away—the crowd, the sky, the ridge.
It was just her.
My wife.
“Ready to go home?” I murmured, brushing my thumb across her lower lip.
She leaned into me, eyes soft and wicked all at once. “Take me there, mountain man.”
I lifted her easily, her dress spilling over my arms, and the team erupted into cheers as I carried her toward the cabin—like the ending of a story and the beginning of something bigger, deeper, ours.
She wasn’t just the one the mountain sent me.
She was the one I chose.
Every day.
Every storm.
Every fucking breath.
And now she was my wife.
My partner.
My home.
My future carved into something solid and unshakable.
Exactly where she belonged.
The End