EPILOGUE
MAGGIE
One Year later
Our house smelled like sourdough and strawberries, and the sun was low enough that it shimmered across the counter where I was working. I had just finished rolling out another loaf of bread when my phone lit up. I wiped my hands on the back of my shorts, leaving flour behind, and swiped the screen.
Hunter: Almost home. Meet me out on the dock?
I smiled as I sent back a text. The answer would always be yes.
I covered the bowl with a towel and rinsed the flour off my hands. The kitchen was a mess, but I didn’t bother cleaning it up as I walked barefoot out the screen door. Hunter’s truck wasn’t in the driveway yet, but I made my way down from the back porch and out to the dock.
My stuff was still scattered across the weathered pine from earlier.
My towel was bunched at the foot of the chair, book splayed open and face down where I’d left it.
I’d been out here most of the day, moving only when the sun became too much to get the sour dough started for dinner.
Summer was winding down, and I wasn’t ready to let it go.
Darlin’ Delights had been good lately, better than good. Sutton had grown into her place there, and I couldn’t do it without her. Plus, she’d convinced me to hire her childhood friend who just moved to Willow Grove, and the three of us worked together as if we’d always done it.
And I’d managed to take more time off.
I pulled my hair up in a messy knot as I padded out onto the dock. It creaked beneath my weight, shifting on top of the water, and I adjusted my bikini top as I looked out over the lake.
Hunter and I had moved in here only a couple months ago, and everything about it still stole my breath.
Some days I caught myself just standing at the kitchen window, palms pressed to the sink, trying to believe this was all real.
Beyond the dock, the water stretched out wide and shimmering in the sunlight, and past it the mountains rose against the sky.
Pastures rolled out in every direction around the house, the grass gone gold at the tips from the long summer.
I closed my eyes for a moment and breathed in slowly. A breeze came up off the lake, cool against the heat of my skin, and the water lapped against the dock.
But then the dock rocked and swayed beneath me.
My eyes snapped open, and I turned to find Hunter behind me. He changed out of his work clothes, and instead, he stood there wearing a black T-shirt that I loved, and his old black Stetson shading his eyes. He was so damn handsome it was almost unfair.
“Hey, Sunshine.” His voice was soft as he took another step toward me.
“Hi.” My voice trembled as I searched his face, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.
Hunter just watched me, one corner of his mouth tipping up into the kind of smile that made my knees go weak, all lazy charm but with an edge that made my chest tight.
He walked toward me slowly, his eyes never leaving mine, and the dock shifting beneath his boots.
“What are you doing?”
He stopped inches away from me, and he reached out, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. His knuckles brushed my jaw, so gently that it made it hard to breathe.
“I’ve been thinking about this all day.” He said it so quietly, and my heart did a stutter-step before slamming into a full sprint.
“Thinking about what?” I asked as his knuckles drifted low and splayed across my neck, thumb pressing gently against the ridge of my jaw.
“You,” he said in a low rumble that I felt everywhere.
My body went soft and tight at the same time, a flare of want ricocheting through my chest. The world narrowed to his hands on me, his eyes pinning me in place.
“You changed everything I ever wanted,” Hunter whispered, voice thick and raw, and his hand trembled against me. “Sunshine, I spent my entire life on this land, but it didn’t feel like home until you.”
He shifted, never breaking eye contact, bending low and dropping to one knee right there on the dock, the movement making the whole world tilt under me. My breath caught. My pulse battered at my throat, wild and terrified and alive.
I stared down at him, at this beautiful, infuriating man kneeling at my feet. There was nothing soft about the set of his jaw or the way his eyes locked on mine, but his hands were gentle as they wrapped around mine, steadying me.
Hunter reached into his back pocket, and the sun caught his eyes, making the brown burn honey-warm. My breath hitched, and I had to fight the urge to drop straight to the dock beside him.
“Maggie.” His voice vibrated right through my ribs. “I’ve loved you so damn long it doesn’t make sense to ever stop.”
His thumb traced up the inside of my wrist, and I couldn’t breathe.
“I know I’m a lot to handle most days, but I want every one of them with you. The good. The bad. The days when you’re grumpy, covered in flour, and ready to kill me. And the one’s where you look at me like maybe I’m your whole world.”
My hands trembled in his, and there was nothing I could do to stop them.
“Because you are my whole word, Maggie Dawson, and I want you forever.”
He fumbled the little box open, hands unsteady, and for a second neither of us breathed. The sunlight caught against the ring as he pulled it out, and I stared down at the gold band with a single pear diamond.
“Marry me, Sunshine.” He held up the ring in his shaking fingers. “Be my wife. Become Maggie Calloway and let me love you forever.”
I stared down at him, this man who’d torn me apart and put me back together in ways I never saw coming.
“Hunter,” I whispered, my breath stuttering so hard I wasn’t sure he heard me.
“Marry me, Maggie.”
“Yes.” The word rushed out. “Yes, of course I will.”
I dropped to my knees in front of him, and his hands wrapped around me, hauling me into him until there was no space between us. He kissed me like he was starving for it, and I clung to his shoulders as his hat tumbled off somewhere behind him.
The dock rocked under us, but he kept me caged against his chest, mouth never leaving mine, teeth nipping at my lower lip. I clawed at his shoulders, desperate for more of him.
He pressed me down to the sun-warmed wood, his body caging me in, the rough scrape of his stubble burning my jaw as he kissed me like he could brand his name across my tongue. His hands fisted at my sides, reckless and shaking, and I couldn’t get a breath. I didn’t want one. All I wanted was him.
“Hunter,” I gasped, pulling him into me, and grinding my hips up against his.
“Fuck, Sunshine.” He caught my wrist, pinning it over my head. “You’re killing me.”
His other hand came up, and I felt him slide the ring on my finger. The metal was warm from his skin, and it settled against me as if it had always been meant to be there. I blinked at my hand, at the way my knuckles trembled as I lifted it in front of me.
Hunter brushed his fingers along my jaw, letting them drag down my neck to my collarbone, featherlight but somehow possessive as hell.
“I love you,” he said as his hand trailed over the swell of my breast. “I will spend a lifetime loving you.”
He slid a hand around my back and pulled me up until my chest pressed firmly against his.
“I love you too, Hunter.”
Something darker and hungrier shifted in his eyes. His fingers found the top tie of my bikini and tugged it loose with devastating slowness.
“Good,” he said, voice dropping to something low and rough that pooled heat straight to my core. He watched the fabric fall and ran his tongue over his bottom lip. “Because I’ve been thinking about what I’m going to do to you once you were my fiancée for the last year.”
The word fiancée made my thighs tighten around him, and he palmed my breast, thumb circling my nipple until I bit back a whimper.
“And you’re going to let me, aren’t you?” His gaze lifted to mine.
“Yes,” I breathed and felt the word leave me like I was setting something down I’d carried for a long time. “I’m yours.”