Epilogue
SOPHIE
Ilearned the rhythm of Dominion Hall faster than I expected.
The place had its own heartbeat—quiet in the mornings, purposeful by midday, laughter echoing off stone in the evenings when the wives gathered in the long kitchen like we’d all known each other for years.
It didn’t feel intimidating anymore. It felt lived in. Alive.
Home, in a way I hadn’t predicted.
Wyatt and I were still in the suite they’d given him—our suite now.
We’d started looking at houses around Charleston, small ones with porches and oak trees and space for a dog we hadn’t adopted yet but both knew we eventually would.
Still, every night we ended up back in that room with the framed photograph by the window—him, me, and Jonesy smiling like the world had never learned how to break people.
And every night, we touched.
That was the thing I hadn’t anticipated.
We’d always been physical as kids—shoving shoulders, tugging sleeves, leaning into each other during movies—but this was different.
Now, if we were in the same room, we found each other without thinking.
A hand at my waist while I chopped vegetables.
My fingers brushing his back when I passed him in a hallway.
His thumb hooked in my belt loop while we talked to someone else, like he needed proof I was still there.
We were physical touch people.
We’d always been physical touch people.
We just hadn’t known what it meant before.
The wives noticed, of course. They teased us gently, but there was recognition in their smiles, too—like they’d all gone through the same discovery at some point.
Natalie called it “Dane gravity.” Isabel said it was just what happened when two stubborn people finally stopped pretending they were only friends.
The brothers had folded Wyatt in faster than he’d expected.
Faster than I had expected. I’d watched him shift from guarded to amused to genuinely relaxed as he learned their rhythms, their jokes, their stories.
The half-brother thing became less of a shock and more of an expansion—like someone had added rooms to a house he hadn’t realized he owned.
And me?
They treated me like I’d always been there.
Ethan—Mayor Natalie Dane’s husband—let me ride Flapjack twice.
Flapjack was enormous and gentle and deeply unimpressed with human drama.
The Dominion Hall stables had become one of my favorite places to wander in the late afternoons, the smell of hay and leather grounding in a way city air never quite was.
Wyatt had been gone for a few days. Texas.
Visiting his mom, checking on things at the ranch in Valentine, handling loose ends he’d put off for too long.
He’d called every night, voice softer than usual, telling me about sunsets and fence lines and how his mother had smiled when he showed her my picture again.
“She remembers you,” he’d said. “Not perfectly. But she remembers you.”
I’d held the phone to my chest after we hung up, heart full and aching at the same time.
He was supposed to be back that afternoon.
I was at my new job when I heard the commotion.
Not loud—just … different. The kind of energy shift that made heads turn before brains caught up.
I was standing near the front entrance of the city building, reviewing a schedule with one of the outreach coordinators, when the security guard’s eyebrows shot up and a smile split his face like he’d just witnessed something straight out of a movie.
I stepped outside.
And there he was. My man.
Black cowboy hat. Crisp white shirt. Belt buckle glinting in the sun—the one I’d had etched with Valentine, TX.
Sitting tall in the saddle of a grulla horse, slate-gray coat dusted with silver like the Lowcountry light had settled into him on purpose.
Dark mane, dark points, steady as stone.
The kind of horse that looked born knowing where he belonged.
The reins hung loose in Wyatt’s hands, easy and sure, like he trusted the world not to betray him now—and knew exactly who he was riding toward.
My breath left me in a rush.
He looked unfairly good up there—familiar and entirely new at the same time. All Texas confidence and quiet authority.
The hat shadowed his eyes just enough to make his gaze dangerous, the belt buckle catching the sun when he shifted in the saddle. His shoulders were relaxed, posture loose, like he belonged anywhere he decided to stand—or sit astride a horse in the middle of Charleston.
There was a swagger to him now that hadn’t been there when we were kids. A knowing. The kind of presence that made space without asking for it.
He swung down with easy grace, boots hitting pavement, hat tipped low for half a second before he lifted his gaze to find me.
And then he smiled.
Not a careful smile. Not the restrained, guarded one he sometimes wore with other people.
This was the full, unfiltered version—the one that lit up his whole face and made his eyes crinkle at the corners like he couldn’t help himself.
The one he’d always saved for me, even when we were kids and the world was smaller and simpler and all he had to do was see me to feel better.
It was the same smile that used to greet me at the end of hot afternoons and long summers, like my presence alone was enough to make something in him settle.
I loved that smile.
“His name’s Dusty,” Wyatt said, patting the horse’s neck. “Felt right.”
“Of course,” I whispered, already grinning too wide to control it.
Dusty.
The name landed with a soft, electric familiarity—like the worn wooden floor under my boots that night in North Charleston, neon buzzing, music loud enough to drown out everything except the way Wyatt’s hand had found mine. Our first kiss. Dusty’s honky tonk. The moment everything had shifted.
“He’s from the Cuthberts back home at the ranch,” Wyatt added, walking toward me. “Figured if Flapjack gets Charleston, Dusty should, too.”
People had stopped. Not in a gawking way. In a this is adorable and we’re emotionally invested now way.
I thought of Natalie and Ethan telling us the story over dinner one night—about the flood, about Ethan riding Flapjack straight through downtown when the streets were underwater, about how he’d gone looking for her because, apparently, Dane men didn’t believe in waiting for updates.
How someone took video. How it went viral. How national news outlets ran with it.
Natalie had laughed when she told me the details, but she’d also shrugged like this was just the kind of thing that happened when a man in this family loved you.
Wyatt reached me, took my hands, and for a second it was just us. No city. No onlookers. Just the steady warmth of his palms and the familiar pull in my chest that said this is mine.
“I missed you,” he said quietly.
“You were gone four days,” I murmured.
“Too long.”
Then he dropped to one knee.
My brain stalled.
His hat tipped back slightly, sun catching the edges of his smile, and the ring in his hand caught the light like a promise already made.
“Sophie Clarke,” he said, eyes warm and certain. “You’ve felt like home to me since we were kids. I just didn’t have the words for it back then. I don’t want a life where we keep finding our way back to each other—I want one where we stay.”
My eyes burned.
“I don’t need perfect timing,” he continued. “I don’t need perfect circumstances. I just need you. Will you marry me?”
“Yes,” I said before he’d even finished the last word. “Yes.”
He slid the ring onto my finger, stood, and kissed me like the world had just righted itself.
There was cheering. Laughter. Someone whistled. Dusty flicked an ear like he approved.
Wyatt didn’t let go of my hands. Instead, he drew me closer, forehead brushing mine, and started to sway—slow and easy—right there on the sidewalk with a horse, a crowd, and absolutely no music at all.
He leaned in and hummed softly against my ear, low and warm, some half-remembered tune that felt more like feeling than melody. I laughed once, breathless, and followed his lead without thinking. We moved together, unguarded, like we’d done this a hundred times before.
I flashed back to my first night in Charleston—to standing on the edges of things, watching people dance easily, freely, wishing I knew how to exist in my body like that. Wishing I belonged to the motion instead of observing it.
And now I was.
Dancing in the street. Being held. Engaged to be married. Letting myself be seen.
I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around it—this life, this joy, this man humming into my ear like the world wasn’t watching.
I loved that this was my life.
We rode back to Dominion Hall together, me in front of him in the saddle, his arms bracketing mine, the rhythm of the horse steady and sure beneath us.
The wives met us at the stables, already hugging me before my feet touched the ground.
The brothers clapped Wyatt on the back like he’d just won something he’d been chasing for years.
I suppose he had.
That night, in the suite, the world quieted again.
He set his hat on the dresser. I picked it up.
He smiled. “You look good in that.”
“You’re biased.”
He stepped closer, fingers sliding along my waist. “Put it on.”
I did.
He exhaled slowly, eyes darkening. “Actually,” he murmured, voice rough with heat, “I want to see you in nothing but the hat.”
A shiver raced down my spine, warm and electric. I nodded, my pulse already quickening as his hands moved to the hem of my shirt, lifting it slowly over my head.