34. Billie #2
This was my family now. These people who had loved me when I was a heartbroken teenager, who had welcomed me back with such joy, who had supported us through every step of healing and falling in love again.
I turned to share this feeling with Gage, but his spot on the couch was empty. I looked around the room, but he'd vanished as quietly as he'd always been able to do.
I knew immediately where he'd gone.
"I'll be right back," I told Delaney, stepping outside into the crisp Christmas morning air.
I found him at the pasture fence, offering apple slices to Bullet while the horse listened with the kind of patient attention that only animals seemed capable of.
"...and she actually said yes," Gage was saying, his voice filled with wonder. "Can you believe it, boy? After everything I put her through, she still wants to marry me."
Bullet nickered softly and nudged Gage's shoulder, as if congratulating him.
"I know you understand," Gage continued, stroking the horse's neck. "You helped me find my way back to my family, and now look at us."
I leaned against the fence post, my heart swelling as I watched the man I was going to marry share his joy with the horse who'd helped him heal.
"He's a good listener," I said softly.
Gage turned, his face lighting up when he saw me. "Sorry, I just... I needed to tell him."
"Of course you did." I slipped my arms around his waist, breathing in the familiar scent of him mixed with winter air and happiness. "He's part of your healing journey."
"Our journey," Gage corrected, pulling me closer. "I wish we could take him with us to the house, but I know he belongs here."
"He does," Booker's voice came from behind us, making us both turn. He was walking toward the fence with his own cup of coffee, Reece beside him bundled in a thick coat. "And I think he's found his own reason to stay."
We all looked toward the paddock, where a beautiful chestnut mare with a white blaze was standing at the fence line, clearly waiting for Bullet's attention.
"That's Spirit," Reece explained with a knowing smile. "She's one of our rescue mares. They've been inseparable since she arrived. I think Bullet's found his own happy ending."
As if he understood, Bullet gave Gage one last gentle nudge, then trotted across the paddock to Spirit, who greeted him with a soft whicker and began grooming his neck.
"Looks like he's exactly where he belongs," Gage said, his voice thick with emotion.
"We all are," Booker said simply.
"Ready to go home?" Gage asked softly, his breath warm against my ear.
Home. Our house. The life we were building together.
"More than ready," I said, and meant it completely.
As we said our goodbyes and gathered our gifts, baby Barrett in Gage's arms reaching for my ring one more time, I felt a completeness I'd never experienced before. This was what love looked like when it had room to grow. This was what family felt like when everyone chose to stay.
"Merry Christmas, fiancée," Gage said as we headed toward his truck.
"Merry Christmas, future husband."
And walking toward our truck with my hand in his, surrounded by the warmth and chaos and perfect imperfection of the family we'd chosen and who had chosen us back, I knew that some promises really were strong enough to survive anything.
Even the ones we thought we'd broken.
Epilogue Gage
The dining room table we'd finally assembled last weekend was barely big enough for our entire family, but somehow we'd managed to squeeze everyone around it.
Baby Barrett dozed peacefully in Delaney's arms, occasionally making soft baby noises that made everyone pause their conversations to smile at him.
"Pass the rolls," Cade said, reaching across Xander to grab the basket before anyone could respond.
"Manners," Blake reminded him, but she was laughing.
"Please pass the rolls," Cade corrected with exaggerated politeness, making Amelia giggle and clap her sticky hands.
I looked around the table at the chaos and felt that familiar surge of gratitude that still caught me off guard sometimes.
Six months ago, I'd been convinced I didn't deserve to be part of this family.
Now here I was, hosting Sunday dinner in the house that Billie and I had always dreamed of building a life in together, watching my nephew learn table manners while my fiancée helped Reece plan seating charts for Trace and Delaney's summer wedding.
"So we're thinking August fifteenth," Delaney was saying, gently adjusting Barrett in her arms as he stirred slightly. "The weather should be perfect, and it gives us time to get everything organized."
"That's perfect timing," Billie said, making notes on the napkin she'd been using to sketch table arrangements. "It'll give us plenty of time to help with planning, and then we can think about our own wedding afterward."
"Speaking of which," Blake said, pointing her fork at us, "you two need to start making some decisions. I know you want to wait, but if you're thinking fall or next spring, we need to start planning now."
"We want to give Delaney and Trace their moment," Billie said, squeezing my hand. "Their wedding should be the focus this summer."
"That's very sweet," Reece said with a grin, "but Blake's right about timing. Good vendors book up fast, even in small towns."
"Not if they get married at the swimming hole," Xander added, making Billie and me both blush.
"Who said anything about the swimming hole?" Billie protested.
"Oh please," Blake said. "Like you're going to get married anywhere else. That's where your love story started, and it's literally in your backyard now."
I glanced at the empty chair at the end of the table, at the spot I'd set for Dex even though he'd told me he couldn't make it. Again.
"I wish Dex could have been here," Billie said softly, following my gaze.
"He said he had plans," I said, trying to keep the frustration out of my voice.
I'd talked to Dex twice since Christmas, taken him out for drinks like I'd promised, but he'd brushed off every attempt to get him to open up.
Insisted he was fine, just busy with work, nothing to worry about.
But when I'd invited him to our first family dinner at the house, he'd made some excuse about having other commitments.
"I'm getting really worried about him," I said, voicing what we were all thinking. "He's not himself."
"That's what we're worried about," Booker said gruffly. "He's been pulling away from all of us."
"I'll try talking to him again," I said, though I wasn't sure what good it would do. Dex had always been stubborn when he decided to shut people out.
"Good," Jasper said from his spot at the head of the table, but his voice sounded strained. "Family takes care of family."
I looked at my father, because that's what he was again, finally, after years of being a stranger.
There was something off with him as well.
I could see the tension in his shoulders and the way he kept fidgeting with his napkin.
We'd spent so much time together recently that I could read him as well as I could any of my brothers.
It still amazed me sometimes, having him back in our lives.
The man who'd shut himself away for so many years, who'd been too broken by his own grief and guilt to see what Regina was doing to us, was now here at our dinner table, asking about our engagement, sharing in our joy.
The divorce had been finalized last year, and while the wounds from our childhood would take time to fully heal, we were building something new. Something better.
He'd been fighting to prove himself ever since he'd finally opened his eyes to what our family had become without him.
He helped with the house renovation, babysat Barrett when Trace and Delaney needed a break, even made sure to stay connected through our family group chat, sending awkward but heartfelt messages about how proud he was of us.
But I could still see the uncertainty in his eyes sometimes, like he was waiting for us to decide we didn't need him after all.
We did need him. Maybe not the way we'd needed a father when we were children, but we needed the man he was becoming. The grandfather Cade, Barrett, and Amelia deserved. The father-in-law who'd already started treating Billie like the daughter he'd never had.
"Everything okay, Dad?" I asked.
Jasper cleared his throat and set down his fork, suddenly looking nervous. "Actually, there's something I wanted to talk to you all about."
The table went quiet except for Barrett's happy babbling.
"What's wrong?" Trace asked, immediately on alert.
"Nothing's wrong," Jasper said quickly. "It's just... Caroline and I have been talking, and she'd like to bring Leigh to visit Willowbrook. Next month, for a couple of months."
The silence stretched long enough that even Barrett seemed to sense the shift in mood, his babbling trailing off as he looked around with curious eyes.
"They want to meet you boys," Jasper continued, his voice gaining strength. "All of you. She... they know about our family now, about how we've been rebuilding, and they'd like to be part of it. If you're willing."
Booker was the first to break the silence, his voice characteristically blunt. "Why wouldn't we want to meet our sister?"
Relief flooded Jasper's face. "I wasn't sure how you'd feel about..."
"She's family," Trace said simply. "Of course we want to meet her."
"And Caroline," I added, surprising myself with how much I meant it. "They're both welcome here."
"What's Leigh like?" Cade asked with the straightforward curiosity only kids possessed. "How old is she? Does she like horses? Can she ride a quad bike?"
Jasper's smile was the first genuine one I'd seen from him all evening. "She's twenty-eight, and she's a photographer. A very successful one. According to Caroline, she's been asking about the ranch ever since she found out about it. Thinks it would make beautiful subjects for her work."
"She can meet Bullet," Cade said decisively. "And Val. And all the rescue horses. I bet she'd love the foals."
"I'm sure she would," Jasper said, his voice thick with emotion.
"This is wonderful," Billie said, squeezing my hand. "Our family's getting bigger."
As the conversation swirled around wedding plans and visit logistics, I felt that familiar amazement at how much my life had changed.
A year ago, I'd been alone and broken, convinced I didn't deserve any of this.
Now I was sitting at the head of my own dinner table, engaged to the woman I'd loved since I was seventeen, surrounded by family who'd never given up on me.
"You okay?" Billie asked softly, noticing my quiet observation.
"Perfect," I said, bringing her hand to my lips to kiss her engagement ring. "Absolutely perfect."
Outside, snow was starting to fall again, blanketing Willowbrook in the kind of peaceful quiet that made everything feel possible.
Inside, my family was loud and messy and completely perfect, planning futures and sharing news and filling our house with the kind of love I'd spent eleven years running from.
But I wasn't running anymore. This was home. Not just the house I'd restored with my own hands, but the people filling it with laughter and love and the promise of more good things to come.
Tomorrow I'd try calling Dex again, even though he'd probably brush me off like he had the last few times. Next month we'd welcome Caroline and Leigh into our family with open arms. This summer we'd celebrate Trace and Delaney's wedding.
And someday soon, when the timing felt right, Billie and I would have our own wedding at the swimming hole where our love story began and where it had almost ended eleven years ago, surrounded by all the people who'd helped us find our way back to each other.
But tonight, I was content to sit at our dinner table in the house we'd built with our own hands, surrounded by the family who'd helped us heal and the woman who'd never stopped believing in us. This was what happiness looked like—messy, loud, and absolutely perfect.
This was home. This was forever. This was everything I'd never dared to hope for, and somehow, impossibly, it was mine.