Epilogue #2
Silas didn’t even fight. He just held still while Portia tied his blindfold, and the look on his face—beneath the fabric—felt like devotion made visible.
When the last blindfold was secured, Portia clapped once.
“All right,” she announced. “Gentlemen, you’re being transported. You will not ask questions. You will not attempt escape. You will trust the women who love you.”
“Hostage situation,” Levi muttered.
“Absolutely,” Amelia said cheerfully.
We herded them toward the waiting vehicles with the kind of laughter that made the air feel lighter than it had in weeks.
And when we finally boarded the private plane at the airstrip, the men moved carefully—hands out, bodies tense, the occasional muttered threat of revenge.
Micah sat beside me with his blindfold on, one hand already covering my thigh like it was instinct.
“Joy,” he said lowly, “if someone touches you on this plane—”
“Nobody’s touching me,” I interrupted, amused. “Except you. Later.”
His breath hitched like my words had done something to him, anyway.
Good.
I leaned closer and kissed the corner of his mouth. “Trust me.”
“I do,” he said immediately, like it cost him nothing. Like it was automatic.
And that nearly broke me.
The engines rumbled. The plane began to move.
Somewhere up front, Sloane shouted, “This is the most unhinged girls’ trip in history!”
Hallie Mae laughed, then immediately winced and pressed a hand to her belly.
Noah’s voice—muffled through his blindfold—cut in from two rows up. “Hallie Mae?”
“She’s fine!” Sloane called. “She’s just incubating the heir.”
Hallie Mae threw a pillow. “Hush.”
The plane lifted.
That moment—wheels leaving ground—always felt like a tiny death.
A letting go.
A surrender to gravity’s opposite.
Today, it felt like possibility.
Micah’s hand tightened on my thigh at takeoff. He pretended he didn’t need the grounding. I pretended I believed him.
Once we leveled out, the cabin settled into a hum—laughter, whispers, silk rustling, Portia moving down the aisle checking on everyone like the world’s most glamorous flight attendant.
I watched Micah beside me.
Blindfolded.
Still.
Dangerous even while seated.
But softer, too, in the way his fingers kept stroking my skin in small, unconscious circles.
I thought of Deveaux Bank.
Of lantern light.
Of the words Because I am your mother and the way they had detonated inside me.
I thought of the questions I’d asked—What was wrong with me? Why wasn’t I enough?—and how humiliating it had felt to speak them out loud.
And I thought of my momma on the porch, telling me my name like it was a promise.
Joy.
A gift.
Chosen.
Every day.
I swallowed hard, then reached into my bag and pulled out the velvet box.
Micah’s hand paused.
“What’s that?” he asked.
My heart beat so loud I was sure the whole plane could hear it.
“You have to keep the blindfold on,” I whispered.
His mouth quirked. “You’re bossy today.”
“Yes,” I said, voice trembling. “And you like it.”
A low sound escaped him—approval disguised as a breath.
I opened the box.
Inside was the ring.
Simple. Perfect. Not flashy. A stone that caught the cabin light like it had been waiting for this moment.
I’d picked it myself.
Not because I didn’t want him to choose for me.
But because I wanted to choose, too.
Because my life had started with someone else making a choice for me—giving me up, handing me over, deciding my fate without asking my consent.
And I loved my parents for choosing me afterward.
But this—
This was my choice.
Micah shifted slightly. “Joy …”
I reached for his hand.
His palm was warm. Steady.
“I know this is ridiculous,” I whispered. “But I—”
“Joy,” he said again, softer this time.
I took a breath.
“I’ve spent my whole life being careful,” I said. “Being good. Being steady. Being low-risk. And then you showed up and you—” My voice cracked. “You woke me up.”
His fingers curled around mine like he was holding on.
“I love you,” I whispered. “And I don’t want to do life without you in it.”
He went very still.
I could feel him listening—not just hearing, but listening, the way he did when he wanted to memorize.
“I picked a ring,” I confessed, voice small. “Because I didn’t want to wait. Because I wanted to ask you. Because I’m tired of leaving my life in other people’s hands.”
My throat tightened.
“Micah Dane,” I whispered, “will you marry me?”
The silence that followed was so complete it felt like the plane itself paused midair.
Then Micah exhaled—slow, shaky, like something inside him had just given way.
“Baby …” he murmured, voice rough. “Yes.”
A sob threatened. I laughed instead—wet, bright, overwhelmed.
“Yes?” I asked, because I needed to hear it again.
“Yes,” he repeated, firmer. “Yes. A thousand times yes.”
I pressed my forehead to his shoulder, breathing him in.
Then he added, low and fiercely stubborn, “But I’m picking you a ring, too.”
I lifted my head. “Micah—”
“I’m not letting you take that from me,” he said, blindfold still on, but I could feel his eyes, anyway. “I want to choose for you. I want to put something on your finger that says mine in a way the whole world can see.”
My chest squeezed.
I smiled through tears. “Okay.”
His thumb brushed my knuckles. “Okay?”
I laughed softly. “Okay. I’ll wear two.”
A sound came out of him—half laugh, half groan.
“You’re going to ruin me,” he murmured.
“I already have,” I said.
I slipped the ring onto my own finger—but I used his hands to help me do it, guiding his fingers over mine so he could feel it settle there. So he could be part of it.
Even without seeing it, he stilled. Then he turned my hand over and kissed my palm like it was sacred.
Around us, the women started noticing.
Portia appeared at my row like a shark sensing blood in the best possible way.
“What did you do?” she whispered, eyes wide.
I held up my empty velvet box.
Portia’s face split into pure joy. “Oh, my God. You did it!”
She spun away, hissed something to Isabel, who hissed something to Claire, who made a sound that could’ve been a squeal or a threat.
Within thirty seconds, the entire cabin was buzzing.
And somewhere behind us, one of the blindfolded men—probably Levi—said, “Why does it suddenly feel like we’re about to be ambushed by you ladies?”
Amelia’s voice floated back, sweet as poison. “Because you are.”
Micah squeezed my hand.
“You okay?” he murmured.
I looked at him—blindfolded, dangerous, mine.
“I’m more than okay,” I whispered. “I’m … becoming.”
Hours later, when the plane descended into Montana and the sky opened up into endless blue, the men were still blindfolded.
They grumbled more now, restless and suspicious, but the women were unwavering.
We loaded into vehicles. We drove.
The ranch came into view like a memory made real—wide land, mended fences, cabins in the distance that Portia had arranged for guests, strings of lights already twinkling like someone had captured stars and hung them up on purpose.
And the moment the blindfolds came off—
The moment the Montana Danes saw where they were—
They went so still, it was almost terrifying.
Caleb’s breath left him in a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh.
Jacob’s eyes went glassy immediately.
Ethan turned his face away like he hated anyone seeing him feel.
Lucas whispered Lexi’s name like it was a lifeline.
Gideon’s jaw worked like he was holding back something too big.
Levi just stared, stunned, like the land itself had reached out and grabbed him.
Micah—my Micah—stood frozen beside me, eyes locked on the ranch like he was suddenly eight years old again.
Then Portia stepped forward.
“We brought you home,” she said simply.
And then she did what she always did—she made it bigger than logistics.
She honored their mother.
Lila’s name was spoken out loud, not as tragedy, but as belonging. As foundation.
And Caroline’s name, too—because the Charleston Danes were here, every one of them, standing with their wives, holding grief like a shared language.
Fourteen brothers under the same sky.
Two mothers remembered.
A family finally knit together not by secrecy, but by choice.
Byron’s gifts were waiting in the lodge—each item placed like an offering. When the men saw them, something shattered and healed at the same time.
Micah held Lila’s leather bracelet in his hands for a long time without speaking.
Then he turned to me, eyes wet, and said, hoarse, “He remembered.”
“He did,” I whispered.
The weddings happened like a dream—six ceremonies braided into one celebration, vows spoken under big Montana sky, flowers from Charleston blooming against rugged land like proof that love could travel and still root.
My parents were there, overseeing every stem like it mattered, because it did. Cassie cried. Lily tried to throw petals at everyone. Mason and Bo looked suspiciously proud and pretended they weren’t.
And somewhere in the middle of it, while everyone was focused on the six couples, I held my own secret close.
Because I was going to be the seventh.
I’d already chosen the dress—hidden away where Micah couldn’t find it.
Micah had told me once that control was safety.
I intended to give him something else.
A surprise that felt like home.
A yes that didn’t require him to fight for it.
When it was time, the world narrowed to the space between us.
I stepped forward in my wedding dress—soft white fabric catching the Montana light, skirts whispering around my legs—and I saw it all happen on his face.
The confusion first, then recognition, then something like awe cracking straight through his composure.
His breath hitched hard enough that I felt it across the distance, like the sight of me had knocked the air from his lungs.
“Joy,” he breathed, like my name was a prayer.
He forgot where he was. Forgot there were people watching. Forgot that he was a man who’d faced gunfire without flinching. His eyes tracked every step I took, like if he looked away I might disappear.