Epilogue Dusty
Six Months Later
Cam had set up her office for the day on the picnic table right outside the back door of the Big House. She was on her laptop, totally focused on what she was doing, so she didn’t hear or see me walk up to her. A few months ago, Cam left her firm in Jackson Hole and started running the administrative and logistics back end of Rebel Blue Ranch’s new horse sanctuary. Her legal background made her a godsend with all the nonprofit forms and requirements. She was great at fielding rescue requests and fundraising for veterinary care. Plus, since I did the actual horse parts of the horse sanctuary—taking care of them once they got here—I got the best co-worker out of the deal.
“Hey,” I said with a kiss on top of her head. She jumped a little, surprised.
“Hi,” she said, looking up at me with a smile. “What are you doing here already?”
“It’s three-thirty, angel. We gotta go.”
Her brown eyes widened, and she checked the clock in the corner of her laptop. “Oh my god,” she said. “How did that happen?”
“What are you working on?” I nodded toward her laptop.
“There’s a bunch of old rodeo horses from Cody that ended up in a kill pen. Amos wants them, so I’m trying to figure out how to get them here.”
“Do we need to postpone?” I asked, rubbing the back of her neck with one of my hands. I felt her relax and lean into my touch.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Give me a few minutes, and I’ll meet you at the truck.”
I nodded. I leaned down to kiss her. I still couldn’t believe I got to do this all the time, after all these years. “You got it, wife.” I kissed her again, and I felt her smile against my mouth.
“I love you,” I said when I pulled myself away.
“I love you, too.”
Cam and I got married at the courthouse last week—just the two of us and Riley. I asked her a million times if she wanted a big wedding, or any sort of wedding at all, and she said no every time. I asked her again last week, and she said that she wanted to get married right then.
I’d been waiting to marry her for fifteen years, so I said hell yeah. Every part of it was simple and intimate and perfect. We hadn’t told anyone yet, and luckily, the clerk at the courthouse was new in town, so he probably didn’t know about his unofficial duty to keep the ladies at the post office informed of everything inside the court walls.
Emmy and Luke were getting married—finally—next week, so we would tell them after. Or they would probably figure it out after we completed the task we were headed to do today.
—
When we walked through the front door of the tattoo parlor, Shannon was waiting for us. “You’re late,” he said, but he was smiling.
Every time I walked in to this place, I was catapulted back to that hot summer day, when two kids who loved each other made a stupid but badass decision together. And lucky for them, it ended up working out. It only took a few years, an unexpected pregnancy, a failed wedding, and traveling to five continents for it to do so.
“We’re two minutes late,” I said with an eye roll.
“Still late,” he said, but then crossed the lobby to hug each of us. “You guys ready?”
“So ready,” Cam said, then she looked over at me. “Are you?”
“I’ve been ready for fifteen years, angel.” I leaned over and kissed her temple. Every time I touched her, she leaned into me like there was some sort of magnetic pull between us. It pulled us together through time and space. It brought us here, and it would take us through the rest of our lives.
When Cam’s eyes were on me, all I wanted to do was kiss her. So I did.
Shannon cleared his throat. “Y’all are worse now than you were when you were teenagers,” he grumbled. “Whoever’s first go sit in the chair. I don’t have all day.”
Cam laughed when I pulled away. Her cheeks were red. I wanted to kiss those, too. “I’ll go first,” she said, and I raised my eyebrows at her. “What?” she asked. “You went first last time.”
Hand in hand, we walked toward Shannon’s tattoo booth. Cam took the tattoo chair, and I took the one next to it on her right side, so I could still hold on to her.
Shannon got his stencil ready—a simple black line—and wrapped it around Cam’s ring finger. When he pulled off the stencil, I had a hard time swallowing. There it was, the thing that would be the physical manifestation of my promise to Cam.
A reminder that I was lucky enough that my first love also got to be my last.
Shannon turned on his tattoo gun, and Cam squeezed my hand she was holding when it met her skin.
“I’ve got you, Ash,” I said softly.
“Permanent?” she asked.
“Permanent,” I agreed. Then she pulled me toward her, so she could kiss the “A” tattoo on my neck, and my heart was filled to the brim with everything I felt for her. Camille Ashwood was the love of my life. I loved her with every part of me.
“I love you,” I said. Was I about to cry? From the way my eyes were welling up, I would say yes. “I’ll love you until we’re dust.”
“Until we’re dust,” Cam said back, and I kissed her again. God, I never wanted to stop kissing her.
“And even after.”