Epilogue
MARCELLA
One year.
The ranger station looks different now.
Not physically—Finn would never change the bones of this place, the careful structure he built to protect himself from the world.
But there are touches everywhere that weren’t here before.
A second coffee mug beside the French press.
Colorful throw pillows on the leather couch.
A professional camera charging on the kitchen counter next to my laptop, where I write blog posts about mountain cooking that have tripled my follower count.
Evidence of a life shared. Evidence of me.
“You’re staring at the furniture again.”
Finn’s voice comes from behind me, warm with amusement. I turn to find him leaning in the doorway, arms crossed, watching me with that almost-smile I’ve learned to look for.
“I’m appreciating the furniture,” I correct. “There’s a difference.”
“You’ve been appreciating it for twenty minutes.”
“It’s very good furniture.”
He crosses the room and wraps his arms around me from behind, chin resting on top of my head. We fit together perfectly—his height, my curves, the way his body brackets mine like I’m something precious worth protecting.
“Nervous?” he asks.
“About dinner? Please. I could make this meal in my sleep.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
I lean back into him, letting his warmth steady me. “A little,” I admit. “Moira’s bringing someone. She was very mysterious about it.”
“Moira’s always mysterious. It’s her thing.”
“And Coralyn’s never been here before. What if she hates it? What if she thinks I’ve lost my mind, moving to the middle of nowhere for a man I’ve known for a year?”
Finn turns me in his arms, tilting my chin up to meet his eyes. Those gray eyes that once seemed so cold, so guarded—now they’re soft. Open. Full of something I still can’t quite name, even after all this time.
“Coralyn flew across the country to see you happy,” he says. “She’s not going to hate anything.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know she’s called you every week for a year, asking for updates. I know she sent us that ridiculous housewarming gift when you officially moved in.” He pauses. “What was it again? The thing with the—”
“The mountain man bobblehead that looks nothing like you?”
“That’s the one.” His mouth twitches. “Anyone who sends that as a gift is not going to judge your life choices.”
I laugh despite myself. He’s right. Coralyn has been nothing but supportive since I called her from that hotel room and told her I was staying. She cried. I cried. Then she demanded to know when she could visit.
“Okay,” I say. “Okay. I’m being ridiculous.”
“Little bit.” He kisses my forehead. “But I love you anyway.”
The words still catch me off guard sometimes. He says them so easily now—not because the feeling is casual, but because he’s stopped fighting it. Stopped being afraid of it.
I haven’t said them back yet. Not once in the past year.
It’s not that I don’t feel it. God, I feel it—so much it scares me sometimes. But every time the words rise in my throat, something stops them. Some last, stubborn piece of self-protection that won’t let me be that vulnerable. That won’t let me hand someone that much power over me again.
Finn has never pushed. Never made me feel guilty for holding back. He just keeps saying it—in the morning when I hand him coffee, at night when we curl together in bed, in random moments throughout the day—and waits for me to be ready.
I wonder sometimes if I ever will be.
“Even when I’m being ridiculous?” I ask, deflecting like I always do.
“Especially then.”
The dinner is perfect.
I’ve outdone myself—braised short ribs (our dish, the one that started everything), roasted root vegetables, homemade bread from the recipe I taught Finn last year. The table is set with candles and cloth napkins and the good dishes we bought together at a craft fair in town.
Coralyn arrives first, bursting through the door like a small, enthusiastic tornado. She hugs me so hard I can’t breathe, then pulls back to examine my face with the intensity of a detective at a crime scene.
“You look happy,” she announces. “Like, disgustingly happy. It’s almost offensive.”
“I am happy.”
“Good.” She turns to Finn, who’s hovering near the kitchen with the expression of a man facing a firing squad. “And you. You’re the one who made her cry.”
“Cora—” I start.
“And then drove into town despite crippling social anxiety to win her back.” Coralyn studies him for a long moment, then nods sharply. “Acceptable. But if you hurt her again, I know people.”
“She doesn’t know people,” I assure Finn.
“I might know people. You don’t know my life.”
Finn’s mouth twitches. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Moira arrives twenty minutes later with her mysterious guest—a woman named Elissa who runs the bookshop in town and looks at Moira like she hung the moon. The two of them have apparently been dating for three months, which Moira neglected to mention until right this moment.
“Surprise?” Moira offers, grinning at Finn’s stunned expression.
“You could have told me.”
“And miss that face? Never.”
Dinner is chaotic in the best way—at least at first. Coralyn and Moira discover a shared love of terrible reality television and spend the first course debating which show is the most absurd. Elissa asks thoughtful questions about my blog and seems genuinely interested in the answers.
But I notice Finn getting quieter as the meal goes on. His hand finds mine under the table—not romantic, but grounding. I feel the slight tremor in his fingers.
Too many people. Too much noise. The ranger station has never held this many voices at once.
I squeeze his hand and lean close. “You okay?”
“Getting there.” But his jaw is tight, and he’s doing that thing where he counts his breaths without being obvious about it.
“Do you need a minute?”
He hesitates. A year ago, he would have said no. Would have pushed through until he couldn’t anymore, then retreated in a way that felt like rejection.
“Maybe,” he admits. “Just—five minutes.”
“I’ll cover for you.”
He squeezes my hand once—gratitude, apology, love all compressed into the pressure of his fingers—and slips away from the table. I watch him step out onto the porch, watch his shoulders drop as the cold air hits him.
“Is he okay?” Moira asks quietly, her eyes tracking her brother.
“He’s getting there. He just needs a minute.”
Coralyn looks toward the door, then back at me. “Does that happen a lot?”
“Sometimes. Less than it used to.” I take a sip of wine, keeping my voice casual. “He’s in therapy twice a month now. Learning to recognize when he’s hitting his limit instead of pushing through until he crashes.”
“That’s... really good, actually.” Coralyn’s expression softens. “It takes guts to admit you need help.”
“He’s the bravest person I know.” The words come out before I can stop them. “Not because he doesn’t get scared, but because he keeps trying anyway.”
Through the window, I can see Finn on the porch, hands braced on the railing, breathing in the cold mountain air. In a few minutes, he’ll come back inside. He’ll rejoin the conversation, maybe a little quieter than before, but present. Trying.
That’s what we do. We try. Every day, even when it’s hard.
Progress, not perfection—that’s what his therapist says. I’ve adopted it as our unofficial motto.
When Finn comes back in, his color is better. He catches my eye across the room and gives me a small nod. I’m okay.
I nod back. I know.
It’s a whole conversation in two seconds. The kind of shorthand you develop when you’ve learned someone’s rhythms, their tells, the topography of their damage.
The rest of dinner goes smoothly. Finn even laughs at one of Coralyn’s terrible jokes—that surprised, bright sound that still catches me off guard every time.
After dinner, Moira and Coralyn volunteer for dish duty with suspicious enthusiasm, shooing Finn and me out of the kitchen.
“Go,” Coralyn insists. “Show me the view or whatever. I need to interrogate Moira about this secret girlfriend situation.”
“I’m right here,” Elissa points out.
“Even better. Joint interrogation.”
Finn takes my hand and leads me out to the porch. The night is clear and cold, stars scattered across the sky like someone spilled diamonds on velvet. I can see my breath fogging in the air, but I don’t mind. I’ve gotten used to mountain cold.
“Better?” I ask.
“Much.” He wraps an arm around me, pulling me against his side. “Sorry about earlier.”
“Don’t apologize. You did exactly what you’re supposed to do—recognized the trigger, took a break, came back when you were ready.” I lean into him. “I’m proud of you.”
“For almost having a panic attack at our own dinner party?”
“For not having one. For asking for what you needed instead of pretending you were fine.”
He’s quiet for a moment. “A year ago, I would have just... left. Gone to the workshop. Let you make excuses for me.”
“I know.”
“You’ve been good for me.” His arm tightens around me. “You know that, right? Whatever happens, whatever comes next—you’ve made me better.”
Something in his voice makes my heart stutter. “That sounds ominous.”
“It’s not. At least, I hope it’s not.” He takes a breath—in for four, hold for four, out for four. I recognize the pattern. He’s nervous. “A year ago, you showed up at my door and turned my entire life upside down.”
“I prefer to think of it as right-side up.”
“Let me finish.” But he’s smiling now, that rare full smile that transforms his whole face.
“You were supposed to be a disaster. A stranger in my kitchen, an interruption to my carefully controlled existence. Instead, you were...” He shakes his head.
“You were everything. You saw me—the real me, not the broken veteran or the mountain hermit—and you didn’t run away. ”
“I tried to run away. You wouldn’t let me drive in a blizzard.”
“Marcella.”
“Sorry. Finishing.”
He reaches into his pocket, and my heart stops entirely.