Epilogue
T onya
One year later
I stood at my desk in the converted sunroom of our house, laptop open to three different client projects, my phone buzzing with another inquiry. Through the window, I could see Kevin checking the maple lines in preparation for the season's first run, his breath forming clouds in the cold air.
Mrs. Pike. Business owner. Wife.
The transformation still caught me off guard sometimes.
"Tonya?" Kevin's voice carried from the kitchen. "You eating lunch or just staring at that screen?"
"Eating!" I called back, saving my work. "Just finishing this proposal."
In the kitchen, Kevin had set out sandwiches and soup—a routine we'd fallen into over the past year. He worked mornings on the maple operation, I worked on my marketing business, and we met in the middle of the day to actually see each other.
"How many clients now?" he asked as I settled across from him.
"Twelve active, three in the pipeline. I had to turn down two inquiries this week. I'm at capacity." I took a bite of sandwich, still marveling at the reality. "The maple products campaign we ran in the fall brought in so much interest that half my clients are now other Vermont food producers."
"You're building an empire."
"I'm building a business," I corrected.
His smile told me he understood. This wasn't about empire or proving anything. It was about creating something that was mine, built on my skills and hard work.
My phone buzzed. Shane's name appeared on the screen.
"Are you sitting down?" he asked when I answered.
"Yes. Why?"
"I got a call from the county clerk this morning. Your grandmother's property is going to tax auction next month. Michael stopped paying taxes eight months ago."
My heart stuttered. "Tax auction?"
"Yep. He never paid this year's property taxes or last year's second installment.
Property's been in arrears long enough that the county's seizing it for unpaid taxes.
" Shane's voice carried satisfaction. "The minimum bid will probably be around fifteen thousand to cover the back taxes and fees.
Oh, and I heard through the grapevine he's engaged to some socialite in Manhattan.
Apparently moved on pretty quickly once he realized you weren't coming back. "
Good riddance, I thought but didn't say. Michael and his drama belonged to a different lifetime.
I looked at Kevin, who was watching my face intently. "Fifteen thousand?"
"What's going on?" Kevin asked.
I put Shane on speaker. "Say that again."
Shane repeated the information, adding details about auction dates and bidding procedures. When he finished, silence filled the kitchen.
"You could buy it back," Kevin said.
The thought sent something fierce and triumphant through my chest. Not the cottage that represented my escape or my proof of survival. But the cottage I'd buy back on my own terms, with money I'd earned through skills I'd developed, as a woman who didn't need it but chose to reclaim it anyway.
"I could," I said slowly.
"Should I register you for the auction?" Shane asked.
I looked at Kevin, searching his face for any sign this bothered him. Instead, I saw pride and understanding.
"What do you think?" I asked him.
"I think you should do whatever feels right to you." His hand covered mine on the table. "But I also think you've earned the right to take back what was stolen from you."
"It wasn't stolen. Michael acquired it legally."
"He manipulated you into signing documents you didn't understand, then used those signatures to take property that should have been yours." Kevin's voice was firm. "That's theft, even if it's legal theft. And now you get to take it back. Not because you need it, but because you can."
The distinction mattered. A year ago, I'd needed the cottage to prove I could survive. Now I wanted it because it was mine—my family history, my connection to a grandmother I wished I'd known better, my choice to reclaim what was taken.
"Register me," I told Shane.
The next month passed in a blur of preparation. I verified my business accounts, made sure I had liquid funds available, researched auction procedures. Kevin offered to lend me money if I needed it, but I declined. This needed to be mine, bought with money I'd earned, a symbol of how far I'd come.
The day of the auction, Kevin insisted on coming with me. We stood in the county courthouse with a handful of other bidders—mostly developers looking for cheap land.
"Lot forty-seven," the auctioneer announced. "Fifty acres, Burke Mountain, landlocked parcel with existing structure. Minimum bid fifteen thousand to cover back taxes and fees."
"Fifteen thousand," I said clearly.
A developer in the back raised his paddle. "Sixteen."
"Seventeen," I countered.
The bidding continued. Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty. At twenty-two thousand, the other bidders dropped out, probably realizing the access issue made it worthless for development.
"Twenty-two thousand going once... going twice..." The gavel came down. "Sold to bidder number twelve."
I'd done it. Bought back my grandmother's property with money I'd earned myself.
The paperwork took two weeks to finalize. When the deed arrived with my name—Tonya Pike—listed as sole owner, I sat at my desk and just stared at it.
"You okay?" Kevin asked, finding me there.
"I own it," I said. "Really own it. No debts, no creditor claims, no one who can take it away."
"So what are you going to do with it?"
I'd been thinking about that. "Shane would grant me an easement, right? Since I'm family now?"
"In a heartbeat."
"Then I want to finish renovating it. Make it what it was always meant to be—a place that's mine, that I built with my own hands, that represents everything I've overcome.
" I looked up at him. "Not to live in. The farmhouse is our home.
But as... I don't know. A retreat. A workshop.
A place that's mine the way your maple operation is yours. "
Understanding lit his eyes. "A place of your own."
"Not because I need distance from you," I clarified quickly. "But because—"
"Because you need something that's entirely yours," he finished. "I get it. I do."
That weekend, all four brothers showed up with tools and materials. We spent the day working on the cottage—replacing the damaged sections of roof we'd started a year ago, fixing windows, making it weatherproof for winter.
Standing in the space I'd fought for, lost, and reclaimed on my own terms, I felt something settle in my chest. Completion. Wholeness.
"You did it," Kevin said, coming up behind me to wrap his arms around my waist. "Built something lasting. Twice."
"We did it," I corrected. "I couldn't have gotten here without you. Without all of you."
"Maybe not," he agreed. "But you're the one who earned the money to buy it back. You're the one who built the business that made it possible. We just helped with the carpentry."
As darkness fell over our mountain, I thought about the journey that had brought me here. The broken-down car, the storm, the man who'd saved me. The cottage lost and reclaimed. The business built from nothing. The family forged by choice.
I'd come to Vermont running from one man's control, searching for independence I wasn't sure I could handle.
Instead, I'd found partnership. Built success. Reclaimed what was taken. Became the woman I'd always had the potential to be but never believed I could become.
The cottage sat waiting behind us, ready for whatever I chose to make of it. The farmhouse stood ahead, filled with the life Kevin and I were building together. And I had the freedom to choose between them, to claim both, to be whole in a way I'd never imagined possible.
"Ready to go home?" Kevin asked.
I looked at the cottage one more time—mine now, truly and completely mine—then at the farmhouse in the distance where our life waited.
"Yeah," I said, taking his hand. "Let's go home."
Because that was the real victory. Not the property or the business or the money in my bank account. But the freedom to choose. The strength to want instead of need. The knowledge that I could survive anything because I'd already survived everything.
And the man beside me who loved me not despite my strength, but because of it.
That was worth more than any cottage could ever be.
Can’t get enough of sexy mountain men? Read Sam’s story in Chasing the Wild .