Epilogue — Rose
My editor cried.
She called me the week after I’d sent her the final manuscript, and the first thing she said was, “What happened to you?”
I’d panicked for about two seconds before she laughed and told me it was the best thing I’d ever written. That the hero felt real in a way my heroes hadn’t before. That the romance made her chest ache. That readers were going to lose their minds.
The ARC reviews were already proving her right.
I’d sent advance copies out to my street team, and the messages were the kind that made me close my laptop and sit with them for a while, floating through my head on repeat.
I don’t know what changed, but this is a different level.
The hero in this book ruined me for real men.
I cried in public with this one. No regrets.
The hero was protective, steady, and loud. He worked with his hands. Had hazel eyes and a grin that made the heroine forget what she was mad about. And if anyone in Driftwood Cove recognized the resemblance to a certain landscaper, I would deny it to my grave.
Nolan had read it, though. I’d let him, which was terrifying. He’d finished it in two sittings, and then looked at me with this expression I couldn’t read.
“You made him taller than me,” he’d said.
“It’s fiction.”
“And gave him a bigger, better truck than mine.”
“Also fiction.”
He’d smirked. “The part where she watches him do yard work wasn’t fiction.”
I’d rolled my eyes at him.
That was four weeks ago.
Alister had come back from his travels to find his unit empty, but his tenant now lived next door.
“She moved into your place,” Alister had said.
“Yeah.”
“Good.” He’d grabbed his bag from the car. “I would’ve been disappointed if she hadn’t.”
So now I lived with Nolan. The desk by the window from Alister’s was mine.
Nolan had carried it over the same week I’d decided to stay.
I wrote there every morning while he headed out to his landscaping jobs, and by the time he came home in the afternoons, we’d end up on the porch the way we always did.
Life was good.
Evan was gone. Really gone. The arrest the night of the incident with him had led to charges—real charges that had been a long time coming for him. He’d also had a nervous breakdown, which I thought was fitting since he’d made me think I was crazy so many times before.
Darren’s part in everything had come to light too.
Delilah had told the police she’d seen them talking at the cafe and that money had been exchanged.
It wasn’t enough to charge him with anything, but people talked, and Darren’s name came up in conversations with even more disgust. Apparently, people in town had been keeping count of the trouble that always seemed to circle back to him.
It was Sunday morning, and Nolan and I were heading to Delilah’s for breakfast, which had become our weekly routine.
The café was full, so we grabbed two stools at the counter. Delilah had coffee in front of Nolan and Earl Grey in front of me before we’d even settled in.
“Morning, you two.” She was beaming. “The usual?”
“Please,” I said.
Delilah turned to put in the order, but she was mid-conversation with a woman at the end of the counter, and I caught the tail end of it as she moved.
“—came back and hasn’t been the same since,” Delilah was saying, her voice pitched at that volume that carried without technically being loud. “You know how Alister is. Never met a problem he couldn’t shrug off. But this?” She shook her head. “Something happened on that trip.”
“Maybe he just needs time to readjust,” the woman said.
“Honey, I’ve known that man for years. This isn’t jet lag.
” Delilah leaned on the counter, her eyes sparkling.
“That man left here with no cares in the world and came back looking like he’d swallowed a secret.
” She straightened up and caught me listening.
She didn’t miss a beat, winking at me. “Mark my words—there’s a story there! ”
Nolan shook his head beside me, but he was smiling. “Leave the man alone, Delilah.”
“I’m not bothering him in any way. I’m only observing.” She set our plates down. “There’s a difference.”
There wasn’t when it came to Delilah, and everyone at the counter knew it.
After breakfast, we walked home along the beach. The morning was warm, the ocean looked perfect, and Nolan held my hand. Our place came into view around the bend, and the sight of it still made me smile. Not because it was beautiful—it was, in its rough, salt-worn way—but because it was home.
Inside, I settled at the desk and opened my laptop. My new manuscript was waiting. It was part of a new series, something a little paranormal with lots of romance and a protective hero who would do anything for his woman.
Couldn’t imagine where the inspiration came from.
Nolan came up behind me and rested his chin on the top of my head, reading the screen over my shoulder. I swatted at him.
“No peeking.”
“I wasn’t peeking. I was supervising.”
“Go mow something.”
He laughed and pressed a kiss to the side of my head. Then he paused, and his hand came up to the side of my face, his thumb tracing the edge of my reading glasses.
“I love you in these,” he said. “Have I told you that?”
My chest warmed. “You have not.”
“Well, I do. They’re cute.”
I turned in the chair to look at him, one eyebrow raised. “So they don’t make me look like a quiet police librarian?”
His mouth twitched into a half-grin. “Librarians are sexy.”
A laugh burst out of me. He wrapped his arms around my waist, lifted me out of the chair, and drew me close. My hands landed on his chest, and he kissed me. Butterflies burst into flight through my lower stomach.
When he pulled back, his hazel eyes held mine, and his thumb brushed the freckle beside my lip.
“Get back to work,” he said.
“You first.”
He grinned and headed for the door. A few seconds later, I heard his truck start up, and then the crunch of gravel as he backed out of the driveway.
I turned back to the laptop. The cursor blinked on a blank page, waiting.
It was crazy to think that I’d driven into Driftwood Cove with a suitcase, a deadline, and fresh out of a bad breakup.
I hadn’t come here expecting to find anything except distance from my horrible ex and a place to hopefully write.
I never expected to find my own love story.
Yet somewhere between the noise complaints, the shared porch, and the man who turned his music down without being asked, I’d found one anyway.
And it was way better than anything I could have ever written for myself.