Epilogue
SAM
SIX MONTHS LATER
I stand beneath a crooked strand of white Christmas lights in The Funnel Cloud, holding Brooks Carlisle’s hands while Petra cries into a bar napkin beside the jukebox.
“I’m not crying,” she mutters.
“You’re loudly not crying,” Tom says.
A soft laugh moves through the room. Petra points the damp napkin at her son. Tom, who's amused by the adults in the room more than anything, adjusts the phone he's holding tightly to his chest in order to record the ceremony.
The Funnel Cloud is dressed up tonight, though dressed up is maybe generous. Flowers in old beer bottles line the bar, and white ribbon is tied around the backs of chairs. Someone has strung lights across the ceiling.
The floor still sticks in one spot near the pool table, and the old neon sign over the bar still buzzes.
Through the open front door, the cool night air carries the wet pavement and distant ozone of the storm that moved through town an hour ago, leaving the parking lot shining under the security lights. It’s perfect.
Brooks’s thumb moves once over my knuckles.
I look up at him, and there he is. My husband.
Again and still. His dark hair is just a little bit long, the way I like it.
Nice shirt tucked into jeans. Boots polished because, apparently, this is him being formal.
His eyes stay on mine like there isn't anywhere else in the room worth looking.
The first time we got married, he tried to give me a fairy tale. A pretty venue, white chairs, and flowers that cost more than our first chase truck. Music swelling at the right moments. A cake too expensive to cut without feeling vaguely criminal. I loved it because he’d loved giving it to me.
Somewhere in the middle of planning, when the guest list grew out of control, I leaned over one night and said, “We should’ve just done this at The Funnel Cloud. Petra could’ve officiated, Hershel could’ve yelled at people to sit down, and we could’ve served wings and called it good.”
Brooks laughed, kissed my shoulder, and told me I deserved a fairy tale.
Now Petra stands in front of us with mascara losing its battle and a license from the internet that's questionable at best.
“By the very real power vested in me,” she says, voice wobbling, “and because I know way too much about both of you to let either one of you lie in public, we’re here because Sam and Brooks have decided to choose each other again.”
Brooks hands tighten on mine.
Petra looks at me, then at him. “You two broke. Everybody here knows it. Nobody in this room is pretending otherwise.”
No one shifts. No one looks away. That should feel humiliating. Once, it would have. Tonight, it feels like standing in a room where everybody has seen the damage and stayed anyway.
Petra clears her throat. “But you also did the harder thing. You told the truth. You changed. You came back different.” Her eyes shine when she looks at Brooks. “A little less idiotic than before."
Hershel says, “Amen,” from somewhere behind me.
Brooks lets out a small breath that almost becomes a laugh.
Petra nods toward him. “Brooks.”
He turns fully to me, and the room goes quiet.
“I spent a long time thinking love meant keeping you safe,” he says. His voice is steady, but his grip on my hands tightens for half a second before he eases it again. “And I was wrong.”
My throat starts to ache.
“I can’t promise you I won’t be scared,” he says.
“I can’t promise nothing bad will ever happen.
I can’t promise I’ll always know what to do.
” His eyes search mine. “But I promise I’ll talk to you when I’m afraid.
I promise I’ll trust you beside me. I promise I won’t make decisions for both of us because I'm stubborn and think I know what's best.” His jaw works.
“And I promise to love all of you, Sammy Girl. Not just the version of you that makes me feel safest. Not the pieces I know how to protect. All of you.”
Someone sniffles. It may be Petra again. It may be me.
Brooks brushes his thumb over my ring finger. “I don’t want a life where I keep you behind me,” he says softly. “I want the one where you’re beside me.”
My breath catches. Petra looks at me.
I have my vows folded in my pocket. Three drafts of them, actually, because giving your husband vows in a bar is still enough to make a woman shake in front of a mirror. I don’t take them out.
“I married a man years ago who I thought could do anything,” I say.
Brooks’s mouth tightens slightly.
“I was young. Very impressed by trucks, weather radar, and men who look too damn good in tight denim.” A quiet laugh moves through the room. “And then life happened. The kind no one mentions in wedding vows because they never dream it can happen to them."
Brooks’s eyes shine.
“I know you now,” I tell him. “Not the perfect man I thought I married. Not the frightened man who hurt me because he didn’t know what to do with all that fear.
” His hands go still in mine. “You’re the man who made terrible mistakes, owned them, and changed when changing cost you something.
You gave me back my choices and then waited to see if one of them would still be you. ”
His breath leaves him.
I squeeze his hands. “It is,” I say. “It’s you.”
Petra makes a small sound and presses the napkin under both eyes. Brooks looks like he wants to kiss me already, but Petra lifts one finger.
"Still my bar, Carlisle. You wait til I say go."
“Yes, ma’am,” Brooks says, rough and obedient.
Petra inhales, gathers herself, and smiles at us. “Then by the power vested in me, and with every single person in this bar as a witness, I now pronounce you still married, better informed, and hopefully less stupid.”
Hershel claps once. “Best ceremony I’ve ever been to.”
Brooks laughs as he pulls me in.
The kiss is soft at first, careful only because people are watching.
Then his palm slides to my cheek, and I forget the bar, the lights, the applause, and Petra blowing her nose loudly into her napkin.
For a few seconds, there is only Brooks.
Warm. Solid. Mine because I choose him, and because he chooses me back.
The Funnel Cloud turns into exactly the kind of reception I would have planned if anyone had trusted me the first time.
There are wings, brisket sliders, and a sheet cake with white frosting and blue icing that reads STILL THUNDERSTRUCK, which was Hershel’s contribution and somehow made me cry harder than any floral arrangement ever could have.
Tom stands by the table, methodically testing the stability of the legs before Brooks sets down the drink tray.
Petra threatens to make Hershel mop if he complains one more time about the lack of Black Sabbath on the jukebox.
The team crowds around us in waves. They hug me, slap Brooks on the back, and tell old stories from past chase seasons that get louder with every beer.
For once, I don’t feel like I’m standing outside my own life. I move through the bar with Brooks’s hand finding mine whenever we pass close enough. Not holding on. Not steering. Just touching because he can. Because I let him.
The first notes of Randy Travis’s “Forever and Ever, Amen” spill from the speakers sometime after Petra dims the lights and Hershel says that while Randy is fine, maybe Whitesnake would be better. Brooks looks across the room, and I already know.
He walks toward me, one hand extended. “Dance with me?”
I put my hand in his before he can say another word. “You don't need to ask.”
His grin breaks slow and crooked. “Yes, ma’am.”
We step into the small open space between the tables, and people move back without being asked.
The first time we danced to this song as husband and wife, I thought my life was opening in front of me, bright and certain.
Later, when Brooks played it for me again, there were tears and hurt and all the things we still didn’t know how to hold.
Tonight, he pulls me close, and there is room to breathe.
No Luci. No Tony. No lingering doubt sitting between us like an uninvited guest.
Brooks sings quietly along near my ear, still a little off-key.
I laugh against his shoulder. “You haven’t improved.”
“Good,” he says. “Wouldn’t want to shock you.”
His hand rests at the small of my back. Mine settles over his heart.
I look around The Funnel Cloud, taking in the old bar, the people, the lights, Petra leaning over the counter to snap another photo, Tom watching the mirrored disco ball turn against the ceiling, and Hershel nodding along to the rhythm despite himself.
This is the thing I've always wanted. This is what I missed when it was gone. Not the fairy tales or sponsors or the money that came from all of it. This.
The song moves toward its end, and my pulse kicks once, hard. Brooks feels the change. He leans back enough to see my face. “Sam?”
I wet my lips. I’ve carried the secret through the ceremony, through Petra’s tears, and through cake and laughter and Brooks’s hands finding mine over and over like he still can’t quite believe he gets to. Now the words sit under my tongue, heavy and real.
“I need to tell you something,” I say.
His expression sharpens, but he doesn't tense around me. “Okay.”
I take his hand from my back and press it low against my stomach. For a second, he only looks down. Then his eyes lift to mine.
“I’m pregnant,” I whisper.
Everything in his face changes. Joy hits first, bright and stunned, followed by disbelief and love so raw it steals the air from my lungs. And then fear. I see it pass through him. I know that shadow, the old memory surfacing behind his eyes.
Brooks goes very still.
Around us, the party keeps moving. Someone laughs near the bar. Glasses clink. Randy Travis keeps singing while the whole world settles onto a new axis beneath our feet.
Brooks draws one breath, then another. His hand stays warm over my stomach.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
The question breaks something gentle inside me. No instructions. No panic. No immediate plans to take over my choices. Just that.
I nod. “I’m okay.”
His eyes close for half a second. When they open, they’re wet. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
He pulls me closer, slowly and carefully, asking without words. I go. His forehead comes down to mine, his breath shaking between us. “Sammy Girl.”
"Yeah?"
His hand trembles against me. "It's going to be amazing, isn't it?"
I smile, though it feels a little wobbly. "Yeah, it is. It won't replace…"
I can't finish the sentence.
Brooks nods, his jaw tight, his eyes still locked on mine. "No, of course not. But, this is new. Just like we are."
“This is new,” I say.
His thumb moves once over my dress. “New,” he repeats. The word sounds fragile in his mouth, but beautiful, too.
He kisses me then, soft and shaking, while the celebration carries on around us. For a little while longer, this belongs only to us.
When the song reaches its last notes, I rest my cheek against his chest and let him sway me through them. Outside, thunder mutters far beyond town. Brooks hears it, and I feel him notice. Then his arm settles around me, steady and loose enough to let me move.
I close my eyes and keep dancing.