Epilogue
PIPER
TWO YEARS LATER
The new house sits where the fence line used to be.
Tate built it himself. Took him eight months, working between ranch chores, with Jace helping on weekends and a crew from town that showed up uninvited after Maggie spread the word.
Timber and stone, two stories, a wraparound porch that faces the mountains on one side and the creek on the other.
Windows that actually seal. Insulation that actually works.
A kitchen big enough for two people who both have opinions about counter space.
He tore down the old fence. Every post, every wire, every rusted staple.
The property line is still there on paper, filed at the county office, but on the ground there's nothing separating his land from what used to be mine.
The cattle roam through. The creek runs free.
And the gap we used to climb through to get to each other is just grass now, worn to a path by boots that walk it every day.
My old cabin is still standing. He insulated it, replaced the windows, fixed the furnace.
It's my office now. The second bedroom where I used to set up my laptop is a proper studio with a drafting table, a monitor, shelving for supplies.
My business has tripled since I moved here.
Turns out a graphic designer in Montana with a portfolio full of brewery logos and a mailing address in Grizzly Ridge is exactly the kind of story that generates referrals.
The wedding was in June. Small. His porch.
Maggie catered. Hilda brought champagne and cried into a handkerchief she claimed was for allergies.
Jace was best man. My mother flew in from Portland and spent the entire ceremony holding Tate's mother's hand while both of them sobbed.
Sawyer McKenna, the county sheriff, showed up because apparently Tate fixed his truck once ten years ago, and the McKennas don't forget debts.
I wore a white dress. Bare feet. My grandmother's ring on my right thumb.
Tate wore clean jeans. A white shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows.
He cried when I walked across the porch toward him, one hand pressed over his mouth, those hazel eyes burning gold in the afternoon light.
The man who wouldn't shake my hand the day I arrived stood there shaking while I said I do.
That was four months ago. It's October now. The cottonwoods along the creek are full gold, and the air has that bite to it that means winter is coming, and I'm sitting on our bathroom floor at five in the morning holding a pregnancy test.
Two lines.
My hands are trembling. Not from cold. The bathroom has heated floors because Tate installed them last month when I mentioned my feet get cold in the mornings. This man. This impossible, stubborn, fix-everything-before-dawn man.
Two lines. Positive. Pregnant.
The math works out to about six weeks. Which means the night of the harvest festival at Maggie's, when Tate pulled me behind the diner and kissed me against the brick wall, then drove us home in his truck with his hand on my thigh the whole way, then carried me upstairs and took his time until I forgot my own name.
That night.
I set the test on the counter. Stand up. Look at myself in the mirror. Same auburn hair, same freckles, same blue eyes. Piper Rawlins. Still getting used to the name. Still getting used to the face of a woman who has everything she never knew she wanted.
The bedroom is dark. Tate is asleep on his stomach, one arm stretched across my side of the bed, reaching for me even unconscious.
He's shirtless, the sheet pooled at his waist, the scar on his ribs visible in the thin predawn light.
His face is softer when he sleeps. Younger.
The scowl disappears, and what's left is a man who's finally stopped bracing for impact.
I climb back into bed. Curl against his side. His arm tightens around me immediately, pulling me closer.
"Cold?" His voice is rough with sleep. Barely awake.
"No." My hand rests on his chest. His heartbeat steady under my palm. "Tate."
"Mm."
"I need to tell you something."
He opens one eye. Reads my face. Both eyes open. He shifts onto his side, fully awake in two seconds, because this man has spent his whole life reading weather and he knows when a storm is coming.
But this isn't a storm.
"I'm pregnant."
The silence lasts three heartbeats. His eyes drop to my stomach. Back to my face. His hand moves from my waist to my belly, spreading flat, covering the space where something the size of a blueberry is growing.
"Say it again."
"I'm pregnant. About six weeks. I just took the test."
His jaw works. His throat moves on a swallow. Those hazel eyes, the ones that were cold when we met and warm when he let me in, are bright. Wet. He blinks once. A tear rolls down his cheek into the pillow.
"Tate." My hand finds his face. Thumb against his cheekbone. "Are you okay?"
"I'm..." He stops. Closes his eyes. Opens them.
"I've been alone on this land for twelve years.
I ate dinner standing at the counter because sitting at the table for one was too quiet.
I stopped leaving the porch light on because nobody was coming home.
And now you're lying in my bed telling me we're having a baby. "
His voice cracks on the last word. He presses his forehead to mine. Both hands on my stomach now. Gentle. Protective. Already claiming something he can't even feel yet.
"I love you," he says against my mouth. "I love you so much I can't breathe."
"I love you too."
He kisses me. Slow at first, reverent, his lips tracing mine with the patience of a man who has nowhere else to be. Then deeper. His tongue sliding against mine. His hand sliding from my belly to my hip, gripping, pulling me flush against him.
"Tate." Breathless. "It's five in the morning."
"Cattle can wait."
Second time in his life he's said that. Both times because of me.
He rolls me onto my back. Settles between my thighs. His mouth moves down my neck, my collarbone, the swell of my breasts through my tank top. He pushes the fabric up, exposing my stomach, and presses his lips to the flat skin below my navel. Holds there. Breathing against me.
"Hi," he whispers to my belly. "I'm your dad. I'm gonna build you everything."
My eyes burn. My fingers rake through his hair.
He moves lower. Hooks his thumbs into my underwear and drags them down my legs. His mouth finds the inside of my thigh. Kisses up, slow, deliberate. My hips lift off the mattress. His hands push my thighs apart, spreading me open.
"Every morning," he murmurs against my skin. "For the rest of my life."
His tongue drags flat against my pussy, root to tip, and my head falls back against the pillow.
He eats me with the focus of a man who has learned exactly how my body works and has no interest in rushing through it.
Slow circles on my clit. Two fingers sliding inside, curling forward, pressing that spot that makes my vision blur.
His other hand flat on my lower belly, holding me down.
The orgasm builds in waves. I grab the headboard with one hand, fist the sheets with the other. His name falls out of my mouth in fragments. He groans against me, the vibration pushing me over, and I come hard, thighs clamping around his ears, back bowing off the bed.
He doesn't stop. Works me through it until I'm trembling, then pulls back, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and crawls up my body. His cock is hard against my thigh. I reach down, wrap my hand around him, stroke once. He groans into my neck.
"Need you inside me." My voice is wrecked.
He pushes in. One stroke. Deep. My legs wrap around his hips, ankles locked at the small of his back. His forehead drops to mine. For a moment he holds still, buried to the hilt, breathing.
"You feel so fucking good." The words rumble through his chest into mine. "Every time. Like coming home."
He moves. Slow, deep thrusts that rock the headboard into the wall in a rhythm that matches my heartbeat. My nails drag down his back. His hand grips my thigh, angling my hips up, hitting deeper. The sound I make is loud in the quiet room, and he swallows it with his mouth.
"Harder." My voice against his lips.
He gives me harder. His hips snap, driving into me with a force that makes the bed frame creak. His thumb finds my clit, pressing circles in time with his thrusts. The dual sensation coils tight in my belly, building fast.
"Come for me, wife." Rough. Possessive. That voice. "Let me feel you."
The orgasm tears through me. I cry out, clenching around him, pulling him deeper. He follows with a groan that shakes his whole body, spilling inside me, my name on his lips. Raw. Reverent. Repeated.
We collapse.
His weight settles over me. Warm. Real. He's still inside me, softening slowly. His face buried in my neck. My fingers tracing lazy circles between his shoulder blades. Our breathing slows together.
After a long moment, he shifts. Rolls onto his side, pulling me against his chest. His hand finds my stomach again. Rests there.
"I'm gonna be late for chores," he says.
"Second time ever."
"Both times your fault."
"I accept full responsibility."
His chest shakes with a quiet laugh. His lips press against the top of my head.
Outside, the sun is coming up over the Bitterroots.
Gold light spilling across the valley, catching the creek, setting the cottonwoods on fire.
Through our bedroom window, I can see the path worn in the grass between the old cabin and the new house.
The creek running bright in the morning light.
The cattle already moving toward the water, unhurried, following a routine that predates both of us.
My phone buzzes on the nightstand.
Mom:
Good morning sweetheart! How's my mountain girl?
I look at the test sitting on the bathroom counter. Look at the man beside me with his hand on my stomach, already protecting something he can't see. Look at the mountains through the window.
Me:
I have news. Call you in an hour?
Mom:
!!!!!!! I KNEW IT. CALLING NOW.
"Your mother," Tate says without opening his eyes, "is going to drive up here today."
"Probably."
"My mother is going to drive up here today."
"Definitely."
"We're gonna have to add another bedroom."
"You're already planning construction?"
"Rawlins men build things." He pulls me closer. "It's what we do when we're not falling in love with stubborn women who argue about fence lines."
I laugh. Press my face into his chest. Breathe him in.
Two years ago, I drove north until the mountains swallowed the highway, looking for quiet. Looking for a place that was mine. Looking for a life that didn't ask me to be anyone other than who I am.
I found all of that. And I found him. The grumpy, territorial cowboy on the other side of the fence who wouldn't shake my hand and couldn't stop fixing my porch. Who fell hard and fast and fought it every step of the way until love dragged him across the property line by the collar of his flannel.
He's snoring now. Light, even. His hand still on my stomach.
I close my eyes. Let the morning sun warm my face.
The best things are the ones you never plan for.