Epilogue
Sarah
I awoke to the feeling of Donovan pressed tightly against my back, one leg tangled between mine. His breathing was deep and relaxed, and his muscular arm that was wrapped around my front ended with a hand cupping my breast. The hold wasn’t conscious. His body had found mine in sleep and stayed.
I didn’t move. I lay there and listened to him breathe and felt the warmth of him along my spine.
Six months of waking up like this. His arms holding me tightly every night. Whenever the nightmares had come, I’d been able to roll over and bury my face in his chest until the worry abated.
He stirred. His fingers squeezed my breast briefly as if suddenly realizing what they were wrapped around, and then his thumb rapidly found and began circling my nipple.
I heard a satisfied groan escape his lips, and then he moved his head to place his mouth against my neck.
He placed patiently slow kisses in a trail up to below my ear.
One…then two…
Mmmmmmm….
Then three.
Now I’m awake.
I turned in his arms and faced him.
Brown eyes, soft with sleep. Hair pushed in three directions. A crease from the pillow ran diagonally across his cheek.
I traced it with my finger. “You look like you lost a fight with the bedding.”
“I won that fight.” He pulled me closer, sliding his hand up my back to settle between my shoulder blades. I tucked my head under his chin and pressed myself against his chest.
“I’m glad Ethan let you extend your assignment here so you could protect me from my bedding each night.”
“Andrew helped. Called Ethan separately and told him I’d be useless anywhere else. Said I’d mope.”
“Would you have moped?”
He nuzzled my face up so I could look at him.
“Let me see.” He kissed me deeply. Then he pulled back and placed my head back under his chin.
“Without the enjoyment of your lips as often as I would like, yes, I would have moped.” He settled his hand against the side of my neck, his fingers warm against my skin. “Three more weeks.”
The fellowship. Three more weeks, and the year and a half I’d spent on this reserve would be officially over. The transition plan for the next fellow was already in my files.
We’d been talking about what would happen after this for weeks.
“Have you thought any more about it?” he asked.
“I’ve thought about nothing else.”
“And?”
“I want to be wherever you are. The details will figure themselves out,” I said.
He was quiet for a moment. His thumb traced a slow line along my neck.
“That’s very unlike you. You plan everything.”
“I’ve planned everything in my life since I was twelve years old.” I covered his hand on my neck with mine. “I didn’t plan you. And I really like how that has turned out.”
His phone buzzed on the nightstand. He reached over without letting go of me and checked the screen. A grin broke across his face.
“Andrew.”
He tilted the phone so I could see. A photo of Andrew at a physical therapy clinic, both thumbs up. Below it: PT cleared me for full duty. Ethan’s already got me on the roster for a new contract.
He set the phone back on the nightstand and pulled me against him.
“He’s going to be fine,” I said.
“He’s going to be insufferable. There’s a difference.”
I smiled against his shoulder. We stayed like that until the camp began to stir outside the window.
I sat up first. “I have to go to work.”
“I know.”
“So do you.”
He swung his legs off the bed.
I watched him pull a shirt over his head. The muscles across his back shifted under the fabric as he tugged it down. He slid his strong legs into his duty pants and buckled his belt. I had to stop myself from thinking about wrapping my own legs around his.
His boots were on the floor beside the door, next to mine, both pairs with soles caked in red Kenyan dirt. Once we had our shoes on, we made our way across camp to the mess tent to get our morning coffee. We stole one more kiss from each other before he went to his work and I to mine.
I walked to the vet facility the long way, past the training ground.
New recruits had arrived three weeks ago. Ten of them, barely older than the original rangers had been when Donovan had first shown up. They stood in a loose formation on the packed dirt while Zayn was explaining to them the importance of their training.
Jomo was at the far end, crouched beside one of the new kids, walking him through breaking down a rifle. The boy fumbled the bolt carrier, and Jomo caught it, handed it back, and waited for him to try again.
Baraka stood with his own pack between his legs, waiting for Zayn to finish lecturing so he could take the recruits on a ruck march.
Donovan stood at the edge of the training ground, coffee in hand. He’d stepped back from the drill entirely and let the rangers run it. He caught my eye as I passed. The corner of his mouth lifted. I raised my coffee cup.
Neither of us stopped. I went to my work and he stayed at his. I was so thankful to be able to start my mornings like this.
The new vet facility had gone up three months ago. It was much larger and even had a real surgical suite. I had no doubt the next fellowship vets would get good use out of it as well. Donovan had pushed for the funding after the old one was destroyed, and the reserve had delivered.
I started work and began my animal patient inspections with a small genet that had gotten injured.
He was an adorable small spotted cat-like creature that had been making sure dangerous snakes were handled around our camp.
It seemed only fair to take care of him in return.
As I was checking some sutures, I got a call from Alyson.
“Hey,” she said and then paused. “Are you busy?”
“Just sutures. What’s up?”
“Nothing. I just wanted to hear your voice.”
I picked the genet up off the table and placed him back in the small cage.
My best friend’s voice had changed since she’d gone home. The volume was lower, the energy pulled inward. The woman who used to narrate her own day at full volume now spoke like she wasn’t even sure she wanted to hear her own voice.
I knew the surgeries were done. Her physical therapy was not, though. She was getting there, but not at a pace conducive to her living like she once did.
“How are you?” I asked. “Give me the truth, Aly.”
She was quiet for a beat. “Some days are okay, good even. Some days…are not.” A pause stretched between her words. “But I’m working on it. My therapist is good. And Cole’s been checking in.”
“Has he?” Good. Because I knew Daniel had never said another word to her. Bastard.
“He sends me these articles about physical therapy, and last Tuesday, he asked if I’d tried aquatic rehab.” She cleared her throat. “It’s nothing.”
I didn’t push, but I wanted to.
“Faith called me yesterday,” I said. “About the sentencing.”
“And?”
“Nasser was convicted on all counts. He’s not getting out.”
“Good. After what he did to you and the animals… Good. Yeah, that’s good.”
We talked for a few more minutes. I told her about the new recruits, and she made me promise to send photos. When I told her I’d be home soon, she told me she couldn’t wait to see me.
After I hung up, I stood there for a moment. Something was really different about Aly. Not just the accident, although God knew that was enough.
I would have to investigate it more when I got home. I tried to push the worry aside and finish my rounds. I checked on two more patients and updated their charts.
Donovan found me at the end of the day.
I was walking back from the facility with my kit over one shoulder. The sun was getting low, and it cast a pretty shade of reddish-orange over everything. He fell into step beside me, lifted the kit off my shoulder, and slung it over his own.
“Walk with me.”
Something in his voice made me look at him. His jaw was set and he wasn’t smiling.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong. Just walk with me.”
That didn’t help. My mind went through the list of all it could be: a call from Ethan, a different poacher sighting, something wrong with one of the new recruits. I watched his face for a tell but got nothing.
We walked to the edge of camp where the ground opened into grass, and I realized where he was taking me.
The giraffe spot. Where he’d called it a long-necked cow. Where everything between us had started.
He set down my kit. He was quiet for a moment, and the silence was making my chest tight.
“Hey.” I grabbed his arm. “You’re scaring me. What’s going on? Whatever it is, we can figure it out together.”
He turned to face me. Opened his mouth and closed it again. I had never seen him search for words. Donovan always had them, direct and clear. But right now, he was looking at me like whatever he was about to say might break something.
He reached into his pocket. My stomach dropped. I didn’t know what I expected him to pull out, but a thin chain with a small pendant wasn’t it.
“This isn’t right. I know that. It’s a necklace. I’m sorry.”
I had no idea what was going on. “Why are you sorry about a necklace?”
“Because it’s not a ring.”
My whole world stopped. “What?”
“They didn’t have any rings. Not like I want for you.
I want to get you a ring when we’re home,” he said.
“But I couldn’t wait. I had to ask you here.
” He looked out across the grass, then back at me.
“This place has made you the woman you are. Hell, it’s made me the man I am.
I didn’t want to ask you anywhere else.”
He got down on one knee, and every plan I’d ever made fell out of my head.
“Marry me, Sarah. I love you. I’m pretty sure I’ve been in love with you from the first time you vomited on my shirt. But I know I love you.”
I pulled him up by the front of his shirt and kissed him. That was my answer before I could get the word out. When I finally managed one, it came out quiet.
“Yes. I’ll marry you. Wherever we end up, whatever we do…I want it to be with you.”
He fastened the chain around my neck and kissed my throat gently. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
He stood behind me, wrapped his arms around my waist, and pulled me back against him as the last of the day’s light hit the grass in shades of gold and rust.
He was right. This place, and all the good and bad that had happened here, had made me. Had made him.
It had made us.
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