Epilogue
Miles
When I woke up this morning and saw the date on the calendar, I knew it’d be a perfect day.
October twenty-first. The day Katie chose to stay one year ago.
The day the best chapter of our lives started.
And today, I’ve planned a ride to Ember Meadow for the two of us.
I’m hoping it’ll become sort of a tradition for us on this day.
Pack some snacks, and enjoy the day outside until the sun goes down and the grass lights on fire.
Metaphorically, of course. There hasn’t been a real grass fire on the ranch in at least three months.
This year, we had more to look at than the glowing orange field at sunset.
In the spring, we started construction on our future house up by the meadow.
We’ve been living in the big house since I finally convinced Katie to move in with me two months ago, but the big house never really felt like ours.
After a while of deliberating, Katie and I bought the piece of land that contains the meadow and butts up against the Old Cabin property over the winter. We started on it right away, and it’s just about halfway done. We’re nothing if not quick.
It took Katie about six months after staying in Wyoming to break away from her parents’ company, MacPherson enterprises, and start her own short term rental business.
Her first purchase was the Old Cabin, which just so happened to be fully booked during peak season, and pretty busy in the winter as well.
Spark Rentals, her new business, is already looking at a second location in the valley.
The stairs of the Old Cabin creak as I make my way down to the living room. I blocked out the cabin this weekend as part of my plan to create a sort of anniversary tradition. Luckily, I was able to get an open spot.
Katie’s copper curls shine in the fireplace light as she stands behind the couch, looking out the window. The fall leaves have turned, painting the ranch in shades of yellow, orange and red.
“Hey,” I say, hugging her close to me as I breathe in her familiar scent. Lavender and something warm. My short beard brushes against the outer shell of her ear as I feel her shiver in my arms. “How about we take a ride up to Ember Meadow?”
She turns towards me, giggling and pulling me into a hug. “You say that as if we haven’t planned out the day to do exactly that.”
“Hey, I’m trying to at least pretend to be spontaneous here. Let me have this.”
“Fine,” she gives me a quick kiss, but I pull her right back in.
“You know,” she says onto my lips, “this is totally a deja vu moment. It’s so weird, but when I was leaving to go back to Idaho, I swear I saw this exact moment playing out in my head.
Everything is the exact same, the leaves, the fireplace, you. ”
“What I’m hearing is that you were daydreaming about me, and I gotta say, Mac, that’s a little obsessive.” I give her a wink as she smacks my arm.
“Your ego is bigger than this ranch. I’m being serious, I can remember it like it was yesterday.”
“I don’t know what you saw, but if it brought you back to me, I’m on board with it.”
I can’t help but think of what could have been if things were different all those years ago when we first met.
Would we have made it to where we are now?
Would we have been ready to love each other fully?
I think everything happened the way it was supposed to.
We had to run into each other four years later for our hearts to be ready for this life.
All it took was an old legend and a cabin where love and a little bit of magic flow through the walls. That’s why we celebrate this day by visiting the place where it all started. No matter where we are, we’ll always come back here.
An ordinary day, doing something we do pretty often living on a ranch, but no part of it feels ordinary to me.
This life we’ve created is extraordinary.