Epilogue
BECKETT
SIX MONTHS LATER
The house is finished.
Greta flew in from Vancouver yesterday to do the final walkthrough.
Stood in the great room with the afternoon light pouring through the south-facing windows, looked at the mountain view, looked at the creeping thyme blooming purple between the flagstones on the front walkway, looked at the stone garden wall Desi built along the east border that matches the one she built on her own property, and said "This doesn't look like anything I designed. "
She's right. The bones are hers. The cantilever, the window placement, the roofline.
But everything that makes it a home came from Desi.
The native plantings along the driveway that she selected for each microclimate zone.
The herb garden outside the kitchen window so I can reach rosemary without putting on shoes.
The reading nook she insisted on under the south windows where afternoon sun hits the cushions for exactly two hours.
The mudroom she redesigned from Greta's original plans because "nobody who lives on a mountain needs a foyer, Beck. They need a place to put dirty boots."
The mudroom has two boot trays. Two hooks. Two sets of everything, because she's been sleeping here more nights than at her cabin for the past three months and pretending she hasn't technically moved in.
Her cabin is still hers. Still has her name on the deed, her landscape plans spread across the kitchen table, her French press and her mason jar.
She goes there to work, to sketch, to meet clients on the porch where she's added two Adirondack chairs she built herself.
But at night she walks the path through the trees to my house, kicks off her boots in the mudroom, drops her bag on the bench, and finds me in whatever room I've ended up in.
Usually the kitchen. Learning to cook from YouTube videos because she refuses to let me order delivery up a mountain road.
The cooking is going terribly. Last week I set off the smoke alarm making grilled cheese. Desi ate it anyway, said it had character, then quietly made eggs while I stood at the counter pretending my feelings weren't hurt.
"Your grilled cheese was fine." She'd kissed my shoulder on her way past. "The eggs are for me."
Six months. My therapist says I've made more progress in six months than in the previous three years of sessions. I told him it's because I finally have someone who tells me the truth without charging by the hour. He laughed, then charged me for the full hour anyway.
The business runs itself from up here. My security consulting team operates out of Vancouver, reporting in on weekly calls I take from the office Desi helped me set up in the guest bedroom.
She picked the desk. Reclaimed fir from a mill in Nelson, a woodworker she knows through the Ridge Brothers timber operation in Crimson Hollow.
The desk is beautiful. My first piece of furniture I didn't buy through an assistant or a catalog.
Desi's business is growing faster than she expected.
The Nelson client's property redesign was featured in a BC landscaping magazine.
Margot's referral turned into three more.
She hired a part-time assistant last month, a forestry student from the college in Castlegar who worships her methodology and calls her "Ms. Laurent" despite being told not to.
Jake Winters visited last month. Brought his wife Trish, who took one look at Desi's stone wall, the garden beds, the walkway with the thyme blooming between the flagstones, and said "You need to come to Crimson Hollow and meet everyone.
" Desi's already been twice. Sage at Bean & Bloom gave her a standing invitation to Saturday morning breakfast. Venus at Tangled Roots did her braids.
Nadia, who's engaged to one of the Ridge brothers, referred two landscape clients from her marketing contacts.
"Your girlfriend is more popular than you," Trish told me while Desi was deep in conversation with Sage about soil amendments for the café's window boxes.
"Everybody's more popular than me."
"True. But she's especially more popular."
Today is Saturday. The house is done. Greta left yesterday with a handshake and a bottle of wine from Iron Vine Estate that Desi picked out. The construction crew packed up last week. For the first time since I bought this property, the road is quiet. No trucks. No saws. No gravel delivery at dawn.
Just the mountain. The wind. The creaking of two houses settling into the ridge, side by side.
Desi's in the garden. Where else. On her knees in the raised bed I built under her supervision last month.
It took me three attempts to get the corner joints right.
She watched me fail twice without offering help, let me ask on the third try, then showed me how to cut a proper lap joint with a hand saw.
My joints still aren't as clean as hers.
They hold, though. She tested them by sitting on the edge, bouncing twice, nodding.
"Not bad, Rhodes."
Highest praise she's ever given me.
My phone buzzes on the kitchen counter. My mother, calling from Ontario. She calls every Sunday but today's Saturday so this is off-schedule, which means my father told her.
"Hi, Mom."
"Your father says you bought a ring."
"Dad has a big mouth."
"Is it a good ring?"
"It's a sapphire. The jeweler in Nelson said it was the best stone he's had in years. Set in a gold band. Simple."
"Does she know?"
"She will tonight."
My mother goes quiet. Then: "Beckett, honey. Is she the one who made you plant flowers?"
"Groundcover. And yes."
"I like her already."
We talk for a few more minutes. She makes me promise to call tomorrow regardless of the answer. Hangs up. The house is quiet again.
The ring has been in my sock drawer for two weeks. Small velvet box from the Nelson jeweler who asked me three questions: Is she flashy or understated? Does she work with her hands? What color are her eyes?
Not flashy. Extremely. Brown so dark they're nearly black.
He pulled out a sapphire. Deep blue, almost black in certain light. "It'll match her," he said. He was right.
Tonight the plan is simple. Porch. Sunset. The two Adirondack chairs I built for my deck under her supervision. They're slightly uneven because my left armrest is a quarter inch higher than the right, but they hold weight and the view from them stretches across the entire valley to the Selkirks.
There's a bottle of wine from Iron Vine. Two glasses. The cactus mug sitting on the side table between the chairs because at this point the mug is a permanent fixture of our life. It holds pens on my desk during the day, coffee in the morning, wine when we forget to bring proper glasses outside.
Desi comes in from the garden at five. Boots off in the mudroom.
Soil on her knees. Braids piled under a bandana.
She walks through the great room trailing her fingers along the stone fireplace surround she helped me pick, past the bookshelves I built under her guidance, into the kitchen where I'm standing at the counter with two steaks and a recipe pulled up on my phone.
"You're cooking."
"Attempting."
"That pan needs to be hotter."
"The video says medium high."
"The video is wrong. You want a sear, not a slow death.
" She reaches past me, cranks the burner.
Takes the tongs from my hand. Seasons the steaks with salt that I grind while she holds them over the cast iron.
We work together in the kitchen the way we work together in the garden.
Her hands, my hands. Her knowledge, my willingness to be taught.
We eat at the table. The one I bought from the same woodworker in Nelson who made the desk. She picked it too. Solid maple, seats four, sanded smooth enough to rest bare arms on.
"Steaks were good."
"You cooked them."
"You seasoned them. Teamwork."
After dinner she showers. The tankless water heater, the one she eventually asked me to help her install after doing the research herself, means she doesn't have to time it anymore. She takes long showers now. Comes out wrapped in a towel, wet braids over one shoulder, skin warm.
"Porch?"
We sit in the Adirondack chairs. Wine in actual glasses tonight because I planned ahead. The sunset is doing something ridiculous over the Selkirks, pink and gold and purple, turning the valley into something from a painting. Her feet are up on the railing. My hand rests on her thigh.
"Beck."
"Yeah."
"The house is done."
"It is."
"You happy with it?"
Looking at our house, our walkway with the thyme she planted, our garden beds, our mudroom with two sets of boots.
Looking at her, bare faced, bare shouldered, holding wine in the evening light with soil still under her fingernails because Desireen Laurent never fully washes the garden off her hands.
"Almost."
Her eyebrow goes up. "Almost?"
The ring box is in my pocket. Has been all through dinner, all through the kitchen, weighing approximately nothing and everything. My hand finds it. Pulls it out.
Her wine glass stops halfway to her mouth.
"Beck."
"I was gonna do a speech. Practiced it in the shower.
But the thing about you, Desi, is you don't want speeches.
You want the truth." Opening the box, the sapphire catches the last of the sunset light.
"The truth is I moved to a mountain because I had nothing worth staying anywhere for.
Then you showed up on my driveway with mud on your boots and told me I was the worst neighbour on the ridge.
And I looked at you and thought, there she is. The person I've been building toward."
Tears are running down her face. She's not wiping them.
"I'm not gonna fix your roof. I'm not gonna buy you things you didn't ask for. I'm gonna show up every morning, get my hands in the dirt, and build this life beside you. On your terms. For as long as you'll let me."
"That's a speech, Rhodes."
"Is that a yes, Laurent?"
She sets the wine glass down. Takes the box from my hands. Looks at the sapphire. Looks at me.
"The stone is beautiful."
"Is that a yes?"
"The setting is perfect."
"Desi."
"Yes." She's laughing now, crying and laughing, and I've never seen anything more beautiful in my life. "Yes, you stubborn, dirt-covered, terrible-at-grilled-cheese man. Yes."
The ring slides onto her finger. Fits. The jeweler measured one of her rings from the bathroom counter while she was in town last week. Snuck it out, snuck it back. The one covert operation I'm allowed.
She climbs into my lap in the Adirondack chair, legs straddling mine, hands on my face. Kisses me deep. Tastes like wine. The chair creaks under our combined weight but it holds because she taught me how to build it right.
"I love you," she says against my mouth.
"I love you."
"Your armrest is still uneven."
"I know."
"I'm keeping my cabin."
"I know that too."
"And the cactus mug stays in whatever house I'm in."
"The mug goes wherever you go."
She settles against my chest. My arms around her. The sunset finishing its show over the mountains. Two houses on a ridge, side by side. Two gardens, connected now by a path through the trees that we wear deeper every day.
My phone buzzes. On the side table, screen up.
Mom:
WELL???
Me:
She said yes.
Mom:
I'M CALLING YOUR FATHER
SHE SAID YES
Desi reads the texts over my shoulder. Laughs against my neck.
"Your mom uses a lot of caps lock."
"Family trait."
"Clearly."
The valley goes dark. Stars come out. The mountain does what mountains do. Holds everything in place, steady, rooted, patient.
I spent thirty-seven years building things other people wanted. Companies, portfolios, systems. Bought a mountain because I needed to build something for myself. But the best thing I ever built was a crooked walkway with bad spacing that a woman in work boots taught me to fix.
Everything starts with showing up.
Everything grows from there.
Beckett and Desi continue on to have such a heart-warming HEA, and I bet you’d love a sneak peek. Don’t worry I’ve got you.
Thank you so much for reading Oops I Fell For The Billionaire Next Door. If you loved Beckett and Desi’s story, then you’ll love