Bonus Epilogue - Sloane - A Year Later
The realtor's boots crunch on the gravel with each step, but my boots stay planted firm on the ridge overlooking three hundred acres of raw Texas land.
Mesquite and live oak stretch toward the horizon, limestone outcroppings catching the afternoon sun, and the air smells like possibility mixed with dust and sage.
Linda flips through her folder, mentioning compromised fencing and a few errant structural issues, but calculations are already running.
The land is a former dude ranch vacation property that went bankrupt a few years ago, but everything’s still solid.
I envision our guest cabins spread across the southern pasture.
The main lodge sits near the access road for easy check-in.
A therapy barn and round pens lie closer to the ridge, where the view quiets something restless in your bones.
The numbers map to the same calculations once reserved for quarterly reports, except now they mean lives changed rather than profits maximized.
Cash stands nearby. He hasn't said a word since we arrived, just follows us at a respectful distance while Linda and I walk the property.
His presence is a solid pressure against my spine, grounding without crowding, and when a glance back catches his gaze tracking my movements, butterflies fill my stomach.
Linda continues her pitch about the asking price and condition concerns. "Don't you want to discuss it with—" Her gaze flicks to Cash.
"We'll take it." The words are the most certain I’ve been in days. "Full asking price. Sixty-day close."
Linda's eyebrows climb, but Cash's voice carries across the space between us before she can finish the question. The land is a steal, and we don’t want to lose it. "If Sloane says we're buying it, we're buying it."
Fierce pride flares behind my ribs. A year ago, I’d have needed someone’s approval, hedging and qualifying every decision. Now there's just the pull of my phone from my pocket and a few taps to look at the calendar app. My schedule is clear, but it’s an old habit I can’t shake.
Linda recovers quickly, making notes. "You'll want an inspection—"
"I can have a team here tomorrow morning.
If everything goes well, our attorney will send the offer letter by the end of the day.
We'll coordinate with our contractor for the build-out timeline and start permitting during escrow.
" The professional competence slides over me like a second skin, except it doesn't feel like armor anymore.
Its purpose, not performance, building something that matters instead of maintaining something that's killing you.
Cash moves closer. His palm settles against my lower back, the touch both possessive and grounding, thumb stroking once through my shirt before going still. Looking up finds hunger darkening his expression, his jaw tight, and gaze locked on my mouth.
Linda clears her throat. "I'll send over the contract when I get back to my office." We say our goodbyes, and she heads toward her car. And then we're alone on the ridge with three hundred acres of future spreading out below us.
"What?"
He doesn't answer immediately, just cups my face with both palms and tilts my head back until meeting his gaze becomes unavoidable.
His eyes shine, breath coming faster than the walk up the ridge warrants, and the muscle in his jaw jumps when my palm presses flat against his chest to count his hammering heartbeat.
"Watching you own your life is the sexiest thing I've ever seen." His voice sends a flush of heat through my chest. "The way you handled that negotiation. The certainty in your voice. Knowing exactly what you want and taking it."
Blood rushes to my face and lower, heat blooming in my pussy at the raw want in his expression. His thumb traces my lower lip.
"Cash—"
"You're building an empire, Sloane." He leans in, forehead pressing to mine, breath ghosting across my lips. "Do you have any idea how proud I am of you?"
The words swell in my chest, tightening my throat. Pride. Not just love, though that's woven through every syllable. But pride, the kind that says I see what you've become, and it's magnificent.
I kiss him hard, fingers twisting in his shirt to pull him closer. He groans into my mouth, tongue sliding against mine while his grip tightens on my waist with a possessive pressure that makes my knees weak.
"Granitehart Ranch." The words taste right against his mouth. "Named after your home. After Alban and the mountains where your family comes from."
"Our family." His palm finds the small of my back again, anchoring. "Alban's driving down next week with Neve to see the property. He wants to help with the build-out."
The image of Cash's brother standing on this ridge, seeing what we're creating, fills my stomach with satisfaction. The Wilder brothers together again, building something permanent.
"We'll need more guides. At least three, maybe four. And a full-time chef if we're running thirty guests at capacity."
"We don't have to rush this." His thumb strokes my spine in slow circles. "We can take our time."
"No." The word comes out fierce. "I spent seventeen years taking my time, being careful, building something that didn't matter. This matters. These women who'll come here and remember who they were before they forgot—they matter. And the waiting is done."
His eyes search mine, and whatever he finds there makes satisfaction settle across his features. "Okay. Then we don't wait."
In less time than I expected, the inspection report comes through all clear, with a thumbs up and a blessing from the inspector.
The purchase contract spans thirty pages of legal language.
Cash leans against the counter with a beer in hand, watching the same focus that used to go to quarterly projections now applied to something that'll outlast us both.
Although the contract is a PDF on my laptop, I wanted to see everything in print.
Reaching the last page on the PDF, the mouse in my hand hovers over the signature line. In what feels like another lifetime ago, a conference room floor was the site of my complete collapse. Now three hundred acres of Texas land wait to become a legacy.
I insert my signature in the final Docu-Sign box in a gesture that feels like the end of who I was and the beginning of who I’ll become.
My hands don't shake, don't hesitate, don't second-guess.
My signature claims the space with the same certainty that just negotiated full asking price without flinching.
Cash sets down his beer and crosses to me, pulling me up and into his arms. Going willingly means tucking against his neck and breathing in leather and coffee and him.
His heartbeat steadies under my palm, and his fingers stroke down my spine in the same soothing rhythm he's used since that first night in Cabin 5.
"You did it."
"We did it." Pulling back to look at him. "This is ours, Cash. Both of us."
"No." He cups my face, forcing eye contact. "This is yours. I'm lucky enough to stand beside you while you build it."
The words lodge in my throat and stay there, true and solid and so different from the woman who arrived at Wild Vista believing productivity equaled worth.
Ten minutes later, the phone buzzes with Linda's text: Contract received. Congratulations on your new ranch.
Showing Cash the screen earns a slow, devastating grin. "Granitehart Ranch. Has a nice ring to it."
"It does." My arms loop around his neck, and I rise on my toes to kiss him. "Thank you for waiting. For believing I could do this, even when I didn't believe it myself. For standing beside me instead of in front of me."
His grip tightens on my waist, and vulnerability flickers across his expression before he can hide it. "You never have to thank me for loving you, Sloane. It's the easiest thing I've ever done."
We stand in our kitchen with the signed contract on my laptop screen and a great big dream made real, waiting for us. Tomorrow starts the permitting process. Next week, Alban and Neve arrive to walk the property. In sixty days, the land becomes ours.
But tonight, holding him while the weight of what we're building settles in my bones, proof solidifies. Choosing yourself isn't selfish. It's the bravest thing you can do.
And this was chosen. Cash was chosen, just like he chose me, along with the life too scary to reach for seventeen years ago.
Now it gets built. One cabin, one woman, one second chance at a time.
This is just the beginning.