Epilogue Can’t Quit the Murder Cottage
Wyatt
Two years later
There is what looks like an entire welcoming party waiting for us on the dock as Josie steers us into the cove, grinning.
I don’t like it. The welcoming party. Not Josie’s smile.
I always love her smile.
Josie waves so hard her hand goes blurry and she gets a little too close to the shoals.
“Watch it,” I grumble, trying to nudge her away from the wheel. She refuses to move, though, so I sigh and stand behind her, bending a little to rest my chin on top of her head. My hands come around hers on the wheel. “Was this really necessary?”
“It’s our homecoming,” she insists. “Don’t be such a party pooper.”
“Did you plan this?” I ask.
“Nope. I’m just going along with it. My money is on the mothers .”
“Who even are all those people?” I squint as Josie cuts the engine and steers us toward the dock like she’s done it a hundred times before. In truth, it’s only been half a dozen. “Is that my brother?”
“Stop being so shocked every time he shows up. We’ve been over this. Peter loves you. After two years of being back in touch, you need to realize he’s not going anywhere.”
Easy for her to say. She has Jacob. Who, despite his penchant for dating the kind of women he won’t bring home and planning terrible trips, has always been there for Josie.
It’s hard to believe it’s been two years since I reached out to Peter, only to discover he was never mad at me for leaving him as the restaurant group heir.
But he did feel abandoned after I shut him out.
Dad apparently told him all kinds of lies about me, mostly centered around me thinking I was better than Peter.
Nothing at all has been resolved with Dad, but I didn’t really expect anything to be.
Mom says to give it time, and I smile and nod like I believe time is all it will take.
With Peter, it took a phone call to set things right. One. Reconnecting was so easy that I hate thinking of all the time wasted, years we could have spent being actual brothers and friends.
But we’re working on making up for it now. Even if it still feels new.
I dip my head to bury my nose in Josie’s hair. This also feels new. Though she still smells like coconut pie, she now smells like coconut pie while wearing my rings on her finger. I like seeing them there, just as much as I like seeing my own wedding band. A reminder that we’re a matching set now.
Or, a little bit of a mismatched set, but a set all the same.
Josie giggles. “Did you just smell me?”
“Yes. And I’ll do it again.”
When I bury my nose in her neck, Josie’s giggle turns into a laugh. “Maybe you should stop now that we can see the whites of their eyes. Why don’t you worry about tying up the boat?”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” I mutter, hiding my smile when Josie laughs again.
Unfortunately, she throws her head back this time, and for just a few seconds too long, takes her eyes off where she’s going.
“The dock!” I shout, just as Jib lets loose a stream of barks while Josie fights with the wheel.
Someone screams shrilly. I’d place bets on it being my mother.
Actually, by the looks of it, both of our mothers screamed.
They’re clutching each other, dressed completely differently, with Josie’s mom in Birkenstock sandals and mine in some kind of flats she probably bought at Saks.
The two of them have become a little too close despite their differences in shoes.
Don’t get me wrong—I’ll take all the family harmony I can get.
It’s just that Josie’s mom and my mom together.
..get ideas . Like the smaller yellow sailboat tied up on the other side of the dock.
They have yet to take the sailing excursion they keep talking about, which is probably why they’re both still alive.
“Whoops,” Josie mutters, correcting, then overcorrecting, then managing to straighten up and avoid plowing right into our dock. “I’ve got it!” she calls loudly, definitely more for the people waiting than for me.
There’s a cheer, and I want to roll my eyes because I’ve never had—nor wanted—anyone cheering for me when I didn’t crash into the dock. Then again, this is Josie’s first trip with her certification, where she was officially the captain and I was the first mate.
It also happened to be our honeymoon.
Or—the first one, anyway. The one Josie knows about.
While all the people waiting here for us were a surprise, I have my own surprise waiting for Josie.
I know she meant it when she said this was where she wanted to spend our honeymoon, on the boat where we erased the lines we’d kept drawn between us for years.
The place where we started to draw new ones and have built so many new memories.
But what I want is to have a honeymoon where we aren’t crammed into a small bed with an uncomfortable mattress. One where we don’t need to plot our daily course and watch out for shoals and weather or anything else.
I’m talking all-inclusive. Luxury. The kind of vacation I’ve never taken the time for and Josie’s never had the money for. We leave tomorrow, and the wink Toni gives me as we disembark tells me she’s got all of Josie’s things packed and ready to fly out to St. Thomas in the morning.
It takes five minutes to get off the dock through all the hugs and pats on the back, Jib running between everyone’s ankles and miraculously managing not to knock anyone into the water.
She reunites with Jab, the only one of Jib’s litter still in the family.
My mother fell in love with the runt, who looked just like Jib.
And now dresses like her too. Mom and Josie shop online for their outfits together.
It’s oddly endearing.
Someone—or more likely, considering the way our moms are flitting around, someones —have decorated the house. White and pink balloons arch across the lofty living room alongside flowers and a three-tiered cake.
“We already had a wedding,” I grumble to Josie.
A bigger one than I wanted. Though we kept it private, our friends and family plus various teammates past and present ended up making it much larger than I hoped.
The idea of saying our vows in front of so many people made me twitchy, but Josie being Josie, she surprised me the morning of our wedding by bringing the officiant to a private room in the church.
Our actual, official wedding took place with just him and the two of us in that room.
Most people wouldn’t think it would matter. But Josie knows me, and she knew it would. To me.
Reciting our vows together, privately, took all the pressure off the ceremony with the audience. I was able to relax and actually enjoy. To look at the woman who was secretly already my wife.
Watching her across the room now, I wish I could chase everyone out with my hockey stick and have her alone again. But she’s laughing with Toni, Peter listening in with a big smile as Jacob tells a story. I’m not going to drag her away.
But that doesn’t mean I have to stay. Taking one last look at my wife’s wide smile, I slip outside.
Josie finds me half an hour later in Uncle Tom’s old bedroom. She flops down on the bed beside me, grinning before she tucks her hands behind her head. “You just can’t quit the murder cottage, can you?”
“It makes a good hideout.”
“Agreed. Aren’t you glad I convinced you to build next to it rather than tearing it down?”
“I am. And I think I’ve told you that at least a dozen times.”
“What’s a few dozen more?”
I roll over until I’ve got her mostly pinned beneath me. “Think they’ll miss us if we take a nap?”
We started out this morning with the sun barely peeking over the horizon.
Her fingers drag through my hair, lightly massaging my scalp, and I sigh, nuzzling closer.
“I think they’ll assume we’re doing more than napping,” she says, sounding amused.
I drag my lips across her neck, smiling when I hear her sharp intake of breath. “I’m not opposed to that either.”
“But it’s a party for us,” she protests, even as she tilts her head to give me better access to her neck, which I make good use of.
“We already had a wedding,” I say against her throat. “And a reception. Two showers. Isn’t that enough?”
“Tell our mothers that.”
With a groan, I fall back to my side of the bed and throw a hand over my eyes.
“What?” she asks.
“You mentioned our mothers while I was kissing your neck. Kind of kills the mood.”
“Probably better that way,” Josie says, but she doesn’t sound like she thinks it’s better.
“Maybe we could—”
“Hey, honeymooners!” Jacob’s voice is the only one I want to hear less than either of our mothers’ right now.
“Stay very still,” Josie says. “If he doesn’t know we’re here, he’ll go away and bug someone else.”
Jacob calls, “I can hear you. And we need you out here. It’s your party.”
“And we’ll hide if we want to!” Josie calls.
“Can’t you just entertain them?” I ask Jacob. “That’s your specialty.”
“I could. I have been. But this is a problem I can’t handle.” He sounds out of breath, I realize, and since he is Mr. Cool and Collected, this might mean a legitimate problem.
“Fine.” I sit up, swinging my legs over the side of the bed. I turn to look at Josie. My heart gives a resounding thump in my chest at her soft smile, the way her wavy hair spreads over the pillow.
I really, really wish Jacob would find someone else to handle whatever it is.
“What kind of problem?” I ask, even as Josie reaches for me, wrapping her arms around my waist and trying to tug me back into bed. I wiggle out of her grasp and swing her over my shoulder.
“The thing is,” Jacob says, “someone left the back door open, and a few guests crashed the party.”
I stride out of the bedroom, and Jacob grins at the sight of Josie hanging like dead weight over my shoulder. “Kick them out,” I say, even as I wonder who would come all the way out here to crash a party.
Jacob scratches the back of his neck. “I would, but the party crashers aren’t people. They’re pigs.”
I drop my head to my chest, muttering something that shouldn’t be repeated about my neighbor, who clearly needs better fences. But Josie laughs brightly, gives my backside a light smack, and says, “I’ll take care of this. Where’s your hockey stick?”