Epilogue
EPILOGUE
Essie
O ne year later…
I opened the freezer and stared inside. It had to be here somewhere. Unless, of course, Brax had thrown it away, not realizing what it was. I pushed aside packages of beef and chicken. There, deep in the back, I found it. A cylinder wrapped twice in tinfoil and then shoved in a storage bag that supposedly could withstand freezer burn.
“Hey,” Brax said behind me.
I yelped and spun on my toes, clutching the frozen cylinder to my chest. “You’ve got to stop doing that!”
“Sorry.” He didn’t look repentant at all. “What are you doing?”
“Oh, just…” I waived the tinfoil package in the air like it was an answer in and of itself. “What are you doing, besides giving me a heart attack?”
He didn’t reply immediately, and that’s when I realized he was holding a package of his own. A small square, wrapped in blue-striped paper, with a darker blue bow on top. His anniversary present for me, I assumed. Jewelry, maybe?
“Is that for me?” I asked.
“Of course it is,” he said, but when I reached for it, he shook his head. “Not yet. Let’s go for a drive.”
I bit back a groan. “A drive? I love you, but it feels like all I do is drive.” The forty-minute commute each way had seemed to breeze by when I first started at Lodestar Ranch, but it got old fast. And when the weather was bad? Ugh.
“It will be worth it, I promise,” he said. “Please?”
I couldn’t say no when he was looking at me so hopefully. “All right. Let me grab a few things first.”
I ran to our bedroom and pulled out the large box I had wrapped just this morning from under the bed. I put that in a bag along with the tinfoil package, some napkins, and a couple forks.
“Ready,” I said.
It was a gorgeous evening for a drive, and with Brax doing all the work, I didn’t mind being back in the car. I rolled down the window to enjoy the crisp autumn breeze. September was still my favorite month in Colorado. There was nowhere else I’d rather be than right here, my husband’s hand on my thigh, the splendor of the Rockies laid out before us.
“We’re going to Lodestar?” I asked as we turned on the familiar dirt road. I brushed my wind-strewn hair out of my eyes and looked at him. “Our spot?”
“That’s right.”
I should have known. There was a place deep in the pastures, nearly to the tree line, where we liked to go and park. It had the benefit of being a five-minute drive by four-wheeler—or fifteen minutes by horse—from the cabins and main house. Private, but convenient.
It was also, in my opinion, the prettiest piece of land on the whole property. The view was breathtaking.
Of course, the view was amazing on every corner of the ranch. It was possible the time we spent there, and how we spent it, made me biased.
Brax turned off the road and bumped over the field until we were far enough away that no one could see the truck. I hopped down while he grabbed our blanket from the backseat. I stood there, admiring the streaks of orange, pink, and purple left behind as the setting sun hovered over the ridgeline, and breathed. Contentment washed over me.
Nowhere else I’d rather be.
“Essie. ”
I turned around and saw that Brax had spread the blanket out. There was a picnic basket on the blanket and a bottle of champagne in a bucket of ice packs. I blinked. He must have snuck everything into his SUV while I was grabbing his present.
“What is all this?” I asked, stupefied.
“It’s our anniversary. A full year of living under one roof and not murdering each other. Shouldn’t we celebrate?” There was something in his voice that made me squint a little. An uncertainty underneath his dry humor.
I moved toward him and looped my arms around his neck. “Of course we should celebrate. I have something for you.” I rolled onto my toes and kissed him.
“Thanks, I love it.”
I laughed. “Not a kiss, Brax. An actual present.”
I disentangled myself from his arms and grabbed the bag from the truck. “Let’s sit.”
We both pulled off our boots and made ourselves comfortable on the blanket.
“I have something for you, too,” he said, pulling out the small box.
I handed him the present I had wrapped. “Open yours first.”
He smiled and started carefully working the tape free of the wrapping paper. I rolled onto my knees and watched impatiently. Finally he slipped the box free and folded the paper up in a neat little square. I would have rolled my eyes if it weren’t so darn cute. So darn him .
“The Tecovas?” he exclaimed as he held up an ostrich-leather boot. “You said no self-respecting cowboy could wear them.”
“You’re not a cowboy,” I said. “You’re an attorney and a part-time rancher. Every self-respecting attorney should have a pair. Anyway, I was running out of ideas of what to get you for our anniversary because when you like something, you just buy it yourself. That makes it very difficult to buy you presents, you know. I had to be proactive. Do you like them?”
“I love them. Thanks, honey.” He gave me a quick peck on the lips, then slid his feet into them to check the fit. “They’re perfect.”
I grinned happily. “Good.”
“And now, yours.” He handed me the present.
I ripped open the wrapping paper with all the glee of a child on Christmas morning. I loved presents. The small white velvet box inside was a dead giveaway that I was right. It had to be jewelry.
I wasn’t disappointed. Nestled inside was a gold necklace with a diamond pendant. I held it up to admire it, threading my fingers through the delicate gold chain. The diamond glinted prettily from the center of a gold disk. I squinted closer, noting the numbers etched along the perimeter of the disk .
“Is that…” My brow furrowed. “What are the numbers? They look like latitude and longitude.”
“That’s exactly what they are.” He took the necklace from me and gently laid it over my collar bone, fastening the clasp in the back. “The latitude and longitude of this precise location. Right here, where we’re sitting now.”
I smirked a little, even though my throat felt suspiciously tight. “You wanted to memorialize the place where I gave you the best blow job of your life?” I teased.
He chuckled softly and bit the nape of my neck, just above the clasp. “No, hellion. I wanted to memorialize the place where we’ll build a home together.”
My breath stuttered. “What?” I whispered, turning to face him.
“Only if that’s what you want,” he said hastily. “This is something we decide together. If you want to stay in town, fine. We’ll stay. But you have been so exhausted from driving back and forth, and it occurred to me that I don’t need an office in town. I can work from a home office and do house calls. Hell, my clients would absolutely prefer I come to them and save them the drive into town themselves. So if you want, this can be ours. We can build our home here.”
“Brax.” My eyes were wet. A tear trembled on my lower lashes and I blinked frantically. “Are you sure?”
“I want as much time with you as I can possibly get. This is the way to do that. So, yeah. I’m fucking sure. ”
I threw my arms around his neck. “Thank you. I…” My voice clogged. “I love you.”
He kissed my forehead. “I love you, too, hellion. Now, let’s crack open that champagne and celebrate.”
“Oh!” I brightened as I remembered what I had taken from the freezer. “And I have dessert!”
“Oh, yeah? Whaddya bring? Pie?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Cake.” I handed him the still-cold-but-not-frozen package. “Specifically, our wedding cake.”
He gave me a quizzical look as he unwrapped the tinfoil. “What?”
“It’s a tradition,” I explained. “You’re supposed to save the top tier of the wedding cake to eat on your first anniversary.”
Brax pulled off the last layer and there it was. White frosting over a chocolate cake. He stared at it.
“Mom wrapped it up for me. I was going to throw it away, because…” I shrugged. “You know. But I figured, why not, so I kept it. Anyway, I’m not going to promise you it’s still good after a solid year in the freezer. It’s a weird tradition, if you ask me, but?—”
He lunged at me, swallowing my words with his mouth. After a startled second, I sank into the kiss. His mouth gentled as the kiss deepened, and when he finally pulled away, I couldn’t remember what we had been talking about.
“You kept it.” He held my face in his palm, his thumb stroking my cheekbone. “Why didn’t you throw it away?”
“I—” I blinked, my mind going back to that day. Our first kiss. The vows. “I didn’t want to,” I confessed. “I wouldn’t let myself think any deeper about it than that. I just…couldn’t throw it in the trash. I told myself the marriage was all fake, but I think a part of me knew I would want it today.”
“Essie,” he whispered. He kissed my mouth like I was something precious. “This is the best gift anyone has ever given me.”
My eyes were damp all over again. “It might be disgusting,” I warned him. “But go ahead and serve it up. Let’s have our first meal at our new home.”
He smiled at that. “The first of many.”
The beginning of forever.