Chapter 31
BAILEY
He unties the blindfold, and I blink against the sudden brightness. Snow stretches in every direction, trees rising dark against the white.
As my vision adjusts to the dazzling light, something catches my attention through the trees—a dark shape that doesn’t belong. My mind struggles to comprehend what I’m seeing, refusing to believe what my eyes insist is real.
“Is that...?” The words die in my throat as I take an uncertain step forward.
The cabin.
Our cabin.
But not the broken-down, leaky refuge we left behind. This structure stands proud against the winter backdrop, smoke curling from a new stone chimney, windows gleaming in the sunlight like welcoming eyes. Someone—Sebastian—has transformed it.
“You didn’t,” I whisper, but my feet are already moving, carrying me forward before my thoughts can catch up.
My boots crash through knee-deep snow as I break into an awkward run, lungs burning with cold air, not caring how ridiculous I must look flailing through the drifts.
The cabin grows more distinct with each desperate step—new logs replacing rotted ones, a proper door instead of the splintered barrier we’d improvised, a small porch with a hand-carved bench waiting in silent invitation.
“Bailey, wait!” Sebastian calls behind me, but I don’t slow down.
“You restored it!” I shout over my shoulder, laughing as I nearly disappear into a snowbank. “You rebuilt our disaster cabin!”
My fingers have gone numb, my cheeks burn from the cold, and snow infiltrates my boots with each plunging step, but none of it matters. All that matters is reaching that cabin.
I fling the door open, momentum carrying me across the threshold. Warm air envelops me, carrying the intoxicating scent of pine and wood smoke. My breath catches in my chest.
“Oh my God,” I whisper.
It’s our cabin, but transformed. The layout remains identical, every detail preserved but elevated. The old wood stove still occupies its corner, now refurbished with flames dancing behind clean glass.
The rickety table where we once ate ancient beans gleams with careful polish, set with handcrafted mugs awaiting coffee.
“You remembered everything,” I murmur, fingers tracing the smooth countertop that once bristled with splinters eager to attack unwary hands.
My gaze falls on the spot where we’d placed our pathetic Christmas tree—that sad, crooked branch decorated with found pinecones and twigs. In its place stands a perfect small pine, adorned with miniature snow globes and tiny wooden ornaments shaped like planes soaring through clouds. And pinecones.
The same type we gathered that night, placed among the branches, a perfect homage to our first makeshift Christmas together.
“Sebastian...” His name catches like a physical thing in my throat.
But it’s what sits above the fireplace that breaks me. A shelf, hand-crafted, displaying a collection of snow globes. Not just any snow globes—my snow globes.
Vegas is there, restored, somehow, the glitter swirling hypnotically when I lift it with trembling hands.
Beside it rests the custom one he gave me of our cabin with its tiny figures and distant wolves.
But there are others—Chicago, Seattle, New York.
Every city we’ve visited together during our year of loving each other.
“You brought them all here,” I whisper, over the gentle crackling fire. “Even Vegas.”
I rotate the globe in my palm, watching the familiar glitter dance through the liquid. The one I hurled to save him from wolves. The one I thought was lost forever in Alaska’s wilderness.
I squint at the cabin one, realizing something’s not quite right.
I inspect it, noticing discrepancies. The base seems heavier, more substantial than I remember.
The glass appears clearer, the details of the miniature wolves more precise.
This isn’t my original snow globe. It’s similar but. ..different.
“Wait.” I hold it toward the window light. “This isn’t the same one.”
I give it a gentle shake, expecting the familiar swirl of fake snow and glitter, but something else catches the light—brilliant specks refracting sunlight into countless tiny rainbows across my face and hands. Not snow. Not glitter.
Diamonds. Tiny, perfect diamonds swirling around the cabin.
My hands freeze mid-motion, the precious stones continuing their mesmerizing dance within the glass dome.
“Sebastian?” My voice emerges as a breathless squeak, eyes fixed on the impossible sight in my palms.
I tilt the globe, watching as the diamonds slide across the glass, catching the firelight now. Each one throws off prisms of light that dance across the cabin walls. Are these real?
“Are these—” The question dies unfinished as realization dawns.
It’s not just the diamonds inside that are different. The cabin replica isn’t our disaster shelter, either. It’s this cabin—the restored one, recreated down to the most minute detail.
I turn around and nearly drop the priceless globe.
Sebastian kneels before me, bathed in golden firelight.
His eyes—those blue eyes that once calculated everything, measured everything—hold mine with unwavering certainty.
No trace remains of his former perfect mask.
Just him—raw, real, looking at me like I’m the most valuable treasure in his entire collection.
“Bailey Monroe,” he says, his voice catching slightly.
“When our plane went down in Alaska, I thought it was the worst day of my life. I was running from betrayal, from failure, from myself.” He takes a deep breath.
“But now I know it was the best day of my life. The day the universe decided I needed to be stranded with the most infuriating, amazing woman I’ve ever met. ”
Tears blur my vision as I clutch the diamond-filled snow globe against my heart like a talisman.
“You saved my life that day,” he continues. “Not just with your flying skills, though, let’s be honest, that landing was terrible.”
“It was not!” I protest, making him laugh.
“You saved me by being exactly who you are—unfiltered, unstoppable, unafraid to tell me when I was being an idiot.” He reaches for my free hand. “You taught me to laugh again when I thought I’d forgotten how. You showed me what it means to be real in a world of perfect facades.”
A tear escapes down my cheek. I don’t wipe it away.
“Being stranded with you was the greatest gift I’ve ever received, Bailey.
You crash-landed into my meticulously ordered existence and shattered every boundary.
” His thumb traces my knuckles with tender precision.
“I never want to find my way back to that old life. I want to build a new one with you—messy, unpredictable, and real.”
He reaches into his pocket and withdraws a small box. Inside nests a ring that steals my breath away. The center diamond is enormous, set in platinum and surrounded by smaller diamonds that catch light from every angle. It’s extravagant, breathtaking, and completely overwhelming.
“Bailey Monroe, I promise to be your co-pilot through every storm, every clear sky, every adventure that awaits us. I promise to never ask you to be anything less than who you are—even when you’re driving me to the brink of insanity.
” His voice deepens, grows even more serious.
“I promise to always fight for us, to choose you every single day, and to collect snow globes with you in every city we visit for the rest of our lives.”
My heart threatens to burst through my ribcage. This can’t be happening. But it is. Sebastian Lockhart—the man who once planned every minute of his existence—kneels before me, looking up as though I’m the answer to a question he’s been searching for his entire life.
“Will you marry me?”
I laugh through my tears, shaking my head at this impossible, perfect, ridiculous man.
“Well, duh, Mr. Perfect. Was there ever any doubt?”
I melt into his kiss, still clutching the snow globe in one hand while the other finds its way to the nape of his neck, pulling him closer.
His arms encircle me, lifting me off my feet as we kiss with the same desperate intensity of that first night in the cabin, warming each other against an impossible storm.
When we break apart, his eyes are dark, intense. No longer Mr. Perfect—just Sebastian, my Sebastian, looking at me with a heat that makes my knees weak.
“You know,” he says, his voice rough, “you’re not flying the plane right now.”
My eyes widen as I catch his meaning. “Is that right, Mr. Lockhart?”
“That’s right, Captain Monroe.” His smile turns wicked. “I think we should properly christen our cabin, don’t you?”
Before I can plan a suggestive response, he sweeps me into his arms, making me yelp in surprise before dissolving into laughter as he carries me toward the bedroom. I cling to his shoulders, somehow still maintaining my grip on the precious snow globe.
The bedroom door yields to Sebastian’s gentle kick, revealing a beautiful rustic sanctuary centered around a proper bed—nothing like the rickety cot we once huddled on for survival.
A handmade quilt of deep blues and greens covers it, piled with soft pillows that bear no resemblance to the lumpy disaster we’d endured.
“Slightly better than our first stay,” I whisper as he places me on the bed.
Two days later, we walk hand-in-hand back toward the plane, my new ring catching the winter sunlight, sending diamond reflections dancing across the pristine snow.
The cabin looks smaller from this distance, but no less magical—our perfect little corner of wilderness standing testament to how far we’ve come.
I halt, my pilot brain catching up with the logistics of our situation. “Wait! There isn’t actually a business meeting, is there? Because I filed a flight plan and everything.”
“Only you would worry about flight regulations in the middle of your own engagement weekend,” he says, drawing me against him.
I look up into those blue eyes, attempting to scowl but failing miserably. “Flight plans are serious business, Sebastian. The FAA doesn’t accept ‘surprise proposal’ as a valid reason for deviation from filed flight paths.”
He kisses my forehead, still chuckling. “I had James file an amended plan. We’re covered.”
“Of course you did,” I sigh, leaning into him.
His arms tighten around me as we gaze back at our cabin—the place where we began, and where we’ve now promised a future together. The sun catches on my ring, sending fragments of light dancing across the snow like tiny falling stars.
“Ready to fly home, Captain Monroe?” Sebastian whispers against my hair.
“Born ready.”