Epilogue
SADIE
ONE YEAR LATER
The cabin doesn't look the same as it did a year ago.
I stand on the porch, coffee in hand, surveying the changes.
Red railings that I painted myself last summer, even though Wolfe had to redo half of them because I missed spots.
String lights wrapped around the eaves, still up from Christmas because I couldn't bear to take them down.
The wind chime I found at the Whisper Vale craft fair, the one Wolfe pretends to hate but I've caught him listening to when he thinks I'm not looking.
This place used to be a fortress of silence. Now it's home.
The door opens behind me and Wolfe appears, barefoot despite the February cold, his hair loose around his shoulders. He's carrying his own mug, and he settles against the railing beside me without a word.
We do this most mornings now. Coffee on the porch, watching the sun climb over the mountains, existing in comfortable quiet. A year ago, I would have filled every second with chatter. Now I've learned that some moments are better without words.
Some moments. Not all of them.
"Happy Valentine's Day," I say, leaning into his side.
His arm wraps around me automatically. "Happy anniversary."
One year since he carried me out of a snowbank. One year since I crashed into his life and refused to leave. One year of learning each other, fighting with each other, loving each other in ways I never knew I could love another person.
Best year of my life.
"I have a surprise for you." I set down my coffee and turn to face him. "But you have to close your eyes."
"I don't like surprises."
"You like my surprises."
He sighs, but his mouth twitches. "Fine."
He closes his eyes. I pull the small box from my pocket, the one I've been hiding for three days, and press it into his hands.
"Okay. Open."
He looks down at the box, then at me, then back at the box. Carefully, he lifts the lid.
The pregnancy test sits inside, two pink lines clear as day.
Wolfe goes completely still.
"Surprise," I whisper. "We're having a baby."
He doesn't say anything. Doesn't move. For one terrible second, I think I've made a mistake, that this is too much too fast, that I've finally found the thing that will make him run.
Then he sets the box aside and pulls me into his arms so tight I can barely breathe.
"Wolfe." I'm laughing and crying at the same time, my face pressed against his chest. "Say something."
"I love you." His voice is rough, cracked in a way I've only heard a few times before. "I love you, and I'm terrified, and I don't know how to be a father, and I've never wanted anything more in my entire life."
The tears come harder. Happy tears, the best kind. "You're going to be an amazing dad."
"You don't know that."
"I do know that." I pull back to look at him. His eyes are wet, which makes me cry even more, because Wolfe Hendrix doesn't cry. "You're protective and patient and you pay attention to everything. You taught me to shoot and cook rabbit and check a perimeter. You'll teach our baby too."
"Our baby." He says the words like he's testing them. Like he can't quite believe they're real.
"Our baby. Due in October, if my math is right." I take his hands and press them against my still-flat stomach. "There's a whole person in there, Wolfe. A person we made together."
He stares at his hands on my belly, and I watch something shift in his face. The fear doesn't disappear, but it makes room for something else. Wonder, maybe. Or hope.
"I want to name them after J," he says quietly. "If it's a boy. Jacob. Jake for short."
My heart cracks open. "Wolfe."
"He would have loved this. Would have been insufferable about it." A rough laugh escapes him. "He always said I needed to stop hiding and start living. Guess I finally listened."
"I think he'd be proud of you."
"I think he'd be too busy spoiling his godkid to care about me." Wolfe's thumbs trace circles on my stomach through my shirt. "But yeah. Maybe proud too."
I cover his hands with mine. "Jacob Hendrix. I love it."
"And if it's a girl?"
"Then we'll figure it out together." I grin at him. "That's kind of our thing now."
He pulls me into another kiss, slower this time, deeper. His hands slide from my stomach to my hips, pulling me closer, and the familiar heat sparks between us.
"We should celebrate," he murmurs against my mouth.
"What did you have in mind?"
He answers by lifting me off my feet.
We don't make it to the bedroom. He sets me on the kitchen table, sweeping aside the paperwork I left there yesterday, and strips off my shirt before I can protest. Not that I want to protest. A year together and I still want him just as desperately as that first time.
"Wolfe." I gasp as his mouth finds my neck, my collarbone, the curve of my breast above my bra. "The table isn't exactly comfortable."
"I'll make it worth your while."
He does. God, he does.
My bra disappears. Then my pants, my underwear, until I'm naked on his kitchen table while he stands between my thighs, still fully dressed. The power imbalance should feel wrong. Instead, it makes me wetter.
"Look at you." His voice is low, reverent. His hands skim up my thighs, spreading them wider. "So beautiful. And all mine."
"All yours," I agree breathlessly. "Now stop talking and touch me."
He drops to his knees.
The first stroke of his tongue makes me cry out, my hands flying to his hair. He eats me like he does everything else: focused, thorough, relentless. His tongue circles my clit, then dips inside me, then returns to that perfect spot that makes my thighs shake.
"Wolfe. Fuck. Right there, don't stop."
He doesn't stop. He slides two fingers inside me, curling them against my front wall while his mouth works my clit, and I shatter within minutes. The orgasm rolls through me, my back arching off the table, his name tearing from my throat.
He doesn't give me time to recover. He stands, unbuckles his belt, shoves his jeans down just far enough to free his cock. Then he's pushing inside me, one long stroke that fills me completely, and I moan at the stretch.
"You feel so good." He pulls back and thrusts again, harder this time. "Every fucking time. Like coming home."
I wrap my legs around his waist, pulling him deeper. "More. I need more."
He gives me more. Hard and fast, the table creaking beneath us, his hands gripping my hips hard enough to bruise. I love it. Love the way he loses control with me, the way the silent mountain man becomes vocal and desperate when he's inside me.
"Touch yourself," he orders. "I want to feel you come on my cock."
I reach between us, finding my clit, rubbing tight circles while he fucks me. The pressure builds faster this time, sharper, and when I come, it hits so hard my vision whites out. He follows me seconds later, burying himself deep and groaning my name as he spills inside me.
We stay like that for a long moment, both breathing hard, still connected. Then he pulls out carefully and lifts me off the table, carrying me to the couch and settling me in his lap.
"The table," I manage weakly. "We eat there."
"I'll clean it."
"We definitely need to sanitize."
"Later." He nuzzles into my neck, his arms tight around me. "Right now I just want to hold you."
I melt into him, boneless and sated and ridiculously happy while my mountain man holds me like I'm the most precious thing in his world. Wolfe presses a kiss to my temple. We sit in comfortable silence, watching the fire, his hand warm on my belly.
A year ago, I drove to Nevada to escape Valentine's Day, to prove I didn't need romance or love or any of the things Derek made me think I wasn't worthy of.
Instead, I found all of it. Love, romance, a man who carried me out of a storm and never let me go.
A home in a cabin on a mountain. A future I never dared to imagine.
And now a baby. A family. The thing I didn't know I wanted until I had it.
"Hey, Wolfe?"
"Yeah?"
"Next Valentine's Day, there's going to be three of us."
His arms tighten around me. "I can't wait."
"Me neither." I snuggle closer, listening to his heartbeat. "Me neither."
I close my eyes, perfectly content, knowing that whatever comes next, we'll face it together. Because that's what forever means now.
Thank you so much for reading Mountain Man Valentines Surprise.