EPILOGUE
GABE
The table at Perfect Brews is free of Christmas decorations as I sit across from the man who served with me before all hell broke loose in a place I’ll never return to in person but that haunts dreams I never talk about. Not even to Elena.
For Drake, he has his own battles to fight.
“Why did you send her to me?” I turn the wedding ring over in my hands. It’s too big for her, but it's the right fit for me. Today is a quiet ceremony. Drake will be there, and a friend of hers. She doesn’t want anything big and I hate crowds.
A year after Elena turned up on my mountain, she’s still with me.
We decided to make it official, and her name is about to become Elena Decker.
She never did get around to that paperwork, though there was some other to do after her ex passed due to a terrible incident with a mafia run in.
At least, that was how the local papers reported his death.
Deboning seemed about right for the circumstances all around. Bloody, messy and personal.
Like I said, it fit.
Drake holds my gaze and shrugs. “She needed help, You seemed like the right man for the job.” He nods to the wedding band in my hand. “Looks like it worked out.”
“Yeah, you’re a regular match maker.” I lean back and pass the ring over to him. He’s holding onto it until the ceremony. “I hear that you’re not staying in town though.”
Drake shrugs again. His go to. “Sitting around wasn’t doing me any favors. I picked up some work. I thought I might try a change of scenery.”
Hope Peak is pretty, and safe. I nod. “Whatever you need. Are you going back to engineering?”
He snorts. “Like I said, change of scene. Trying my hand at security work.”
I raise my eyebrows. “You’re becoming a doorman at a club?” I doubt that will work out. He has the patience of an ant with the brains of the smartest man in the room.
“Hell, no. Body guarding. At a ranch. I think.” He scratches scruff on his chin.
“That’s…unique.”
“Almost as good as what you do.”
I nod. “Almost.”
“Time’s up, boys.”
I spin in my seat to find Elena standing behind me in a pale blue dress she bought at a second hand shop in town.
She didn’t care for a white or cream dress or any other marriage tradition, having already been there once.
What she did care about was the cake and I’ve been eating the trial stuff for weeks.
There’s a huge one, enough to feed a small army, in the back of the Perfect Brew’s cold room. I reckon we’ll leave the damn thing here. Thankfully she made it in town at Drake’s place.
“You look beautiful,” I murmur, taking in the dress that sweeps to her ankles from a scalloped neckline. Tiny flowers adorn the soft blue lace all over. Her hair is caught up in a knot at her nape. A few flyaway curls have escaped. “Perfect.”
“Thank you. You brush up well.” She touches my trimmed beard.
I went to a barber this morning, avoiding eye contact with the mirror for as long as possible. Eventually I had to look and found…
A man I don’t hate as much as I expected to on the other side.
Apparently we’re both on a healing path together. All the sappy shit wrapped up with a strawberry blonde bombshell and cake.
So much fucking cake.
I love her though and she loves me back to my shock. That’s what matters.
“Better get going.” Drake rises, holding onto the rings. “The church isn’t going anywhere but I think there’s another wedding booked after us.”
“Alright. Sweetness?”
Elena rises onto her toes and presses a kiss on the cheek I present to her. “I like this. But I love my wild man better.”
“I can do wild, sweet thing.”
I hold her hand and let her lead me to the small church on the edge of town she’s chosen for our vows.
It could be anywhere. That wouldn't matter to me. What matters is her in the same room as me, and her agreeing to whatever she needs most.
Hell, I can't believe I’m lucky enough to have found her. The woman I fell in love with at first sight who loves me back.
Utter perfection.