Epilogue
The Graff
A month later
Of all the surreal moments of the past year of being back in Marietta, Nate was pretty sure that this was top of the list. It was a long-ass list. Full of bad and good.
This, thankfully, was good. Celebrating Cal passing the Montana bar at the Graff with Landon, Aly, Sam, Jill, and Glenda. And Cal, of course, who’d insisted on everyone coming down to celebrate him.
Like the old Cal. No one had been able to refuse that.
Except Jake Hayes—the one invitee Nate had been relieved hadn’t been able to come, thanks to some case he was working on.
Everyone was actually getting along and having a good time, and Nate wasn’t sure that could have been the case if Jake Hayes were in attendance.
Alcohol as social lubricant didn’t hurt, but mostly it was just … maybe a relief for all of them to celebrate something positive. Like Landon’s wedding and this moment could bookend the awfulness of what had happened in between.
Everly was still alive but still struggling medically so not in jail or under trial.
Nate felt a kind of relief that Sam didn’t have to deal with feeling like she’d taken a life—even if it had been justified.
And Everly got to suffer. Seemed fair to Nate, and even if it wasn’t some kind of formal end, they’d been able to put it behind them.
After dinner, Cal ordered champagne. Nate thought he was being a little over the top considering he’d passed the bar before, but in that amusing way Cal had, and he seemed happy.
Not that fake happy either. There was something more genuine than there’d been before in his messing with Landon or Sam and the way he flirted with Jill.
Aly was the one to offer a toast. No surprise there. The little mother of the group. “To Cal. Hopefully he doesn’t have to use his impressive skills for any of us.”
“Jinx,” Sam muttered.
Nate shook his head, enjoyed the glass of champagne, and thanked all available deities when Jill said she had to get Glenda back up the mountain. Because it gave him and Sam an excuse to leave too.
They walked home. Spring had come to stay. It was cold in the dark, but spring cold. Not winter cold. And Sam’s hand was in his. She chatted about Glenda—the woman talked a lot more now, though she was still quiet. Watchful. Glenda.
The truth hadn’t changed her, but it had released her from a cage. Nate knew a little bit about what that felt like. Coming home hadn’t changed who he was, but it had saved him from the albatross of his past.
Sam had.
They turned the corner to their street. Sam had left the porch light on, and Nate had left the bedroom light on so the house glowed from their vantage point on the street.
His house. His family. His life.
Even after a year, he still had trouble believing he was here. Not just here but thriving. Happy. Settled. No matter what bad came knocking, they always handled it. There was always a positive on the other side of the negative. Every secret unearthed seemed to lead to a stronger foundation.
Because the truth mattered.
“You remember that day you found me in Tennessee?” he asked.
She eyed him suspiciously as they walked up the pathway to the front porch. “Yeah.”
“What do you remember about that day?”
She was still looking at him suspiciously, but she seemed to consider the question. “Well, I came upon your creepy serial killer cabin and was struck by the fact that I’d either finally tracked you down, or I was about to get murdered myself.”
He laughed and shook his head, putting his key into the lock of the front door and then letting her go in first before he followed. “What else?”
She shrugged out of her coat, tossed it over the armchair next to the door that had become a catchall more than anything they ever sat on. “There was a storm rolling in. I knew I had to get you moving so we could fly out before it hit. Go figure. You were stubborn.”
“I didn’t want anything to do with going home, with facing the past.”
She studied him. “So, what really changed your mind? I know it wasn’t anything I said.”
“No. Nothing you said. It was just that … gut feeling, that change was coming no matter what I did. I could either let it happen, or I could choose it. So I chose it.”
“Boy, did you,” she said with a little laugh.
She turned a little, like she was going to head deeper into the house, but he reached out and stopped her progress, turning her to face him.
Good bookends. Good, period.
It was time.
“And I was in my cabin deciding what to do with that choice. I looked out and saw this ray of light peek through the clouds and land on your face. Like a sign.”
She wrinkled her nose, leaning a little away from him even as she kept her arm in his grasp. “You don’t believe in signs.”
“Oh, I absolutely do,” he said sincerely. “I believe in a lot of things.”
“Well, when you stepped out of that cabin, thunder shook everything. What was that a sign for?”
He grinned in spite of himself, pointed toward their bedroom, and she snorted out a laugh. “Oh, get out of here.” She tried to pull away, but he didn’t let her go.
“The point is, I felt like everything changed in that moment. Everything did. You’re the one who allowed me to escape here all those years ago, and you’re the one who brought me home. But it’s only home now because you’re here.”
“Okay, you’re freaking me out, Nate,” she muttered.
She fidgeted, so he knew he didn’t have much more time before she demanded answers or tried to distract him.
So he lowered to his knee. Kinda hurt, but he made it. He was more than gratified by the shock on her face. It wasn’t often he could surprise her. The shock doubled when he reached over to the end table, opened the drawer, and pulled out the little jewelry box he’d stashed there a few days ago.
He opened it, so she could see what was inside.
“Sam, I love you. There is nothing in this world I want more than to come home to this house and share it with you. No matter what comes or doesn’t.
You’re the one I want by my side. I like to think you believe I’m the kind of guy who’ll stick, but I don’t want there to be any questions of what I want. You. Always. So, will you marry me?”
*
Sam was frozen. Speechless.
He had a ring. She heard the words echo in her head, but the thing she couldn’t seem to fully absorb was the fact he was holding a ring.
It was a perfect ring. She didn’t care about jewelry or diamonds or anything, so the simple band felt like … her. It felt like the promises Nate always gave her. Solid and perfect.
“If you’re not ready for this step, that’s okay. You don’t have to—”
“Shut up. Just … shut up for a minute.” Her head was reeling. Everything was … reeling.
He had a ring. He wanted to marry her. He’d talked about that moment in Tennessee, and she’d been telling herself all this time that signs weren’t real. It had just been a moment she’d romanticized in her mind.
But if she had, so had he.
Because life had changed. She’d sensed wounds in him, been so sure hers were shored up, but they’d both had to expose them, and try to heal and…
Everything he was talking about wasn’t some fairytale. It wasn’t fantasy. It was just real. It was promises of forever, and she’d stopped believing in forever. She really had.
But God, she wanted hers.
Maybe it all made her nervous, but he said everything … right. He was everything right. For her.
She knelt so they could be closer to eye level, while he still held out that ring. She cupped his face with her hands. “You stepped out of that cabin last year, and I knew something was about to change.” Yes, everything had. Some bad. Some good.
He was always part of the good.
So it felt fitting. It felt right. To say yes tonight.
“I don’t know what I want my life to look like. I think I’ve been afraid to think too far ahead. But I want to marry you.”
His mouth was on hers before she’d fully gotten out the you. She laughed into the kiss, into falling onto the floor and his little grunt of pain.
“Why are you kneeling on your bad leg,” she murmured against another kiss, and then another.
“I’m being romantic,” he told her loftily. “Now, stop pawing me. Let me put this ring on you before we lose it.”
A ring. A ring. She laughed, felt ridiculous for laughing, for having tears in her eyes, but it was the best kind of ridiculous she’d ever known.
She held out her hand, sitting on their living room rug. He slipped it onto her finger. For a moment or two, they both looked at it. A circle. A promise.
Forever.
Happy wasn’t the right word. Happy seemed too simple. This was big. Lofty. Everything solid and good.
And because she couldn’t contain it all, didn’t want to sort through anything but that joy, she threw herself at him, so they were rolling around on the living room floor, kissing and laughing.
When the doorbell rang before she’d even managed to get his shirt off, she groaned. “Who the hell is that?”
Nate flopped back onto the ground. “With our luck, it’s bad news.”
When the bell sounded again, she glared at him. “Why would you say that?” She managed to push to her feet.
She stalked over to the door and looked through the peephole.
Jake Hayes was standing on their porch. After missing Cal’s little party for work.
Yeah, that didn’t seem like a great sign. Especially considering his detective badge was hanging around his neck. Still, it was probably just something about Honor’s Edge. Some annoying questions or something at a very, very inopportune moment.
She looked down at the ring on her finger. But no matter what, this was real. So it didn’t matter what was on the other side of this door.
“Who is it?” Nate asked, getting to his feet.
“Jake.”
“Well, fuck that. Tell him to go away.”
She snorted. “Maybe I will.” She opened the door and tried to smile politely. “Jake. It’s late.”
“Yeah. Sorry to bother you. I need to speak with Nate.”
She really didn’t like that, so she kept the door still half closed so Jake couldn’t see Nate standing behind her. “Why?”
“I have a few questions for him.” He tapped his badge. “In an official capacity. If he doesn’t answer them now, I’m going to need him to come down to the station.”
Nate came up behind her, opened the door the rest of the way. “Questions about what?” he asked, not even trying to mask his irritation like she was.
“Jules Hyatt.”
“I haven’t seen Jules Hyatt in something like a month.”
“That makes sense,” Hayes said, his gaze direct and cool. “Because that’s about how long she’s been dead.”
The End