Epilogue Part 2
CASSIE
Six Months Later
My cabin is quiet. Sawyer's behind me with her hands in my hair. The morning light is coming through the window low and long, and I need something ordinary to think about, or I'm going to do something embarrassing, like cry.
Levi made me a birthday cake. It leaned hard to the left, almost a full inch. It tasted exactly right. I didn't say a word about the lean. We both just ate it at the kitchen table. That was the best birthday I've had in a long time.
"Hold still," Sawyer says.
"I'm holding still."
"You're thinking so loud I can feel it."
I hold stiller.
I asked her to braid my hair, and she said, "Absolutely, I would love to.
" She showed up this morning with her kit and got straight to work.
Her hands are sure and gentle, and she hums something low under her breath while she works, weaving small wildflowers into the braid as she goes.
That's Sawyer. She loves you by showing up exactly the way you needed and making it feel easy.
Darla appears at the door with a plate. Biscuits and jam and something wrapped in a napkin that turns out to be two pieces of bacon.
"Darla." My voice comes out softer than I mean it to.
"I know." She sets the plate on the table and looks at me in the mirror.
She doesn't say anything for a second. Just looks.
"You look beautiful." She says it warm and sure, like it's a fact she's been holding onto.
She squeezes my hand on her way past. "I'll see you down there, sweetheart. " Then she's gone.
I eat the bacon.
Rhea appears in the doorway. Her eyes move from me to Sawyer and back again.
"Okay," she says. "Okay." Her eyes move over me head to toe and back up. "You look ridiculous. Ridiculously good." She points at me. "He's been a wreck all morning, just so you know. Kade texted me." She grins. "That's all I've got. Go get married." Then she's gone too.
Sawyer sets down the last pin and meets my eyes in the mirror.
I look at myself for a second. Ivory dress, simple as I could find it, the skirt falling straight to the floor.
Short sleeves sitting just off my shoulders, my braid over one shoulder .
Wildflowers waiting on the table. Boots on my feet that nobody will see until I'm walking through the grass.
"I knew the second you said yes to that job.
" She pauses. "It was the best decision this ranch ever made.
" She squeezes my shoulders. "Now let's go get you married. "
"Thank you," I say. "For all of it."
I stand up, she hands me my wildflowers, and we walk out into the morning together.
***
Dad's waiting at the far edge of the meadow, just past the arena where the tree line opens up. He's got his good hat on and his hands in his pockets. He's looking out at the mountains the way he looked at the arena the morning of his visit, like something is exactly what he hoped it would be.
He hears me coming and turns. He looks at me for a long moment, and his jaw tightens.
"Well," he says. Then he stops. Starts again. "I drove up here thinking I was going to have some things to say to that man." He shakes his head. "Turns out I didn't have nearly as much to say as I thought I did."
"Dad."
"I'm getting there." He looks at me. "You built something here, Cass.
All on your own, before he was any part of it.
You walked onto this ranch, and you figured out who you were.
You didn't ask anybody's permission to do it.
" His voice drops a little. "I didn't teach you that.
That was always in you. I'm just glad you found a place that let it out. "
I loop my arm through his before I actually cry.
"Okay," I say. "Now I'm ready."
He laughs, quiet and low, and pats my hand where it sits in the crook of his arm. We walk into the tree line together.
The meadow opens up through the pines. The mountains are right there, close enough to feel them, rocky at the top with snow still sitting in the high places.
The light comes through the trees at a long angle and catches the grass.
Wildflowers everywhere, the same ones I'm holding in my hand.
I stop walking for just a second because I wasn't ready for how right it looks.
Every person I love most in the world is standing in that grass.
Levi is at the end of it.
He sees me come through the trees, and the humor drops. The charm drops. What's left is unguarded and completely still. His jaw is tight. His eyes are full. The version of him that most people never see, because they stop at the laugh.
I never stopped at the laugh.
I knew what was underneath it the first week I was here. I made him work for it.
I walk toward him through everyone I love. Sawyer and Logan, Kade beside them, Rhea with her hand pressed to her mouth, Sutton standing perfectly still for the first time in his life, Darla, Mandy, and Londyn in a row. All of them here. All of them mine.
Levi doesn't move. He watches me come to him.
Dad puts my hand in Levi's and holds on for one extra second, his big rough hand over both of ours. Then he steps back. That's the whole of my father in one moment. The man who drove to Montana to check on his daughter and found out she didn't need checking on.
Levi looks down at me. His thumb moves across my knuckles.
"You're late," he says, low enough that only I can hear it.
"I'm exactly on time."
"I've been standing here for four minutes."
"That's not late. That's an entrance."
He grins. The real one, the full one, the one that takes up his whole face. Then the grin goes quiet. He looks at me the way he looked at me the night he drove back through that gate, nothing left unfinished behind him, and everything he felt right there on his face where anyone could see it.
"Hi, Cass," he says.
"Hi," I say back.
The officiant asks if we take each other, and we do, and then he says we've prepared our own vows.
Levi goes first. He looks at me and takes a breath and says:
"I want it on record that I tried everything.
" The crowd laughs. He waits for it to settle.
"Every joke. Every angle. Every perfectly timed one-liner.
" He shakes his head. "Nothing. Not once.
" More laughter. He looks at me, and his voice drops.
"And then I figured out that wasn't what I was actually after.
What I was after was someone who saw through all of it and stayed anyway.
" He squeezes my hands. "I love you, Cass. "
I look at him, and I know exactly what I want to say.
"I saw who you were underneath it the first week I was here. I just made you work for it anyway." I squeeze his hands back. "You were worth every second of it. So is this. So is everything that comes after it. I love you."
"By the power vested in me," the officiant says, and Levi is already leaning in.
When he kisses me, he dips me.
Of course he does.
The whole crowd cheers. Sutton shouts something nobody can make out. Kade shakes his head. Levi brings me back up, grinning, and I'm laughing.
***
Darla feeds everyone until nobody can move.
There's pork loin, cornbread, potato salad, roasted green beans, and three kinds of pie.
She accepts every compliment with the expression of someone who expected nothing less.
Mandy keeps drinks topped off. Londyn strung lights along the dining hall porch rail before the ceremony, and when the sun goes down they glow warm against the dark alongside the fire pit.
Levi plays guitar. He's been playing for an hour and hasn't repeated himself once.
Sutton has been dancing the entire time with the full conviction of someone who believes he is exceptional at it.
He is not exceptional at it. He doesn't know that, and nobody is going to tell him.
Logan watches from his chair with an expression that says this is the best thing that has ever happened to him.
Kade stands at the edge of the firelight with a drink in his hand.
He's been there most of the night, in and out of every conversation, the one person who has managed to make Sutton laugh three separate times and act like he didn't. He laughed at Levi's vows before anyone else did.
He shook Logan's hand at some point, and I saw Logan grip it hard, and neither of them said a word.
He's not on the outside of this. He's exactly where he wants to be.
He goes quiet sometimes, for a minute or two, looking at something past the fire that nobody else can see.
Dad finds me before the fire burns low. He pulls me in and holds on a second longer than a hug needs to, and I hug him back.
His hand is solid on my back, and he doesn't say anything for a moment, just holds on, and when he does speak, his voice has gone the way it goes when something has gotten past the wall he keeps up.
"I am so proud of you," he says. "Not for this. For all of it. For every single thing you built here before today." He pulls back and looks at me, and his eyes are doing the thing he'd never admit to in front of anyone. "Your mom would have loved this place."
I don't trust my voice, so I nod.
He squeezes my shoulders, straightens up, and clears his throat. "Alright." He kisses my forehead. "That man had better take care of you, or I know where he sleeps."
"Dad."
"I'm serious."
"He lives here. You know where everyone works."
"Good. Keeps it simple. Now go be with your husband."
I watch him walk back toward the fire. He stops to say something to Kade. Kade smiles. Whatever Dad says back makes both of them look at Levi for a second and then look away, and I decide I don't need to know what that was.
Later, when the ranch has gone quiet, and the last of the firelight is nothing but coals, I end up at the pasture fence the way I always end up at the pasture fence when I need to think or stop thinking or just stand somewhere that feels solid.
Cricket is out there in the dark. So is Copper, standing close, the two of them moving slowly through the grass with their heads down.
I hear Levi behind me. He comes up beside me, puts his arm around me, and I lean into him. We stand there without saying anything. There's nothing that needs saying. The mountains are black against the sky. The stars are out all the way to the edge of them. The ranch is quiet around us.
This is home.
All of it.
The fences, the grass, the mountains, and the horses moving in the dark. The dining hall where Darla and Mandy have fed me every morning since I got here. The barn where Kade showed me where Cricket's stall was on my first day. The fire pit, the cabins, and the cats on the porch in the morning.
The man standing beside me with his arm around my shoulders and his thumb moving slowly against my sleeve.
I got here with a bag I couldn't finish packing, standing in the middle of a cabin holding a flannel shirt. Said yes before I thought too hard about it.
Turns out the girl who couldn't finish packing knew exactly what she was doing.