Epilogue
SUNSHINE
“I can’t believe we’re here again,” Ethan muttered.
“I’m actually kind of excited,” I said. “This is my first time.”
All of us were huddled in the study on the first floor of the Lodge.
I was sitting on Tag’s lap…to save space in case someone else wanted a chair.
Mom, Amity and Bliss were on the couch. Mac and Seth stood by the back window.
Carter and Ethan sat in the two chairs on the opposite side of the desk, while Mr. Prescott sat on the other side.
Harmony was the only one missing, as she’d volunteered, (i.e.
drew the short straw) to watch Carter’s kids.
“As you know, Leroy McGraw’s will was not simple.”
“Get on with it, Prescott,” Carter barked. “Tell us what impossible task my father has laid out for us next.”
“Well, to be technical, none of the tasks he proposed were impossible. The Calloways and McGraws are now united by marriage. The Feud Day Festival won the state’s Blue Ribbon for Excellence, and the Swinging D is back on solid financial ground.”
“Well done by you, babe,” Tag murmured in my ear .
“Thanks, baby,” I said, kissing him on the cheek.
Once this meeting was over, he was going to take me on another horse riding lesson with Shirley.
Then, it was back to his cabin for dinner and some fun, since his dad was still in Florida.
I was all but living at the cabin these days.
Although, I did insist on keeping some clothes at Mom’s house, just because he hadn’t actually asked me to move in with him.
Yet.
He told me when he officially started courting me, he wanted to enjoy the process.
He’d made me go on three proper dates before he’d fucked me senseless behind my mom’s barn.
Was it possible to die from such happiness? I think that was a question Jane Austen once asked. Answer: no. You could just be this happy and still live.
“So, we’ve done it all?” Ethan asked. “That’s it?”
“Not quite,” Gordon said. “Mr. McGraw believed very much in the concept of family. He expressed his sadness at the loss of his daughter-in-law, Lilly.”
“What about Lilly?” Carter said, going full alert.
Prescott cleared his throat. Lord, that man was sweaty. Ethan insisted on taking his blood pressure before the meeting, like the guy might have a heart attack any minute.
Prescott pulled an envelope out of his briefcase and the whole room groaned.
“What’s wrong?” I asked Tag. “It’s just an envelope.”
“That’s how the bullshit starts.”
Prescott opened the letter and started reading.
“ Carter, I worry about you being a single parent. This life is not meant to be lived alone. ”
“I’m not alone,” Carter cried. “I’ve got three kids and too many brothers and a brand new sister. ”
Prescott kept reading. “ It is impossible to raise children on your own and run the ranch successfully. ”
“That sonofabitch,” Carter barked. “He was the one who put the ranch in jeopardy in the first place.”
Gordon cleared his throat. “Anyway, to sum up, Carter McGraw has six months to show he can run the ranch as expected. Which means, after six months, the operation still needs to be in the black, otherwise the operation will be turned over to Mac McGraw to run, while Carter instead focuses on his children.”
The room was silent. Painfully tense.
Mac turned to his brother, white-faced. “I didn’t know,” he said. “I don’t…”
“I know,” Carter said, his jaw clenched. “It’s more of Dad’s fucking horseshit.”
“What happens if I don’t want it?” Mac asked, from where he was standing.
Amity whipped her head around to look at him, but when he didn’t make eye contact with her, she turned back to face forward, her fingers entwined in her lap.
“Then the same failsafe goes into effect, and the operation, along with all the land, will be turned over to the Bureau of Land Management.”
“That motherfucker,” Carter muttered. “He’d rather there not be an operation than just let me have it?”
“That wasn’t his intent,” Prescott said, quietly. “He wanted to make sure the children were being raised properly. And the ranch was being run successfully. And one man can’t do both.”
Tag and I shared a look. Leroy McGraw had a point. Carter was being run ragged trying to do everything and the ranch work. Because of that, everyone else was picking up the slack. And everyone was trying with the kids, but with Mrs. Walker retiring, there were going to be problems.
“Then why not just leave it all to Mac?” Ethan said.
Prescott read the last part of the letter. “ Carter, as my first born, this ranch and this land are your legacy. They’re your children’s legacy. You know I’m right .”
Prescott folded up the paper, slipped it back in the envelope, and heaved a heavy sigh.
“Six months,” Carter muttered. “Six months and I make sure we’re in the black, and that proves to everyone I can do both. Run the ranch and see to my kids.”
“We’ll help,” I said. “All of us. Now that Mrs. Walker is retiring, we can take shifts with the kids.”
“Speakforyourself,” Bliss coughed into her fist.
“Hush, Bliss,” Amity said. “Sunshine is right. We can all chip in.”
That’s when Carter tilted his head back and laughed. Like a supervillain sound, like somehow he’d thwarted his father in his grave.
“Joke’s on him,” Carter spat. He pulled a letter out of his back pocket.
“Just got this in the mail yesterday. Someone’s interested in the nanny position.
She’s coming out to the ranch next week, and if everything works out, the kids will have a full time, live-in babysitter which will free me up to focus on the ranch.
I accept the terms of the agreement, Prescott.
And I’ll make my father eat those words in hell. ”
With that, he stomped out of the study and we all let him go.
“What are we going to do when your dad comes back from Florida?” I asked Tag. It was later that night and we were both blissed out from some roughhouse sex. I screamed so loudly the barn animals might have heard me.
But Shirley wouldn’t judge. We were connected at the soul level.
“I was thinking about that,” Tag mused, one arm behind his head, while I settled myself in the gap between his armpit and shoulder. “We’re going to have to store up the sex.”
“Store up the sex?” I asked him.
“Yeah. Have as much sex as humanly possible now, so that we can go a few weeks without when Pops is back.”
“Haven’t we been doing that already?” I asked. Between him being the ranch foreman, me starting up my very small, but very helpful financial consulting business in town, I was pretty sure we were having sex as much as humanly possible.
“Hm,” he grunted. “Suppose we have.”
“I have an idea,” I said, pressing my lips to his naked chest.
“We can talk to him about noise suppressing earphones, but I just don’t know if we can count on him wearing them every night.”
“A better idea,” I said, lifting myself up on my forearm. “It doesn’t have to be today, or even in the next few months, but remember how we had the extra money left over to do repairs on all the structures on the property?”
“Yeah,” Tag said, then smiled and slapped my naked ass. “Because my girl is a fucking boss.”
“Well, you can add on a new roof, but who is to say that new roof can’t go on a second floor? That way you can have one private suite upstairs, and two more soundproofed bedrooms on the main floor.”
“Hmm,” Tag mused, thoughtfully. “That’s a bit of work adding a second floor, darlin.”
I fell back down onto his chest. Maybe I was pushing things a little too fast.
He’d said he wanted to go slow, and I was mentally building us a second floor and thinking how someday this room could be split up into a nursery and a child’s bedroom.
“You’re right. Probably too much work. We’ll just have to store up the sex.”
“Or,” he said, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me tightly against his chest. “You could learn how to be quieter.”
“I can’t help it,” I crooned. “It feels too good. How does anyone stay quiet when they’re coming?”
“Good point,” he grunted. “Well, I’m not putting on an additional floor for just me and Pop. That’s just crazy.”
“I know,” I said, trying not to be disappointed. Pop would be back in a few weeks, then he would stay through late summer and early fall. I started counting up the days in my head, not taking into account that we’d made pretty good use of Tag’s truck on occasion.
We were just going to have to have more sex now. So much, maybe I would even look forward to a break…
Nah, that was never going to happen.
“No, it only makes sense to add that kind of addition if someone else is going to live here.”
I frowned. Was he being funny?
“Who else were you thinking about living here?”
“Maybe Mac?”
“Mac!” I said, getting up on my elbow.
“Or Seth, when he’s not on the road. They’ll probably want something a little more stable than a bunkhouse bed.”
“Taggert Durham, are you telling me you’re going to put an extension on this cabin so that you can invite my half-brothers to live under the same roof where we have sex? Sometimes very kinky sex. They’ll be standing at the edge of our bed every morning!”
“Good point,” he said, taking my chin between his fingers. “Guess you should just move in.”
My draw dropped, my eyes narrowed. “Was this your plan all along?”
“Already have the design drawn out for the extension,” he chuckled. “The only thing you have to pick out is the paint color, darlin.”
“You’re assuming I’m going to say yes,” I said, my eyebrow raised at an all-time high.
“Please say yes,” he said, suddenly very serious. “My heart aches something awful when you’re not in bed with me when I wake up.”
I lowered my killer eyebrow, snuggled back into his chest, and smiled.
“Yes,” I whispered. “I’ll come live with you.”
He turned to his side to get something out of the nightstand. When he rolled back to me, his face was still very serious.
“Sorry, I wasn’t clearer. I’m not asking you to come live with me, Sunshine,” he brought a small box between us and popped open the lid. Inside was a perfectly beautiful, and very practical for a rancher’s wife, diamond ring. “I’m asking you to marry me.”
“I thought you wanted to go slow,” I whispered.
“Slow is for suckers.”
“But, what about the fact that married women die sooner than single women?” I asked him, remembering the ridiculous reason I once told him I was against marriage .
“As long as you’re with me, I’ll make sure you die happy.”
“You really mean it?” I asked, still not believing how any of this happened.
“Yup. I’m locking you down before you think too hard about what a classy lady like you is doing with me.”
“She’s loving him,” I said, beaming. “That’s what she’s doing with him. And yes, I will marry you.”
He slid his ring on my finger. Then he slid his body inside mine again and I knew in my heart that I’d finally come home.