Epilogue #2
I looked over to where the horses were in the field.
The ranch was changing by the day, as was our life.
Construction had started on a second barn and on an indoor training facility.
We had added two horses of our own and two colts Hudson was training for clients.
We’d had a smaller house built to function as our office, where I took conference calls and virtual meetings.
I’d even had a chat with the neighbors about their unlawful activities, including ones Gabe had dug up, and they were one wrong move away from a scandalous downfall, which ensured they wouldn’t dare interfere with Hudson’s dream again.
And Hudson’s mother and father had visited two weeks earlier.
During his stay in New York, we’d had dinner with his parents.
Suzanne Thomas was a formidable businesswoman, but it was clear she loved her sons.
She had never disinherited Hudson, and I suspected that if they weren’t so stubborn, they would have made up earlier.
After a lengthy discussion, I’d brokered a deal where he continued to work for her on a consulting basis since Gabe and I had already contracted him through the ranch deal.
To sweeten the offer, I’d hired her company to consult on setting up the branch of the business that Gabe had suggested we establish in Montana.
Since neither of us was familiar with this part of the country, it made sense.
Hudson remained in her good graces, and the two of them could continue to rebuild their relationship.
Something I knew made Hudson happy, and anything that made him happy made me happy.
“I am happy,” I told Gabe. “Really happy.” My eyes met his. The sun shimmered in the hazel, accenting specks of gold. “I never thanked you.”
“For what?”
“For meddling. If you hadn’t…” The thought brought a streak of pain to me. “I wouldn’t have found him again.”
“You deserved your second chance.”
“We both did.”
We held each other’s gaze for a moment, acknowledgment passing through us before he did something he never did and I would never have allowed.
He brought his arm around me and tucked me closer.
I turned into his chest, remembering how he had been my strength in the storm before I’d found Hudson.
The one who held me during thunderstorms when we were small, the one who told me I was more than my father’s nasty words, who took the hits that should have struck me.
I buried my face further, and his other arm came around me until we were fully hugging.
“I love you, Gabe. I’m so glad you’re my brother.”
He leaned his head on mine and hugged me tighter. “You’re a pain in the ass sometimes, but I love you, too, Liv. I wouldn’t want anyone else to annoy me.”
I laughed and breathed him in. We’d been through so much, been blinded by pain and vengeance, lost everything, but through it all we’d always had each other. And together we’d found our happy endings.
“Mama would be proud of you,” he murmured.
I lifted my head as his hands loosened and looked up at him. Standing on my toes, I kissed his cheek. “She would be proud of both of us.”
“Yeah,” he said, palming his neck.
I reached up and rumpled his hair. “Let’s get inside before Hudson convinces Tori she needs a puppy for Reid.”
“Oh good God, that’s the last thing we need, and she’s such a softy, she would do it.”
My laugh was so natural that it didn’t stop until we were inside, surrounded by more laughter, smiles, and happiness. Things neither of us thought we would ever have again, but we had both found. Our happy endings with the people we loved more than all the money and power we had accrued.
I met Hudson’s eyes, seeing the joy there and knowing I’d found my place.
It had taken losing him and finding him again to know where that place was, but here I was.
He came around the island and wrapped an arm around my waist as we talked.
Placing a kiss on my head, he whispered, “I love you more every day, Olivia Icinda.”
I glanced up at him, seeing the love there.
Love that was for me, given freely with no manipulation, no expectations, nothing but the man who came with it.
The man who had stolen my heart one fall day and had kept it even when years and pain had separated us.
This man loved me despite everything and would continue to love me because I was worth loving.
Something he told me every day and continued to reinforce with every touch, every word, and every moment we had together.
I leaned into him, murmuring, “I love you, too,” as I listened to Reid excitedly tell Gabe about his horse-themed room.
But those four words couldn’t encompass where we had started and where we had ended up, and we both knew it.
Because ours was a love story fractured and pieced back together to make something more powerful than the day we’d first let it take root and never removed it.
A love as strong as the paper horses that I’d once made Hudson and that he’d never let go, just like he’d never let me go, holding tight through the storm and never releasing me even when I’d given him every reason to.
I snuggled further into him, the sound of his laughter reverberating through his chest, his hold on me as secure as his love while the voices of those I cherished most in this world filled the room. For the first time in far too many years, I was happy, loved, and no longer alone.
Thank you for reading Liv and Hudson’s love story.
Now that the Icindas have their happy endings, it’s time for more second chances, starting with Hudson’s little brother, Parker, in Paper Kisses.
A week of no strings attached in college leaves Parker with what-ifs that haunt him until his what-if walks back into his life.
Read on for a sneak Peek at Paper Kisses.