Chapter Seventeen
The compound was quiet by the time they reached her room.
Nadine had spent the evening with Mabel, watching the old woman's hands move through patterns that had survived fire and loss and eighty-three years of mountain hardship.
There was something healing in it—seeing those gnarled fingers weave new baskets from the materials the brothers had gathered, proof that destruction wasn't the same as ending.
But underneath the healing, grief still lived.
And underneath the grief, something else. A need she couldn't name until Pitfall appeared in the doorway of the workshop, covered in road dust and smelling like smoke, his eyes finding hers across the room with a question she answered by standing up and walking toward him.
Now they were alone, and the need had a name after all.
Home. She needed home.
"Hey." His voice was soft, careful. Reading her the way he'd learned to over the past weeks. "You okay?"
"No." She reached for him, fingers finding the front of his cut. "But I will be."
He let her pull him close, let her bury her face against his chest and breathe in the smell of him—leather and engine oil and something underneath that was just him , the scent she'd started associating with safety.
"Trent's dead," she said into his shirt. "I know that. I know it's over. But Mabel's workshop is still gone, and nothing brings that back."
"I know."
"She's already weaving again. Already teaching the women here. It's like the fire didn't even slow her down." Nadine pulled back, looked up at him. "How does she do that? How does she lose everything and just... keep going?"
"Same way you do." His hands found her face, thumbs tracing her cheekbones. "Same way everyone who survives things does. You grieve, and then you build again."
"What if I'm tired of building?"
"Then you rest." He kissed her forehead, soft and lingering. "And when you're ready, you build some more."
She stood there in his arms, feeling the weight of everything that had happened pressing down on her shoulders. The shop. The artisans. The violence that had become part of her life. The future that was still uncertain despite all the battles they'd won.
"I need you," she whispered. "Not for adrenaline or survival or any of the other reasons we've done this before. I just need you. Close. Real. Here."
His eyes darkened, but not with the desperate hunger she'd seen before. Something deeper. More certain.
"I'm here," he said. "I'm not going anywhere."
"Show me."
This time was different.
The first time had been discovery—careful and reverent, two people learning each other's shapes.
The second had been fire and desperation, adrenaline burning through them both.
This was neither. This was two people who knew exactly what they wanted, choosing it deliberately, with full understanding of what it meant.
Pitfall undressed her slowly, like they had all the time in the world.
Every button, every zipper, every layer of fabric removed with attention that made her skin prickle with awareness.
He kissed each new inch of skin as it was revealed—her shoulder, her collarbone, the curve of her breast, the soft plane of her stomach.
"You're beautiful." The words came out like a statement of fact, not a compliment. Something he'd observed and catalogued and knew to be true.
"So are you." She pulled his shirt over his head, traced the scars she'd learned to recognize. The one on his ribs from a fight before the club. The fresh mark on his shoulder from the safehouse assault. The calluses on his hands from work that never ended. "Every part of you."
They fell into bed together, tangled and warm and unhurried.
His hands moved over her with confidence now—he knew where she liked to be touched, how much pressure, what made her breath catch and what made her moan.
And she knew him too. The places that made him shudder.
The words that stripped away his control.
"Vernon." She said his name against his neck, felt his whole body react. "I love you."
He went still.
She hadn't planned to say it. The words had just... arrived, natural as breathing, true as anything she'd ever known.
"Nadine—"
"You don't have to say it back." She pulled back to meet his eyes. "I'm not asking for anything. I just wanted you to know. That this isn't just—it's not temporary for me. It's not circumstance or proximity or any of the other things people tell themselves when feelings show up inconvenient."
His hand found her face, cradled her jaw.
"I've never said those words to anyone." His voice was rough. "Never let myself feel them. The kind of life I've lived—you don't survive by loving things. You survive by not caring what you lose."
"I know."
"But you." He pressed his forehead to hers. "You showed up in the middle of everything I'd built to protect myself, and you just... walked right through it. Like my walls were nothing."
"They're not nothing. They kept you alive."
"They kept me alone." His thumb traced her cheekbone. "I don't want to be alone anymore. I don't want to be the guy who survives by not caring. I want to be the guy who fights for something worth having."
"Vernon—"
"I love you." The words came out like they'd been waiting his whole life to be spoken. "I didn't know how to say it until you showed me. But I love you, Nadine. Every stubborn, fierce, beautiful part of you."
She kissed him before he could say anything else.
They moved together like a conversation.
Slow and deep, questions asked with touches and answered with sighs. She wrapped herself around him, felt him settle into her, felt the completeness of being exactly where she belonged.
"After this is over," she murmured against his mouth. "After Maggard's gone and the shop's rebuilt and life goes back to something normal—what happens then?"
"Then we figure out what normal looks like for us." His hips rolled, drawing a gasp from her lips. "Together."
"You'll still be prospecting."
"Not for much longer." He kissed her neck, the spot that made her arch into him. "Grit's been talking to Reaper. They're going to vote soon."
"And if they say yes?"
"Then I get my patch. And you become my old lady—officially." His teeth grazed her pulse point. "If that's what you want."
"Is that a proposal?"
"It's a promise." He lifted his head, met her eyes. Even now, in the middle of everything, his gaze was steady. Certain. "When this is over, I'm going to claim you in front of the whole club. Make it permanent. Make it real."
"It's already real."
"Then I'll make it witnessed." His hand slid into her hair, tilted her head back. "I want everyone to know you're mine. Want my patch on your back and my ring on your finger and every single person in these mountains to understand that touching you means war."
The possessiveness in his voice should have bothered her. Once, it would have. But she knew him now—knew that his claiming came from love, not control. From wanting to protect, not possess.
"Yes," she said.
"Yes?"
"To all of it." She pulled him down, kissed him with everything she had. "The patch. The ring. The war if anyone's stupid enough to start one."
His laugh was surprised and delighted and she swallowed it with her mouth, turning it into a groan as their bodies found their rhythm again.
Later, in the quiet aftermath, they lay together and planned.
"Mabel's workshop." Pitfall traced lazy patterns on her hip. "We'll rebuild it. Bigger. Better. Fire-resistant this time."
"The brothers have already started clearing the foundation."
"I want to help. Actually help, not just coordinate." He shifted, propping himself up on one elbow. "I learned carpentry when I was a kid—odd jobs to help my mom pay rent. Haven't done much since I started prospecting, but the skills are still there."
"You want to build Mabel's workshop yourself?"
"With my own hands." His expression was serious. "Those traditions she carries—the ones that almost burned—they deserve to be housed in something built with care. Not just thrown together. Actually crafted."
Nadine felt her eyes sting. "She would love that."
"It's not just for her." He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "It's for you. For what you're trying to protect. All those artisans, all that history—it deserves better than the life it's had. And I want to be part of making that happen."
"You already are."
"I want to be more." His hand found hers, interlaced their fingers. "The shop, the cooperative, the whole thing—I want it to be ours. Not just yours. Ours."
The word settled into her chest like a key finding its lock.
"Ours," she repeated.
"If you'll have me."
"Vernon." She shifted to face him fully, cupped his jaw in her hands. "I've been yours since you bought that basket and looked at me like I was worth protecting. Maybe before that, even. Since the first time you walked into my shop and I thought who the hell is this? "
His laugh was soft, private. "I thought you were going to throw me out."
"I considered it."
"What changed your mind?"
"You bought the basket." She smiled. "And you looked at Mabel's work like it actually meant something. Like you understood why it mattered."
"I did understand." He pressed a kiss to her palm. "I just didn't know how to say it yet."
"And now?"
"Now I know how to say a lot of things." He pulled her close, settled her against his chest. "Starting with: I'm not letting go. Not of you. Not of this. Not of anything we're building together."
"Neither am I."
They lay there in the darkness, breathing together, hearts beating in sync. Tomorrow would bring planning and preparation, the final push against Maggard, the violence that still waited on the horizon. But tonight, there was only this.
Two people who'd found each other in the middle of chaos.
Two people who'd chosen to stay.
"When the new workshop's done," she murmured, half-asleep. "I want to teach you to weave."
"Weave?"
"Baskets. The traditional way." She pressed closer. "Mabel's patterns. I want you to learn them."
"Why?"
"Because traditions survive by being passed on." She yawned. "And you're part of this now. All of it. Including the parts that don't involve violence."
His chest rumbled with quiet laughter.
"Okay," he said. "Teach me to weave."
"Okay."
Sleep pulled at her, warm and heavy. She let it come, secure in his arms, certain of what they were building.
The claiming conversation had happened without either of them noticing. Somewhere between the touches and the promises, they'd stopped being two separate people navigating something new and become something else entirely.
Partners. Permanent. Ready for whatever came next.
And when whatever came next arrived, they'd face it together.