Chapter Twenty-Two
The pavilion had never looked like this before.
Quarry stood at the edge of the covered structure, watching brothers and families gather for something the compound hadn't seen in months—a claiming ceremony.
Lights strung between the support beams. Tables pushed to the sides to create a central space.
The whole club assembled, patches and cuts on display, the brotherhood in full formal attendance.
And in the center of it all, waiting for him: Meredith.
She wore a dress he'd never seen—simple, dark green, the color of new growth in her gardens.
Her hair was down, falling past her shoulders in waves she'd probably spent an hour creating.
The old ladies had gotten to her, he realized.
Maggie and the others, fussing and preparing, making sure she looked the part for what was about to happen.
She didn't need any of it. She'd been beautiful the day he found her hauling dead trees with blistered hands. She was beautiful now.
But he appreciated the effort anyway.
Still appeared at his shoulder. "You ready?"
"Been ready for weeks."
"Then let's make it official."
The ceremony was older than the club itself.
Words passed down from charter to charter, adapted and evolved but never abandoned. Quarry had seen it done a dozen times for other brothers—watched them stand before the club and claim their women, making promises that outlasted presidents and wars and everything the world threw at them.
Now it was his turn.
He walked to the center of the pavilion, boots heavy on the wooden floor. Meredith watched him approach, her eyes bright in the strung lights. She didn't look nervous. She looked like a woman who'd already survived worse than a roomful of bikers staring at her.
Still took his position at the head of the gathering, the president's authority settling over the space like a blanket.
"Brothers. Family. We're here tonight to witness a claiming." His voice carried across the pavilion, silencing the last murmurs. "Quarry has chosen his woman. She has chosen him. What remains is the speaking of it."
Quarry faced Meredith and took her hands in his. Her fingers were warm, steady, dirt still visible under her nails despite whatever scrubbing she'd done. His woman. Even cleaned up for a ceremony, she couldn't completely wash away who she was.
He wouldn't want her to.
"The words," Still said.
Quarry drew a breath. He'd thought about what to say, practiced in his head during the long rides back from her nursery. But standing here, holding her hands, looking into eyes that had seen him at his worst and chosen him anyway—the practiced words felt wrong.
So he spoke from somewhere deeper.
"I spent twelve years breaking things." His voice came out slow, heavy, each word set in place like stone. "Crushing rock. Demolishing buildings. Taking apart everything I touched because that's what I was good at. That's what I thought I was worth."
Meredith's grip tightened on his hands.
"Then I found you. Standing in the ruins of everything you'd built, refusing to break.
Hauling dead trees with blistered hands because giving up wasn't something you knew how to do.
" He stepped closer, close enough to feel her breath.
"You showed me what it looked like to build something.
To grow something. To put your hands in the dirt and make life happen instead of ending it. "
His voice dropped, meant only for her but carrying through the silent pavilion.
"I'm claiming you tonight. In front of my brothers, my family, everyone who matters. I'm saying to the world that you're mine—my woman, my partner, my future. And I'm promising that I'll spend the rest of my life learning how to be worthy of you."
Meredith's eyes glistened. She didn't speak—that wasn't her role in this part of the ceremony—but her face said everything. Yes. Always. Yours.
"She accepts," Still said, though they all knew it already. "The claiming is witnessed. She's his old lady now, and any man who touches her answers to the club."
A roar went up from the assembled brothers. Boots stamping, voices raised, the full-throated approval of a brotherhood accepting one of their own. Quarry pulled Meredith against him and kissed her—long and deep, possessive and proud, the kind of kiss that made promises he intended to keep forever.
When they finally broke apart, she was smiling.
"That was quite a speech."
"I meant every word."
"I know." She touched his face. "That's what made it perfect."
The celebration lasted for hours.
Food and drink and the easy chaos of people who'd survived hard things and were ready to enjoy soft ones. Brothers clapped Quarry on the back. Old ladies pulled Meredith into their circle, welcoming her with the particular warmth of women who'd walked this road before.
Maggie pressed a glass of champagne into Meredith's hands. "You're one of us now, honey. For better or worse."
"Mostly better," Jolene added. "Once you get used to the violence."
"I've gotten used to it." Meredith's voice was dry. "I put a man down with a fire iron."
"We heard." Tessa raised her glass. "That's why we like you."
Quarry watched from across the pavilion, nursing a beer and letting the satisfaction wash over him. Three weeks ago, he'd met a woman hauling dead trees in a ruined nursery. Now she was standing among the old ladies, laughing at something Nadine said, fitting in like she'd been there for years.
His woman. His old lady. His.
The claiming made it official, but he'd known the truth long before tonight.
Known it the moment she stood in front of a skid steer and refused to move.
Known it when she packed her plant cuttings before her clothes, when she held the lodge door with a fire iron, when she walked through his flooded quarry and pocketed a piece of limestone without explanation.
She'd been claiming him just as surely as he'd been claiming her.
Around midnight, the crowd started thinning. Families heading home. Brothers drifting to their cabins. The old ladies orchestrating cleanup with the efficiency of women who'd done this a hundred times before.
Quarry found Meredith at the edge of the pavilion, looking out at the garden she'd built.
It had become a compound landmark in three weeks.
The herb beds along the lodge, the tomatoes climbing their stakes, the ornamental grasses swaying in the night breeze.
Brothers walked past her plants every day, some of them pausing to check on seedlings they'd helped tend.
Prospects watered without being asked. Even Still had been spotted pulling weeds one afternoon, though he'd deny it if anyone mentioned it.
She'd made the compound grow.
"Ready to go home?" he asked.
She turned, and the look in her eyes made his breath catch.
"Take me to bed, Davis."
He didn't need to be asked twice.
The cabin door barely closed before he had her pressed against it.
Different from every time before. Not the tender exploration of their first night, not the adrenaline collision after battle, not the deliberate depth of their quiet evening together. This was celebration. Triumph. The release of finally being able to call her his in front of everyone who mattered.
"Mine," he said against her mouth. "Finally. Officially. Mine."
"Yours." She pulled at his cut, shoving it off his shoulders. "Always yours."
He lifted her, and her legs wrapped around his waist. The dress rode up, fabric bunching as he carried her to the bed. She was laughing—actually laughing, joy spilling out of her alongside the heat.
"What's funny?"
"Nothing." She pulled him down on top of her. "Everything. I'm happy, Davis. I didn't know it could feel like this."
"Like what?"
"Like we won. Like the fight's over and we're still standing and everything that comes next is ours to build." She framed his face with her hands. "Like I found you, and you found me, and neither of us has to be alone anymore."
Something cracked open in his chest. He kissed her—slow and deep, tasting champagne and joy and the particular sweetness that was purely her. His hands found the zipper at her back and drew it down, peeling the dress away, revealing skin he knew by heart now.
She arched into him as he touched her. The same responsiveness he'd memorized over weeks of learning each other, but heightened tonight. Electric. Every sound she made was a celebration, every movement a declaration.
He took his time because this moment deserved patience. Mapped her body with his mouth, finding the places that made her gasp and the places that made her moan. Let the pleasure build in waves, cresting and retreating, until she was writhing beneath him and demanding more.
"Davis—"
"I've got you." He pressed his weight into her, giving her the anchor she needed. "I've always got you."
When he finally slid home, they both went still. Breathing. Feeling. The rightness of being connected in every way that mattered.
"Move," she whispered. "Please move."
He moved.
Slow and deliberate, the way he did everything that mattered. His weight a gift, not a burden. Every thrust a promise, every kiss a vow. She rose to meet him, matching his rhythm, and they built something together the same way they'd planted trees and tended gardens.
Layer by layer. Piece by piece. Until something beautiful emerged.
The release came like a wave breaking—powerful and inevitable, washing through them both. She cried out his name, his real name, and he followed her over the edge with her taste on his tongue and her body wrapped around his.
Afterward, they lay tangled together, her head on his chest, his arm around her waist. The cabin was quiet except for their breathing and the distant sounds of the compound settling into sleep.
"I love you," she said.
The words were simple. Nothing fancy, nothing elaborate. Just the truth, spoken in the dark by a woman who'd earned the right to say it.
"I love you too." He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "More than I knew I could love anything."
She was asleep within minutes, exhaustion and champagne and satisfaction pulling her under. Quarry held her and watched the moonlight move across the ceiling, thinking about the path that had brought him here.
Twelve years in a quarry that had broken his back and thrown him away. The club that had given him purpose when he thought he had none. The woman who'd shown him that destruction wasn't the only thing his hands were good for.
He looked at Meredith sleeping against his chest. Dirt still under her nails despite the fancy dress. The faint smell of soil that clung to her no matter how hard she scrubbed. The steady rhythm of her breathing, slow and peaceful, the rest of someone who finally felt safe.
His old lady. His partner. His future.
Tomorrow, they'd go back to her nursery and plant more trees. The week after, the greenhouse foundation would start going in. Month by month, the property would transform from ruins to something alive and growing, and he'd be there for every step of it.
A man who spent twelve years breaking things, finally finding something worth growing.
He closed his eyes and let sleep take him, his woman warm against his side, the claiming ceremony still echoing in his ears.
Mine. Hers. Ours.
Forever.