Epilogue
ANNE
I woke up to a cup of coffee steaming on the bedside table.
I breathed in the scent — dark and nutty and a little bit scorched, because Remmen always left the press down too long.
He’d gotten the measure right, though. That had taken him two weeks.
The first sip nearly burned my tongue. It was a little bitter, but Remmen’s brew was improving by the day.
I’d make a barista out of him yet.
I swung my legs out of bed and padded across the cold floor to the chair where I’d left my clothes.
The overalls were stiff canvas, practical, with a front pocket deep enough for the roll of bandage tape Otho liked me to carry.
I pulled a plain shirt over my head and stepped into them, cinching the straps over my shoulders.
Boots next, the heavy ones with the good soles that didn’t slip on Otho’s tile when it was wet.
I caught my reflection in the little mirror by the door and scraped my hair back into something that would survive a full shift.
I looked like someone who worked for a living, and I did.
Remmen set out a plate with my breakfast on the kitchen table and kissed me before we sat down.
Eggs and some of the flatbread he’d gotten from the baker, still warm.
He did this most mornings now. Made the coffee, laid out the food, kissed me like I was leaving for a month instead of walking three streets over.
We’d eat, and then we’d walk into town together, him to city hall, me to the clinic.
Sometimes his hand found the small of my back crossing the square, and sometimes I let it stay there, and nobody looked twice anymore.
It was so perfect it made my teeth ache. I wouldn’t change a thing.
“I’ve stitched up so many cuts this week my fingers haven’t stopped cramping.” I flexed my hand to prove it.
Remmen took my hand and kissed each knuckle. “It will hurt less as you build up the muscles.”
“Thank you so much for the sympathy,” I groused but didn’t pull away.
He turned my hand over and pressed his mouth to each fingertip, slow, one at a time, his breath warm on my skin.
The last one he held, his lips barely moving against the pad of my index finger, and heat sparked all the way down my spine and settled low.
Then he sucked that finger into his mouth. Just the tip, just enough, his tongue curling against it, and every rational thought I had went out the window. My whole body flushed hot and my thighs pressed together under the table and I forgot what breakfast was.
I snatched my hand back. “Otho will murder me if I’m late again because of you, Mr. Mayor. Don’t you have your own responsibilities?”
“None that can’t wait.” His gaze traveled from my mouth downward, lazy and deliberate, and I knew that look. That was the look that ended with breakfast forgotten and my overalls on the floor, and we wouldn’t be leaving this house for an hour.
I backed away. “Not today, sir.” I wagged a finger at him. “I won’t be seduced.”
“Tell that to that mark on your neck.”
I jerked my hand up over the bruise and glared at my mate. “I’m going to work,” I said, punctuating the declaration by draining my cooling coffee. “You are walking alone.”
He was laughing as I shut the door behind me. That low rumble I felt more than heard, the one that used to make me furious because it meant he’d won. He still won most mornings. I was getting better at leaving.
The street was wide and rutted and already busy.
A cart was coming up from the market end loaded with timber, and two bulls I didn’t know by name nodded as I passed.
I nodded back. I knew the route by heart now — past the forge, past the bakery where the warm bread smell hit you halfway down the block.
I waved at the baker through his open door and he lifted a floury hand.
Chloe was coming out of the forge with a wrapped bundle under one arm, probably on some errand for Lorkin. She grinned when she saw me and called something about Friday that I couldn’t quite catch, and I gave her a thumbs-up because whatever it was, I’d be there.
This place felt like home. I’d come here because there was nothing left behind me. Now I wanted to stay.
I waved at Julia across the street. She lifted a hand back, but her shoulders were slumped and she was somewhere far away, walking like a woman with too much on her mind and no one to hand it to.
I watched her go and felt the old pull, the professional one, the one that made me want to sit her down and say tell me.
But Julia wasn’t mine to fix. If she wanted to talk, she knew where to find me.
Zarcal was waiting outside the clinic door when I arrived. I checked my watch, but I wasn’t late.
“I’m early,” he assured me. “I decided to walk here and didn’t time it right. I thought I’d wait out here so Otho didn’t rope me into bandaging a wound or something.”
He was talking more these days, even joking. It was good to see. Of course, I wasn’t about to say any of that.
“I totally understand. Go back into my office and let me just tell Otho I’m here, then we’ll get started.”
Zarcal knew the way now. I’d been surprised when he asked if we could continue our sessions even though I no longer worked as an AMA therapist, but I hadn’t said no.
And now I had a small group of clients who liked to work with me instead of Chelsea or Giles, bulls who weren’t ready or were completely uninterested in anything related to brides, but did want to heal.
It gave me hope.
I waved a good morning to Otho, who was sweeping up the place since there weren’t any waiting patients in the morning.
“I got the invitation,” he said.
“Oh, right, that. It’s not a big thing, you totally don’t have to—”
“The mayor is marrying my apprentice. Of course I’m going to your wedding. This town could use the celebration.”
I grinned before I could stop myself. I was getting married. To a seven-foot minotaur with silver-capped horns who made me bad coffee, kissed my knuckles at the breakfast table, and had loved me since before I knew his name.
But duty wouldn’t wait for me to reflect on my happiness.
I grabbed my therapy notebook from my locker on the wall and went to meet Zarcal.