Twenty-Three.
Shea
Rhett doesn’t start the truck right away. We sit in the cab at the resort, the heater ticking, snow drifting down onto the windshield, the mountain going white around us. He’s got one hand on the wheel and the other reaching across the console to hold mine.
His thumb moves slow over my knuckles. “You okay, baby?”
I take a breath, and I realize, a little to my own surprise, that the answer is yes.
“I think so,” I say. “I don’t know. It doesn’t fix years of hurt.
He can’t just…say sorry and undo all of it.
But it’s a start. It’s more of my father than I’ve gotten in my whole life, honestly.
” I let out a shaky laugh. “I don’t know if we’ll ever have the kind of thing your family has. But maybe we could have…something.”
“That’s all it’s gotta be,” Rhett says. “A start.”
“Yeah.” I squeeze his hand. “And Tyler. I get to go back and tell Tyler he’s not getting shipped off. That he gets to keep Willa and Parker and the whole—” my voice catches, “—the whole life he built here. He gets to keep it.”
“He’s gonna lose his mind.” Rhett smiles. “In the coolest way possible.”
“Obviously.” I laugh, wiping at my eyes. “He’ll say something like ‘cool story’ and then go text Willa and pretend he doesn’t care.”
Rhett’s quiet for a second, then he lifts our joined hands and presses a kiss to the back of mine, and when he looks at me, my favorite set of latte eyes have gone serious.
“I’m proud of you.” His thumb strokes my cheek. “You’re the bravest person I know, Shea Winton.”
And those four words…they undo me completely.
I unbuckle my seatbelt.
His brow furrows. “Shea?”
I climb across the console and into his lap, my knees on either side of his hips, my hands framing his stubbled jaw. He catches me, his big hands settling on my waist. And I look at this man—this steady, patient, ridiculous, wonderful man who didn’t just restore my house.
He restored me.
“I’m more than okay,” I whisper. “And I have something I’ve been trying to say for weeks, and I keep chickening out, but I can’t anymore…”
His grin is wide. “I love you, too,” he says before I can, and everything in me goes still. He says it again, softer, his forehead dropping to mine. “I love you, Shea. I have for a while.”
I kiss him, more sure about us than I ever have been. “I love you, too,” I breathe against his mouth. “God, Rhett, I love you so much, I—”
He kisses me before I can finish, and I laugh. And I may cry into it a little, too. My hands thread in his hair as his arms band tight around me, holding on like he’ll never let go. And I don’t want him to.
I kiss him back saying it again and again against his lips, because now that I’ve started, I can’t stop. I love you. I love you. I love you.
The plane ticket in my inbox has never felt further away.
“It’s a quick stop,” Rhett says for the third time.
We’re supposed to be at his parents’ by two. It’s 1:35 PM and Tyler’s in the back seat in the least-wrinkled hoodie I could bully him into, a pie balanced on his lap.
“Rhett.” I narrow my eyes at him. “Where are we going?”
“Told you. Quick stop.” He smirks. “Two minutes.”
We pull onto a quiet, tree-lined street and Rhett slows the truck in front of the house nestled at the end.
And my heart stops. It’s a 1920s craftsman, from the look of the deep eaves and the tapered porch columns, smaller than the Hargrove place but with the same—dare I say—good bones.
The paint’s tired and the porch sags a little and there’s a realtor’s SOLD sign staked crooked in the snow-covered front yard.
I know this house.
“I looked at this house online before I bought the Hargrove place. This was on my list and I loved it, but Hargrove had better shoot options for the show.” I turn to him, my heart slamming. “Why are we here?”
“You mentioned it once.” He puts the truck in park and turns to face me, something nervous and hopeful I’ve only seen a handful of times transforms his rugged features.
“Took me about a week of asking around to figure out which one.” He rubs the back of his neck. “It went up for sale again last month.”
“Rhett.” I can barely breathe. “What did you do?”
“I bought it. Closed on it Tuesday.”
The world tilts.
“You…” I stare at the house, then at him, then at the SOLD sign. “You bought a house.”
“Well.” A crooked, bashful grin. “You bought the first one. Figured it was my turn.”
Behind us, Tyler lowers his phone. “Wait. For real?”
“Whitetail Mercantile was a bit of a stretch, I admit.” Rhett doesn’t take his eyes off me.
“So I bought this back when I still thought you might get on that plane,” he says quietly.
“Figured if I couldn’t give you a reason to stay, I could at least give you a reason to come back.
” He reaches over and takes my hand. “I know it’s crazy.
I know it’s fast. And I know we haven’t talked about what we’re going to do long term, but… ”
He pauses as I begin to cry. He reaches over, grabbing my hand. “Shit, baby, don’t cry. Fuck. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
I shake my head, fanning my eyes with my free hand. “No, no. It’s not—” I blow out a shaky breath, then laugh. “You’re crazy.”
Rhett stills, worry creasing his handsome brow.
But there isn’t a thing he needs to worry about.
“Yes,” I choke out. “To the house, all of it. To you.” I’m laughing and crying at once, launching across the console into his arms, and he catches me. “I’m staying, Rhett. I’m staying. I was always going to stay, I just didn’t know how to say it, and now you’ve gone and bought me a whole house!”
“Our house,” he corrects into my hair, and I feel him grinning.
I squeal, kissing him over and over and over again.
From the back seat, Tyler clears his throat. “So, like…does this mean I get a room? Because I’m not sleeping in an attic. I’ve seen how that goes in movies.”
And I laugh, wet and helpless and so full of love I can hardly stand it, tucked against the chest of the man I’m going to build a whole life with. Live my dream with.
“Yeah, Ty,” I say. “You get a room.”
“Cool.” A pause. “Can we go eat now? I’m starving.”
The Montgomery house on Thanksgiving is less a dinner and more of a beautiful, chaotic mess.
I’ve been here two hours and I’ve lost count of the people.
There are too many Montgomerys, all of them loud, half of them holding a baby or a beer or both, and the whole house smells like turkey and woodsmoke and cinnamon whiskey that Levi keeps trying to get everyone to try, “For the spirit of the holiday. It’s festive. ”
“It’s paint thinner, is what it is,” Julie says, breezing past with a gravy boat. “Put it away before your father drinks it and tells the story about the elk again.”
“Who wants to hear the time I took down an elk with my own bare hands,” Clayton calls from the living room where several people groan.
I’m parked at the kitchen island with Cassidy and Maci, on official pie-guarding duty, which mostly means keeping Levi’s hands off the apple before dinner. Cassidy’s already smacked his hand with a wooden spoon twice without looking. Gage, on her hip, claps his chunky baby hands.
And across the kitchen, standing very stiffly beside the counter in a sweater that costs more than the entire spread of food, holding a glass of wine, is my father.
I still can’t quite believe he came.
He and Michelle arrived twenty minutes ago with an enormous, obviously-catered fruit and cheese arrangement that Julie accepted with a smile so sweet it could strip paint. It became clear to me from the moment he walked through the door, Daniel Winton is deeply, fundamentally out of his depth.
I catch his eye and give him a small smile. You’re okay.
He nods back, stiff. He’s uncomfortable, but he’s here, and he’s trying. And that counts for a lot.
Dinner is called the way everything in this family happens—loudly, chaotically, and with someone yelling about the seating.
“There’s not enough chairs!”
“Bring the ones from the porch.”
“Parker, that’s the dog’s spot.”
Somehow, we all fit. The big farmhouse table is extended with a folding one at the end that doesn’t quite match, and the sprawling, blended mess of us crams in elbow to elbow.
Rhett’s beside me, one hand on my thigh under the table.
Tyler’s across the way, wedged between Parker and Levi.
My father and Michelle are down near Julie’s end, which I eye with a flicker of alarm after what Rhett told me about his mom not liking my father very much.
“Before we eat,” Clayton booms, standing at the head with his glass raised, “your mother wants everyone to say what they’re thankful for, so make it quick, the turkey’s gettin’ cold and Levi’s already eyeing the rolls.”
“Mm,” Levi mumbles, mouth already full of butter and bread.
We go around and it’s sweet and chaotic and I have to grip Rhett’s hand under the table to keep it together. Then it gets to Julie, who sets down her fork, folds her hands, and turns her hospitality on the man at the far end of the table.
“I’m thankful that our family has grown this year.
That we’ve got Shea and Tyler, who are just a joy.
” She smiles at me. “And I’m thankful that even folks who got off on the wrong foot can find their way to a shared table.
” Her smile sharpens. “More turkey, Daniel? You look positively worn down. All that traveling. I always say there’s nothing a home-cooked meal can’t start to fix, for those who don’t get many. ”
The table goes very, very quiet.
My father, to his credit, sets down his wine. “Um, thank you, Julie. It looks wonderful.”
“Oh, it is.” She’s already loading his plate whether he wants it or not, heaping it high. “I made everything myself. From scratch. No caterers.” A beat, a smile. “But that fruit tray was lovely, dear. Very…thoughtful of whoever assembled it.”
Beside me, Rhett makes a sound into his water glass. Levi has given up all pretense and is openly grinning. Even Beau’s mouth twitches.
“Julie,” my father says slowly, and I brace myself for embarrassment.
But then my father does something I have never in my life seen him do. He laughs. A real one, startled out of him, rusty like a door that hasn’t opened in years.
“You know,” he says, “I deserve that. I deserve considerably worse, actually, and I suspect you’ve got it loaded and ready.
” He inclines his head toward her with a hint of respect.
“Your son is a better man than I gave him credit for. And he clearly gets it from his mother. So, thank you for having us. Truly.”
Julie considers him for a long, assessing moment, then the corner of her mouth lifts. “Well,” she chimes. “You’ve got some sense, then.” She picks her fork back up. “Eat your turkey, Daniel. You’re too thin. It worries me.”
Michelle chuckles beside him. “I tell him that all the time.”
And just like that, the table exhales and returns to its regularly scheduled chaos. I look around at all of it—the mismatched chairs, the too-much food, the man I love beside me, the stepbrother I never asked for, yet somehow needed all along.
My chest goes so full I can barely breathe.
After dinner, the house sorts itself into the men arguing over football, the babies going down for naps, Levi somehow roping Tyler and Duke into a game of cards at the kitchen table while Parker ‘helps’ by narrating everyone’s hand out loud.
I slip out onto the wraparound porch for a breath of fresh air, and I’m not surprised when the door opens behind me a minute later.
What surprises me is that it’s my father.
He comes to stand beside me at the railing, both of us looking out at the snow-dusted mountains going gold and pink with the early sunset. For a while neither of us says anything. We’re not good at this whole father-daughter relationship thing yet, but we’re trying.
“Your mother would have loved this,” he says finally.
“This kind of family. She always wanted more children, but I told her one was plenty.” His jaw works.
“I’ve been thinking about all of the things I got wrong.
It’s a long list, Shea. And I want you to know I don’t expect to make up for it in one Thanksgiving. ”
“You won’t,” I say, not unkind. “But you could come to the next one and see how it goes.”
He nods. “I’d like that. Very much.”
I reach over and squeeze his hand on the railing, the first time I can remember reaching for my father instead of the other way around, and he squeezes back.
The door opens again and Rhett steps out, two mugs in hand.
“Ma’s cutting the pies,” he says. “Figured I’d get you before Levi commits a crime covering the apple pie in cheese like he did last year.
” He hands me a mug, nods to my father. “Daniel. There’s a chair by the fire with your name on it, if you want it.
Michelle’s already claimed the good spot. ”
My father looks between us and I hope he sees it, really sees it. What Rhett gives me. What I’ve found here. “Thank you, son,” he says, and heads inside.
Son. Rhett blinks at the door, stunned. “Huh.”
I laugh. “So, is winning people over your specialty or…?”
He grins, his free hand sliding over my waist and around my hip. The tips of his fingers settling on my ass. He taps his fingers. “That depends,” he says, playing coy. “Have I won you?”
I pull him down by the collar and kiss him. “You had me at where’s the leak.”
Rhett throws his head back and barks a laugh, but he’s beaming. And knowing I’m the reason is more than enough.
He will always be enough.
“I don’t think I said anything like that,” he chuckles.
I hum, tipping my head. “Agree to disagree.”
“Come on, gorgeous,” he murmurs against my ear, grinning. “Before the pie is gone.”
We go back inside and I take my place at a table that has somehow become mine.
Tyler laughs. Julie hands my father a slice of pie.
Clayton and Butch shout at the TV. Parker’s asleep against Maci’s shoulder.
Callie is nestled on Beau’s lap, feeding him forkfuls of pie.
Duke is cradling a sleeping baby girl in his arms. Lily is helping clean up with Cassidy.
And Rhett’s arm is around me, solid and impossibly sure.
Two months ago, I flew into this town with a plan to go back to the place I thought was home. But I’m not going home.
I’m already there.