Epilogue
Rain
One Year Later….
Reece still insists that I was sent to Hollow Peak to test him.
I mean, I get it. We were worlds apart the day we met, no doubt about that. But to be honest, we were very similar. We were hiding out from our painful past. Hiding from a trauma that had changed our entire world. Forever paying penance for something we had no power over.
“I miss her on days like this,” I murmur before I take a sip of hot chocolate.
It is a beautiful winter morning, the sun slowly climbing in the skies overhead.
Last night a fresh snow blanketed Hollow Peak in a dusting of crystal powder.
Inside the cabin, a fire crackles and the Christmas tree is twinkling in the morning darkness.
I have gifts to wrap later, but for now, I am enjoying my morning with my man.
Settled on Reece’s lap, in the big rocking chair he made as what he called “your first Christmas gift”, I am savoring the morning.
Reece’s bare foot pushes at the porch to keep us rocking.
I curl up on his chest, dipping my head to nuzzle my face against his neck.
His beard scrapes my skin, but he smells divine and I feel his excited pulse beneath my lips.
“Mother would love this. I love this. I love being up here,” I hum, pressing a few kisses to his neck.
Coming up here was just me trying to force some happiness on a stranger I unilaterally decided needed it. I marched up this mountain to save Reece from himself without ever having met him. The delusion. I am glad I was in such a self-righteous mood because look at us now.
Reece does not exactly make a ton of appearances in Holow Peak.
He has been known to take me out to a nice dinner or even attend one of the fairs.
Last winter, my first winter here with him, he did take a truck load of furniture to the lodge as part of a holiday fundraiser.
It got the whole town talking about the other beautiful pieces of his they had seen around town.
“I love you being here,” Reece whispers back.
His fingers tangle in my hair as I pull back to look up at him.
My hot chocolate suddenly tastes like the sweetest, best thing I’ve ever tasted.
Because he is looking down at me as if I am his favorite thing.
“Hell, Rain…I love you. I love you a little more every single day, but I think I’ve loved you since you knocked on my door.
I never believed I would get the good stuff…
not after what I dealt with. You…this life I have been given with you, that is the good stuff. ”
“Oh, baby…I love you too. I love you so much,” I whisper, turning on his lap, setting the delicious chocolate drink aside. “Reece, I love you more than anything. You’ve given me the best life. Hiding out with you is the best life I could ever want.”
“You’re so beautiful, Rain. Not those pretty eyes and that sweet ass,” he smirks, giving my backside a smack. “You. Your soul. You have an amazing, giving, forgiving soul and you proved to this roughneck that we do all get a second chance. Well, actually…”
He trails off and his eyes dart away from mine.
I watch his throat bob as he swallows. Then his gaze swings back to me.
“Could I ask for a third chance? Because I want a life with you, Rain. Not my life before the accident or the one after. A new one, with you. A third shot at a good life. Will you…will you marry me, princess?”
Blinking at him, I swallow hard. I don’t even have to think. I do not need a ring or him down on bended knee. “Yes. Yes, I will marry you. I love you, Reece. I love you so much, caveman.”
Reece gathers me close, sealing my yes with a claiming kiss. I tell myself to ask him later if the proposal was my second Christmas gift. Later that night, he gives me several more Christmas gifts and I only have to unwrap one of them.
Lying with the growling roughneck in the darkness, I am happier than I have ever been, living a dream life with a man still healing his wounds. It might be the total opposite of the sort of life a spoiled brat might have imagined—but I am damn glad it’s my life.