Epilogue #2
While I take a moment to catch my breath and come down from my post-orgasm high, there’s a rustling sound near my head. Tucker finds what he’s looking for and cleans me up, wiping down my thighs with a wet wipe before helping me to sit up.
“I’m going to remove this now,” he says, and I feel his fingertips at the back of my head.
He undoes the bow and the blindfold slips free. I blink a few times, letting my eyes adjust for a moment as Tucker smooths down my hair where the blindfold and pillow have disheveled it.
“You can look now.” He flashes me a smile and points over the edge of the truck bed.
My breath catches in my throat when I lean over and see what he’s pointing at—it’s a picnic spread out beneath our old tree. He’s organized a replica of our last date together in Beaumont Ridge.
Instinctively, I cover my gaping mouth with one hand.
Whipping my head back to face the man responsible, I reach out my other hand and grab his too tightly.
Despite the pressure I’m applying, his thumb begins stroking back and forth along the back of my hand.
It’s such a sweet gesture, and one he’s done a thousand times before, but my heart squeezes anyway.
“Oh my god. Tucker,” I mumble against my palm, my voice thick with emotion.
He dips his head, but I don’t miss the bashful smile that plays on his lips.
“It’s a bit of a simple date, but I thought it was fitting,” he says, his face still turned down toward his lap and his thumb still tenderly stroking.
“It’s the most incredible thing anyone has ever done for me. You’re something else, Tucker Beaumont.” Tears well along my lower lashes as the words slip from between my lips.
As I go to turn away, fingertips along my jaw halt me.
I meet Tucker’s gaze and see every single emotion coursing through me reflected back at me in those bright caramel eyes.
“I’d pluck the sun from the sky and gift wrap it for you if I could.
You, Grace Clark, are my sun. My entire existence revolves around you, always has. ”
The way he’s looking at me only reiterates what he’s saying.
The emotional onslaught tumbling toward me is overwhelming in the best way imaginable.
Before I can turn into a blubbering mess over how perfect this man—my man—is, I launch myself at him and throw my arms around his neck.
Our lips find each other’s with an ease that comes only from years of loving one another.
Tucker’s tongue slips between my lips, tangling with mine, and I let out a moan.
He flips us without warning and I yelp. With a chuckle, he deepens the kiss once more.
Our mouths move as one, as do our bodies—grinding and rolling in perfect synchronicity.
It isn’t until I nip at Tucker’s bottom lip that he pulls back with a groan. I pout in response.
“We should eat before the bugs beat us to it,” he says with a laugh that reverberates through our entwined bodies. “There’ll be plenty of time for this when we get home.”
Home.
It’s a simple, throwaway word, but it’s everything to me. I spent years searching through Chicago for that illusive feeling of belonging, of home, but I never quite found it. Turns out it was in Beaumont Ridge all along, bundled up in boots and a cowboy hat and answering to Tucker.
“I like having a home with you.” With a final kiss on his cheek, I climb off the truck bed and take a seat on the picnic rug.
Tucker leans over me, curling a stray lock of hair behind my ear. “You always had a home with me,” he murmurs, rubbing his thumb along my cheek.
My grin stretches the width of my face. Tucker returns it and my heart skips a beat. Twenty, thirty, fifty years from now, I hope that feeling never goes away.
We eat and drink, laugh and kiss until the blue sky overhead changes to the pinks and oranges of sunset. It’s the most perfect afternoon.
When the last sunset hues give way to the navy blue of night, Tucker reclines on the picnic blanket and gently pulls me along with him.
It’s second nature the way I curl into his side, and his arm slinks across my waist. With my head on Tucker’s shoulder and my hand twisting in the hair at the nape of his neck, I finally know what it means to find your twin flame in another.
I sniffle softly, hoping Tucker doesn’t notice, but he notices everything when it comes to me.
He lifts his head up and peers down at my tear-rimmed eyes.
I reach up to wipe away a stray tear about to fall, but he lays a hand on my wrist. “Allow me.” The pad of his thumb swipes beneath my lower lashes, catching the tear before it descends. “Why’re you crying, sweetheart?”
“It’s you, Tucker. It’s always been you.” I sniffle and smile, clutching at his chest through his shirt. “No one could ever compare to you. I look at you, and I see my past, my future, my home. I was a fool to ever think anyone could ever take your place.”
He smiles down at me, placing a tiny kiss on the tip of my nose. “If you’re a fool, I’m a fool.”
A wet giggle escapes. “That was awful cheesy, Tucker Beaumont.”
“For you, I’ll be anything.” His fingers trace lightly over the freckles on the bridge of my nose and cheeks. “Will you promise me something?”
I meet his eyes with a warm smile, running my fingers through his hair. “Anything.”
“If I promise to learn each of these,” he gently taps the freckles on my nose, “new ones by heart, will you promise to wake up beside me for the rest of our lives?”
Before I can answer, there’s a rustling noise behind me. His hand slips off my face and disappears for a moment. When it reemerges, he’s holding a small box.
My heart stops beneath my chest and I jolt up, sitting ramrod straight.
“Tucker.” It comes out barely above a whisper.
He sits up as well, but instead of moving to sit, he bends one knee, kneeling. “I look at you, and I see my whole world. You are home to me, Gracie. You always have been. It didn’t matter how many hundreds of miles were between us; my heart has always been tethered to yours.”
My hands cover my mouth and I suck in a breath.
I struggle to see through the tears filling my eyes and streaming down my face, but there’s no missing the glint of the diamond.
My heart feels as though it might burst into a million tiny pieces as I stare down at it, awestruck.
God, if only the teenage versions of us could see us now, all these years later.
We were so blinded by love back then though, so I doubt those versions of us ever would’ve second guessed that we were inevitable.
“Marry me, Gracie. Let me be yours, forever.”
I look up when his voice cracks on the last word, meeting his stare. Those whiskey eyes that I’ve spent most of my life thinking about soften as they gaze into my own. They’re full of adoration and love, and all I can think about is how I’d die a happy woman if they were the last thing I ever saw.
“Tucker,” I repeat, apparently unable to form any other words.
“Gracie,” he replies, smiling brightly.
“Are you sure?” I all but gape.
Tucker lets out a chuckle and takes my hand, squeezing it the way he always does. “I’ve never been more sure in my life, Gracie girl. I can’t live another moment without knowing I’ll get to call you my wife one day.”
“Yes,” I say on an exhale. “Yes.”
His lips find mine in the sweetest and most meaningful kiss of our lives. It’s slow and dreamy, like we have all the time in the world, because we do.
“For the record,” I say as he breaks the kiss momentarily to slide the gold ring onto my finger, “you’ve always been mine.”