Epilogue
Kassidy
One Year Later
Our house. The word still sends a thrill through me---small, electric, ridiculous for a woman who's been living here for six months.
But our house is different from my apartment.
Our house is a shingled cottage on Harbor Street with a writing desk overlooking the water, bookshelves we built together (his side: literary fiction and military history; my side: romance novels stacked two deep), and a kitchen where Tucker makes pasta from scratch while I supervise from my perch on the counter.
Morning light floods the study as I settle into my chair.
The laptop wakes, and the document is right where I left it---chapter seven of Undertow, the third book in what my publisher has started calling the Tidehaven series.
This one follows a Salt & Steel operative named West (loosely based on Riggs, who has been insufferable about it) and a marine biologist with a fear of commitment.
The words come easily these days. Not always---there are still mornings when the cursor blinks and the blank page stares and the old doubts crawl in through the cracks.
But the difference between now and a year ago is that when the doubts come, they find a house full of evidence against them.
A bookshelf with Breaking Point in hardcover.
A framed review from Diana Hartwell. A man in the kitchen who reads every draft and says things like, "The dialogue in chapter four needs work, but the emotional throughline is a gut punch," as if literary analysis over breakfast is normal.
Tucker appears in the doorway, barefoot, in running shorts and a T-shirt damp from his morning workout.
Coffee in each hand. His hair is longer than when we met---he lets it grow now, one of the small civilian concessions he's made---and there's an ease in his posture that wasn't there a year ago.
He moves like a man who knows where he's going.
"Morning, author." He sets a mug beside my laptop. Strong, black, exactly right.
"Morning, muscle."
He leans over my shoulder, scanning the screen. His chin rests on the top of my head, and the warmth of him settles over me like a blanket.
"That's not how operatives clear a building," he says.
"It's fiction, babe."
"It's wrong. West would check the corners before advancing. And he wouldn't announce himself."
"West is a fictional character based on Riggs. Riggs absolutely would announce himself."
"Fair point."
He kisses the top of my head and retreats to the kitchen.
I hear him moving through his routine---protein shake, stretching, a phone call to Calder that sounds like shorthand.
The rhythms of our life have settled into a pattern that would have terrified me a year ago and now feels like the most natural thing in the world.
The doorbell rings at ten. Tucker, on a call, waves for me to get it.
Diana Hartwell stands on my porch in a linen blazer and oversized sunglasses, looking like she stepped out of a literary magazine.
She's been spending more time in Tidehaven since Breaking Point launched---partly because the town has become a destination for romance readers who want to see where the book was set, and partly because Diana is quietly, persistently buying property here.
"Kassidy, darling. I brought croissants and a proposition."
"Proposition before caffeine? Bold."
"You know I don't do subtle." She sweeps into the house with the confidence of a woman who owns four bestsellers and three beachfront properties. "Where's your giant?"
"My giant is on a work call. Come in."
We settle at the kitchen table. Diana unwraps the croissants---from the French bakery in Charleston, because Diana doesn't do grocery-store pastry---and levels me with a look.
"I want you to co-write a project with me."
The croissant stops halfway to my mouth. "Co-write?"
"A joint novel. My literary instincts, your romantic sensibility. I've been thinking about it since your book launch. There's a market for crossover fiction---literary romance---books that win awards AND sell. We'd be unstoppable."
"Diana, I'm mid-series---"
"I'm not talking about tomorrow. I'm talking about next year. After Undertow. Think about it. You have the voice, the emotional instinct. I have the structural expertise and a very intimidating agent. Together, we write the book that makes the literary establishment admit romance is literature."
Tucker slips out of the kitchen, phone to his ear, giving us a nod as he passes. Diana watches him go.
"You two are disgustingly happy," she says.
"Yeah." I take a bite of croissant, and the butter melts on my tongue, and the harbor sparkles outside the window, and the man I love is murmuring about threat assessments in the next room. "We really are."
TUCKER
The team briefing runs long because Riggs won't stop asking about his character in Kassidy's book.
"Does West get a love interest?" he asks for the third time. "Because if my fictional self doesn't get a love interest, I'm filing a complaint."
"West gets a marine biologist," I say. "She's smarter than him."
"Obviously. I like smart women. Tell Kassidy to make her tall. And brunette."
"I'm not passing notes between you and my girlfriend."
"Fiancée," Calder corrects from the head of the table.
The room goes silent.
"What?" Riggs's head snaps toward me. "WHAT?"
"I haven't asked her yet," I say through gritted teeth, shooting Calder a look that would have earned a reprimand in the teams.
Calder's expression is impassive. "The ring's been in your desk drawer for two months. I saw it when I borrowed your spare radio."
"You went through my desk drawer?"
"I was looking for the radio."
"It's a ring box. It doesn't look like a radio."
"It was under the radio."
Channel 16 is already going off in my pocket.
Riggs: RING??????
Decker: let the man do this on his own terms, Riggs.
Riggs: HE HAS A RING AND HASN'T PROPOSED??
Riggs: HOW LONG HAS HE HAD THE RING??
Decker: two months apparently
Riggs: TWO MONTHS. TUCKER. brOTHER. WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR??
Calder: The right moment, presumably. Something you'd understand if you'd ever had one.
Riggs: that was uncalled for sir
Riggs: but also fair
Calder assigns me today's job with a perfectly straight face: security escort for a corporate event in Charleston. Standard fare---venue assessment, guest screening, executive protection for the event host.
The event host is Ryan Mitchell. Kassidy's ex-boyfriend.
I stare at the brief. Calder stares at me.
"You're kidding."
"His company hired us three weeks ago. You're the best fit for the assignment."
"My girlfriend's ex-boyfriend."
"Your soon-to-be-fiancée's ex-boyfriend. All the more reason to be professional."
He's testing me, and we both know it. Not my competence---my composure. Can Tucker Brennan walk into a room with the man who broke Kassidy Monroe and treat it like any other job?
"Understood," I say. "Sir."
The event is a tech launch---sleek, minimalist, wall-to-wall black outfits and people who say disruption without irony.
Ryan Mitchell is shorter than I expected.
Slim, styled, the careful grooming of a man who checks mirrors.
He shakes my hand with the confident grip of someone used to being the most important person in the room.
"Tucker Brennan? Salt and Steel?"
"That's right."
"Great firm. Calder speaks highly of you."
The evening is professional. I manage the venue, coordinate the detail, maintain sightlines. Ryan is an easy principal---predictable movements, low threat profile, a bar-hugger who holds court and never surprises you.
At the end of the night, while I'm doing the final sweep, Ryan approaches.
"Hey---Brennan. Quick question." He adjusts his cufflinks. "You're the guy, right? Kassidy's…" He waves a hand. "The security guy from the retreat."
"That's me."
"Hm." He looks me over the way you'd look at a restaurant that replaced your favorite.
Not with hostility---with the smug confusion of a man who can't fathom how someone chose differently than he would.
"Interesting. She always said she wanted something more…
elevated. I figured she'd end up with another writer or a professor. But hey---good for her. Settling down."
The word settling hangs in the air.
I've spent my career managing volatile situations.
Defusing tension. Controlling the room. I've sat across from warlords and smiled.
I've taken verbal abuse from foreign officials and maintained composure.
One mediocre tech guy with an inferiority complex doesn't register on any threat scale I operate with.
"She didn't settle," I say. Calm, even. "She upgraded."
Ryan blinks. The cufflink adjustment stops. He opens his mouth, closes it, and settles for a tight smile that confirms everything Kassidy ever told me about him.
"Have a good night," I say, and walk out.
The drive home is quiet. No radio. No music. Just the coast road and the stars and the ring now in my sock drawer waiting for the right moment.
I've been carrying it for two months because the moment has to be right. Not perfect---Kassidy taught me that perfect is the enemy of real---but right. A moment that, when she writes about it later (and she will write about it), reads like the ending of a story that was always headed here.
The ring is platinum---simple, elegant, a single sapphire because she told me once that diamonds are "the Arial font of gemstones---fine for everyone else but not for me.
" The sapphire is dark blue, like the dress she wore to the book launch, like the ocean at dusk, like the cover of the book she dedicated to me.