Epilogue
Sixteen months later
The painting arrived three hours before Valerie’s parents were due for lunch.
It was bigger than she remembered, still propped against the living room wall in a wooden crate.
The large painted pine trees twisted toward a pale Greek sky, their branches bent by wind Valerie could almost feel on her skin.
Valerie stood barefoot in the middle of the room, staring at the painting while her body remembered the forest before the pulse between her legs had the chance to behave.
She could nearly feel the rough bark against her back, smell the salt in Adrienne’s hair, and hear the moaning sounds they’d both tried and failed to swallow.
One glance at those pines, and Valerie wanted Adrienne’s mouth on her all over again.
Behind her, Adrienne made a soft humming sound. Then came the slow slide of her palm around Valerie’s waist, her body warm against Valerie’s back. There were no cameras trying to catch them being exactly as reckless as they wanted to be, and no games to be played.
Adrienne’s mouth brushed the side of Valerie’s neck. “Tell me what you’re thinking about.”
Valerie’s breath caught, but she didn’t look away from the painting. “The rough bark against my back,” she said. “Your hands on my thighs. And how much better it would feel against this wall with you on your knees.”
Adrienne’s fingers tightened at her waist, and for one delicious second, neither of them moved.
Then Valerie turned, and whatever restraint Adrienne had left vanished.
She caught Valerie’s wrists, pinned them to the wall, and kissed her with the same hunger that had ruined them both in that forest. Her mouth dragged from Valerie’s lips to her jaw, then down her neck, slow enough to make Valerie’s hands curl at the wrists.
Valerie tipped her head back against the wall. “Don’t tease.”
Adrienne smiled against her throat. “I wasn’t planning to. My plan was actually to fuck you until you can no longer stand.”
Her hands slid beneath Valerie’s shirt and pushed it up, breaking the kiss only long enough to pull it over Valerie’s head.
The bra went next, tossed somewhere near the open crate before Adrienne stripped off her own shirt with far less patience.
Then her mouth was back on Valerie’s skin, lower this time, while Valerie’s fingers tangled hard in her hair.
She kissed each nipple on her way down, hands firm on Valerie’s hips, taking her time in a way that made Valerie’s knees already feel dangerously useless.
The painting sat only a few feet away, those twisted pines watching from inside the crate, while Adrienne sank to her knees. Adrienne’s fingers were already at the button of Valerie’s pants, opening them slowly, like she had all the time in the world and every intention of using it.
Adrienne drew Valerie’s zipper down, then slid the pants over her hips slowly enough to make Valerie’s breath catch.
Valerie stepped out of them one foot at a time, barely trusting her balance with Adrienne looking up at her like she was about to devour her.
The pants landed beside the crate, forgotten the second Adrienne’s hands returned to Valerie’s thighs.
Adrienne parted them with firm hands, then leaned in and ran her tongue over Valerie’s center.
“Yes,” Valerie breathed, her head falling back against the wall. “That’s exactly what I was thinking about.”
Adrienne looked up without taking her mouth off her fiancé.
The sight alone nearly undid Valerie. Then she flicked her tongue over that already bursting with pleasure bundle of nerves before she moved a little lower and thrust her tongue inside.
She alternated between light flicks and steady strokes on the outside before dipping her tongue back inside.
Adrienne kept a firm grip on each thigh, keeping her pinned to the wall until Valerie’s climax shook her whole body.
For a few seconds, Valerie couldn’t move. She couldn’t do anything but stand there with one hand braced against the wall and the other still tangled in Adrienne’s hair. Adrienne rose slowly, looking very pleased with herself as she pressed one last kiss to Valerie’s stomach.
Valerie dragged in a shaky breath. “You know, I’m starting to think that painting belongs in the bedroom.”
Adrienne glanced at the painting, then back at Valerie. Her smile turned wicked. “That would be dangerous.”
“Dangerous?”
“I told you my plan,” Adrienne said, handing Valerie her bra. “You’re still standing, so technically I showed restraint. If that painting ends up in our bedroom, restraint is officially off the table.”
Valerie laughed under her breath as she stepped into her pants. “I dare you to hang it in the bedroom, Adrienne. Let’s see what happens.”
VALERIE TILTED HER head so far to the side that she looked like a confused golden retriever. “More to the left,” she declared. “It’s hanging a bit crooked.”
Adrienne made a noise that suggested she was losing patience, but shuffled the painting anyway. Her arms were stretched overhead, and the muscles in her shoulders literally pulsed.
“How much further to the left?” she asked, exasperated.
“Just a little,” Valerie replied, then stepped back and took in the living room as a whole: the deep-seated charcoal four-seater, the textured cream boucle rug, and the round wooden coffee table that sat in the center.
Copies of Spurred and Spanked and Amy’s latest bestseller, Outlasting the Heart, were fanned across the surface alongside a half-burned candle, a ceramic bowl of sea glass from the beach, and a glass of green tea that Hattie had been drinking.
“I’d offer to help,” Mick said, folding his arms over his broad chest. He was standing in his thick white tube socks and looked kind of ridiculous.
But the house rule was that all muddy boots were to be left in the mud room.
A rule Adrienne enforced strictly. “But you’ve only turned me down three times already, and my ego can’t take any more offenses from my future daughter-in-law. ”
Valerie laughed and patted her dad on the shoulder. “There’s a lifetime of offenses waiting for you, Dad. You might want to get used to it.”
“Is it straight?” Adrienne puffed out. Her beautiful face was pink from the effort. Her hair, which she had up in a loose bun, was falling apart. “Because honestly, I don’t care if it’s skewed anymore. My arms are going to fall right off.”
“It’s only as straight as we are, babe,” Valerie said, smiling. “But it’s perfect.”
And it was. The oil painting—a windswept cluster of pine trees perched atop a limestone shelf—hung perfectly centered between two massive floor-to-ceiling windows that looked over the sparkling grey-blue expanse of Sitka Sound.
From almost everywhere in the living room, the view was framed by purple lupines and pink creeping fireweed that smothered the edge of the wrap-around deck.
A set of timber steps gave way to a crushed shell path which wound through the beach grass down to a narrow stretch of pebbled shoreline where the tide gently rolled in.
“Looks beautiful,” Hattie said. Her voice was softer but noticeably stronger than it had been a year ago.
The doctors said she was reacting well to the new targeted therapy trial, and with another month of treatment she could quite possibly be in remission.
They were all cautiously optimistic. “I’m so happy it finally arrived. The final piece.”
“Why’s it so symbolic?” Mick asked, walking toward the kitchen.
He grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl, bit into it with a crunch, then leaned against the island with his hip.
Adrienne had insisted on Calacatta marble countertops, which Valerie had refused because they were too expensive, and so they’d settled on pearl white Carrara marble.
“Looks just like any other pine forest to me.”
Valerie caught Adrienne’s gaze and prayed she wasn’t going to spill the truth. Mick would be completely horrified if he knew that once upon a time, Valerie had kneeled with her naked ass in the air, her face between Adrienne’s thighs. The thought made her ache.
“We found a secret advantage there,” Adrienne lied smoothly as she stepped off the ladder. She flashed Valerie a wink before walking over and slipping an arm around Valerie’s waist. “It’s the perfect painting for a holiday house,” she added.
They’d built the house the only way Valerie could accept: with her land, her savings, Adrienne’s investment in the parts they would share, and a loan Valerie had insisted on signing herself.
Which was probably the thousandth reminder that this house they’d built together was just that, a holiday home.
They were, as Adrienne liked to call themselves, swallows.
For the misty summer months, they’d live right here in Sitka, with the floor-to-ceiling glass letting in every ounce of the northern sun while Valerie ran her local charter boat—a rugged thirty-two-foot custom aluminum Bay Weld—taking small groups out for deep-sea halibut fishing and remote wildlife photography treks.
And when the winter rolled in, Valerie and Adrienne would be free to travel the world, including spending time with Elisabet, Dixon, and Kyle aboard The Valentine.
Valerie still felt weird being treated as a pampered guest rather than a crew member, but she was getting used to it.
Unfortunately, their traveling would have to come to an end for a bit.
In about nine months, to be exact.
Happiness bloomed in Valerie’s chest so suddenly that it vibrated right under her ribs and made her dizzy. Her hand almost drifted down to her stomach, but she forced it to stay at her side.
She’d broken all the rules and taken a pregnancy test this morning despite her doctor’s orders to wait at least twelve days after the embryo transfer.
But the two pink lines had been blindingly, beautifully positive, and Valerie couldn’t wait to tell Adrienne tonight over a candlelit dinner.
She’d even wrapped the test in a Tiffany & Co.
jewelry box and was planning on sliding it romantically across the table.
When they had first sat down to map out their future, Adrienne’s complex trust funds had required an army of estate lawyers before they could make any major life change.
Apparently, getting engaged on a secluded, lantern-lit beach in Bora Bora and deciding to wait a while for the big wedding counted as major.
But Adrienne’s reaction to starting a family had come as a total shock.
Not only had she whipped out her Notes app on her phone with the list of baby names, but she’d immediately contacted Isla for the details for her fertility specialist. Apparently meeting Isla’s twins during the reunion had made her incredibly broody.
“It had taken finding the right person to make me want kids,” she’d said.
And then she had added, “But only if you get pregnant. I don’t think I can do the morning sickness, and I refuse to wear maternity clothes. ”
“What do you think, Val?” Adrienne asked, squeezing her tighter.
Valerie had drifted off into her own head for so long that the sudden pressure of Adrienne’s arm around her waist snapped her back to the present. She looked at the painting, at the twisted pines and pale limestone, and felt her body remember exactly what had happened beneath those trees.
“You’re right,” she said, resting her head against Adrienne’s shoulder. “It’s perfect.”
Because that forest would never be just a forest. It was where Valerie had mistaken sin for strategy and found the sinner who would become her saint.