Epilogue
two springs later
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Autumn smiled when she saw the Welcome to Signal Bend! sign and its cheerful steam train coming around a bend, where a bright signal light showed the way. Once she’d thought that sign ridiculously cutesy, but now she loved it. For her, that sign was more than a welcome. It was a welcome home.
Well, in spirit, at least. And in truth someday.
Indianapolis would always be her hometown; Pom and Pops lived there, as did Ida and her fiancé, Rand. Ida and Rand now owned her schoolhouse condo. A rented rowhouse in the Soulard neighborhood of St. Louis was Autumn’s current address. But Signal Bend was the place that felt most like home these days.
Entering the town proper, Autumn grinned as she passed the completed and fully occupied Signal Bend Pavilion. As always (when she was alone in the car), she waggled her fingers in a tiny wave. It was dumb, but that property felt like her actual child, and she was proud.
As a last minute change, they’d decided to sacrifice some parking in the middle of the lot and installed an outdoor play area, and that had been probably the best decision of the whole project. It was constantly busy, and it drew parents into the shops.
Exterior construction was almost complete on Phase II, The Pavilion Inn; they were planning an August grand opening. Hyatt had signed on to brand the inn with one of its boutique labels. Autumn considered that a major coup, but she’d had to work all her rhetorical muscles to get the Horde and Signal Bend on board. They’d been adamant that the property only house regional businesses, as originally planned. No franchises.
She’d done an actual, full-bore business presentation in the Keep and repeated it at a town meeting, convincing everybody that an anchor like Hyatt would secure all the smaller tenants, and that Hyatt’s approach to their boutique lines was local-culture forward.
She’d been right because she knew her business. She’d convinced them she was right because they all trusted her now. Being the so-called ‘old lady’ (she was trying but did not have high hopes of that ever not sounding weird) of a Horde patch was like a Teflon coating of trustworthiness in this town.
These days, she really was completely in charge of the Heartland Homesteads project. They had two additional satellite offices established, in Detroit and Cincinnati, and a new Homestead in development at each. Autumn had hired the leads at both locations years ago, as agents for her team. They still reported to her, but now they had their own shows to run.
Both were women. She hadn’t selected intentionally for that, she’d selected for the most qualified candidate, but she was delighted to bring more women into leadership.
Her title hadn’t changed, she was still VP of Commercial Development, but a lot had changed for the better at MWGP. Chase’s father had fully retired, and Chase had become CEO. Malcolm Pitt, formerly a fellow VP with Autumn, was now their president. Malcom was a good egg.
Philosophically speaking, it wasn’t great that Chase was still failing upward, but practically speaking, it was fantastic. He’d climbed high enough to be out of everyone’s hair. As CEO, Chase barely came into the office anymore. Like his father, he saw the job of CEO as primarily face time: he entertained bigwig clients. He took reports at a monthly management meeting and threw in his two cents, but he mainly let Malcom deal with the daily operations of the company and focused on perfecting his golf game.
As Autumn herself now only rarely came into the Indianapolis office, she hadn’t had to deal with Chase for almost two years, but after the corporate reshuffle she’d seen the whole company breathe a sigh of relief. For so many years, she’d been so focused on the path before her, making sure nothing blocked her way or sent her in the wrong direction that she hadn’t fully understood how toxic Chase had been to everyone. What she’d told herself was ‘annoying but manageable’ conduct, and ‘inappropriate but not illegal’ acts had truly been sexual harassment, sexist discrimination, intimidation, and retaliation.
She’d told herself a lot of lies to keep her path forward clear. Not only at MWGP but in her life generally. Lies like I don’t need romantic love; friends and family is enough. Like I’ve worked my whole life to thicken my skin, now nothing can hurt me. Like I work so much because there’s nothing else I’d rather do. Like I’d only ever live in a city.
Like I’m not attracted to some dumb hick biker.
A lot of lies in that last one—or mistakes, anyway. She wasn’t always sure whether she’d been lying to herself or just wrong. Ida said it was all part of the same thing: Autumn’s deeply ingrained habit of making a path toward wanting what she could see was possible rather than finding a path to the thing she actually wanted, whether she could see it was possible or not.
It was true; most of Autumn’s thirty-six years had been spent appreciating what she already had and determining what was possible before she tried to want anything else. Even her career path had been forged not because she had a burning love of real estate but because she’d been good at math and business classes and had taken a real-estate law course because it was the single remaining available business law course the semester she’d needed to fulfill that requirement.
As a kid, she’d wanted to be a history or math teacher. Or a marine biologist.
She loved her work, and she loved being good at it, but she’d taken the path she could see to its end. Autumn had never felt blind faith in anything but her fathers. She’d always needed to see, or at least be able to imagine in realistic detail, the goal.
But almost two years ago, she’d taken a reckless leap off a cliff in the dark, she’d jumped despite the bright red warning sign, and that had panned out brilliantly.
These days, she and Cox decided what they wanted and went for it.
For Autumn, that change of perspective had been liberating and occasionally a little angsty. She’d discovered a real enjoyment of the slower pace of country life, but occasionally worried that if she indulged in lazy days too often, she’d lose her edge in business. But she was figuring out that it was, in fact, possible to balance work and life when work was not your life.
The change in Cox was ... monumental.
It hadn’t come quickly or easily, but Cox had discovered a will to live, not simply to exist but to live fully—to want things, to plan for things, to hope for a future full of wants fulfilled, plans met, and dreams achieved. He’d even tried therapy, at her behest, but only made it a month before he declared that therapy was ‘too much chitchat.’ But he’d promised to ‘work his shit out’ some other way, and he’d kept the promise. Cox always kept his promises.
Mainly he talked things out with Autumn, and she was happy to be his sounding board. There was no better way to know a taciturn man like hers than to listen when he had something to say.
They hadn’t seen each other in nearly a week, the longest they’d allowed themselves to be apart since they’d decided they wanted to be together. She could not wait to be in his arms again.
Heading toward the Night Horde clubhouse, Autumn smiled and waved at the townspeople she passed, and they greeted her in return. She saw Angie Shustermann, a teacher at the new preschool, and her sister Mandi, who managed The Nib of Time, a Pavilion boutique that sold pens, papers, and other writing products as well as watches and clocks from a local artisan, in the Price Chopper parking lot, loading up Angie’s SUV with groceries. Mandi had become something of a leader among the Pavilion tenants. She was excited about the hotel going in and had been a big help to Autumn getting the town on board with the Hyatt deal.
She tootled her horn to get their attention. “Hi, ladies!”
They both looked up and waved. Mandi called, “Hey! Happy birthday!”
“THANK YOU!” she yelled before she got too far down the road for them to hear.
Not since she’d lived in a sorority house had so many people known her birthday. Her dads had always gone overboard (surely there were gay men who didn’t love a party, but she had never met one) when she was a kid, and they still did the milestone birthdays up big even now, but otherwise, since she’d been grown, most of her birthdays had been celebrated with Ida. Occasionally, they’d do something extravagant, like a birthday trip somewhere cool, but usually it was dinner and too much cake and wine.
But last year, the whole of Signal Bend seemed to have known her birthday without her ever mentioning the date to anyone but Cox. She couldn’t imagine him blabbing it all over town, but clearly he’d told someone who had.
Autumn had been telling herself another lie all these years: that she didn’t really care about birthdays. As it happened, she got a huge kick out of getting random good wishes tossed at her throughout the day.
Small towns were good for that.
Pulling into the Horde compound, Autumn slowed and frowned at the front of the building. There weren’t nearly enough bikes and cars on this lot for a Friday evening. It was too early for the place to be hopping, but it was always about half full by now, and she saw only two bikes: the Dyna that Loki Mariano, the club’s prospect, rode, and Badger’s vintage Electra Glide chopper.
There weren’t even any woman here, getting ready to feed their crew.
Cox wasn’t even here, and he worked in the SBC shop, right next door.
More importantly, it was her birthday, and he was supposed to take her to dinner tonight.
What the heck?
She parked and went into the clubhouse.
It was quiet and empty. At six o’clock on a Friday night.
“Hello?” she called, thinking of the bikes outside. “Loki?”
“Yeah, hey!” the young man in question called. A moment later, he appeared from the side hallway, a beer keg on his shoulder. His eyes were wide with surprise, and that surprise had a tinge of ... fear? Or maybe guilt?
Neither fear nor guilt made any sense, so Autumn decided she was wrong. He was just surprised. “Hey, hon. Where is everybody?”
“Uh ... you should talk to Badge about that. I’ll get him.” Loki turned around, the full, chilled keg still on his shoulder, and headed down the corridor from which he’d just come.
Okay, this was weird. Autumn pulled out her phone and texted Cox.
Hey. I’m at the clubhouse and you’re not.
This is not a situation I expected.
Where you at?
She was relieved to see him read the message at once and begin to respond.
Hey city girl.
Talk to Badge. He’s got you.
Again: what the heck?
She started to text him that exact question when Badger said, “Hey there, Autumn,” and she looked up. She’d ask the club president instead.
“Hi, Badge. What the heck is going on with you weirdos tonight?”
Grinning like a fool, Badger came around the bar and straight for her. “All will be revealed in its time, ma’am.” He curled a gentle hand around her arm. “Come with me.”
Autumn had done some work on herself in the past two years as well. While she’d been more emotionally balanced than Cox, she’d had her own issues to sort through. She liked therapy, so she was doing most of her work there—and also talking things through with Cox.
But one thing that hadn’t changed: she preferred to know what was up ahead. So she did not follow Badger immediately. He’d pulled her a little, making her take one step forward, but then he realized she wasn’t coming willingly, and he stopped and turned to her, a question on his brow.
“Where is Cox? Where are you taking me? Are you expecting me to ride with you? Because—”
“Because Cox would break both my legs and set my bike on fire, no, I’m not expecting you to ride bitch with me.”
“That’s such a crappy way to say it.”
Badger gave her a puckish grin and otherwise ignored her. “I’m expecting you to follow me. Cox is at the place I’m leading you to. I’m not going to tell you where we’re going because that would ruin your man’s surprise.”
Oh. “Oh. This is a birthday surprise?”
She tried to imagine what Cox would think to do for a birthday surprise. Last year, he’d come into St. Louis for a long weekend, taken her to dinner at a small, upscale restaurant, and given her the gold necklace she hadn’t taken off since. Only the necklace had been a surprise.
Certainly he wouldn’t do a party. So what was he up to?
“Well, it’s a surprise on your birthday, so I suppose yes.” Badger tugged on her arm. “You in? I hope so, because I don’t want to show up without you.”
“Okay. Let’s go.”
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~oOo~
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She guessed where they were headed about two turns before they got there, but she couldn’t guess what it meant.
Then they arrived, and she saw.
Badger had brought her to the It’s a Wonderful Life house, which she now knew as the Dahlberg house. Balloons and streamers festooned the sagging, peeling wraparound porch. Mini-lights twinkled along the eaves, around the doors and windows, and wound around the trunk of the big oak in the yard. Light and music poured through the windows. He must have brought a generator over.
It was a surprise party. Knowing how she loved this zombie of a house, he’d somehow... what, borrowed it? Rented it? ... and was throwing her a party inside it. It was kind of uniquely Cox to choose a derelict old house to throw her a birthday party in.
Even so, the notion of her man throwing her—planning—a birthday party beggared comprehension. For all his gains in the past two years, he had not become an extrovert. The man could barely manage having friends over for barbecue. He must have had help.
And that help was here as well.
All the bikes and cars she’d expected to see at the clubhouse were parked along the curbs on both sides of the street. The driveway before the shambling old beauty of a house was clear except for a single bike: a beloved fifteen-year-old Breakout in near-mint condition. Now with an extended seat for a passenger.
The main ride of one Daniel William Cox.
As Badger passed the driveway, he gestured to her that she should pull onto it. She parked her Discovery behind Cox’s bike and climbed down from the truck. Then she stood there and stared up at the house, wondering, again, what the heck.
The front door opened—it was barely on its hinges—and Cox stepped out onto the porch. She saw it sag under his weight.
Then he smiled at her, and she saw nothing else in the world.
His smiles weren’t so rare anymore, but they remained precious as ever. Each one filled his whole face, made his beautiful eyes sparkle, took years off his age, and showed the bright light of his good heart.
She walked to her man. As soon as she took a step, he matched her, coming down the steps and along the broken walkway to her.
“Hey, babe,” he murmured as they reached each other. “Happy birthday.” He pulled her into his arms, and fifty pounds of life fell from her shoulders. That was always the way; no stressor seemed to matter much when she was with her man.
“Thank you.” She rose onto her tiptoes as he bent to her, and they shared a kiss both hungry with a week’s longing and restrained by their awareness of their audience.
“What have you done, here, Daniel?” she asked against his lips. That name no longer hurt him, but it remained rare. In fact, she was the only one who called him Daniel; it had become her main term of endearment for him.
He smiled. “Got you a couple birthday presents. This is the first one.”
Momentarily confused, she asked, “The party?”
Her guess made him laugh. “Okay, I guess I got you three presents. The party is the first one, and this is the second.” As he finished that last sentence, he gestured, tossing his thumb over his shoulder.
She looked past him and tried to see if there was something on the porch—and then she saw the big, bright blue bow on the front windows.
Afraid to actually guess the thing that was beginning to occur to her, Autumn looked Cox in the eyes and asked, “What did you do, Daniel?”
His smile faded, and his expression became vulnerable. “Hear me out.”
“Did you buy me a house for my birthday?”
He stared for a second, looked over his shoulder, returned to her and said, “Yes?”
“Are you telling me that you bought me the It’s a Wonderful Life House like you’re Donna Reed and I’m Jimmy Stewart?”
“I’m not roasting a duck in the fireplace. I didn’t hire anybody to serenade you. The house in the movie was probably in better shape than this one is. I can back out of the deal if I fucked this up. But yeah, I put an offer on this house and got accepted right away. Bart helped me track down the owner. Did I fuck up?”
Autumn was too stunned to speak.
Cox rushed to fill in her silence—a testament to how worried he actually was. “I know how much you love this house, and I wanted you to have it. I thought we could fix it up together and make it what it should be, like you always say. But I didn’t do this to say you should give up your place in the city. I know how important your work is, I’m not askin’ you to give it up or do it less or anything like that. It’s just ... I love you, Autumn. I feel like I took my first breath in twenty years when I had you. You make the whole world look different to me. More color and light. Fuck, it even smells different. I can actually make myself smell your smell even when you’re not around, it’s so rich in my head. Loving you gave me more life than I ever had before—and showed me how much life I didn’t even know I already had. Friends and family, and shit ... I don’t know. I love you.”
Then Cox dropped to one knee before her and pulled a box from his kutte, and she just about swallowed her tongue. When this man decided to try out a surprise, he went all out.
Behind him, from within the house, a cheer rose up, so loud it seemed to shake the shingles on the porch roof.
Her heart throwing itself against her ribs, Autumn stared down at the man before her. The box in his hand was clearly not new. He hinged open the lid to show a double-solitaire engagement ring in a twist setting in gold. The stones weren’t large, but the ring was beautiful. Clearly vintage, clearly well cared for, and perfect.
She knew the ring; she’d never seen the real thing before, but she’d seen it in photos. It had been his mother’s.
“This was my mom’s,” he said, confirming her thought. “And my gram’s before that. Tally gave it back to me. It was in a box I told her I didn’t care about. She knew better, and she asked me if I wanted it back when ... I guess when she saw how I felt about you. If you don’t like it, we can pick you out anything you want. I know this ring is probably tainted, seein’ how my mom was, but she loved my dad so hard it was like she needed him to breathe, and I finally understand that because I love you the same way. So I thought even if it’s not the right ring for you to wear, it’s the right ring for me to ask.”
Through the wavering lens of her tears, Autumn studied that remarkable ring. Cox gazed up at her adoringly, expectantly. But he said nothing more.
Finally, unable to keep a smile from her lips, Autumn brushed his hair from his face and said, “Ask what, Daniel?”
He laughed sheepishly. “Right, right.” He cleared his throat. “You gave me my name back. I guess I’m askin’ if you’ll let me give you my name, too. Will you marry me, Autumn?”
Two years ago, Autumn’s life was absorbed with work, and the only allure Signal Bend held was that. She’d detested this town and its people, most especially the members and family of the Night Horde MC. And they had felt the same about her. They’d called her a snake, a carpetbagger, a ballbuster, done everything they could think of to make her feel unwelcome and push her and her plans away, and she’d done everything she could think of to bulldoze right over them.
Two years ago, Autumn had only three people anywhere in her life who mattered—and she’d given them what slivers of time she had left after work.
Two years ago, Autumn had given up on ever having a life partner or any of the things that, in her mind, came in that package.
Now, Signal Bend felt more like home than anywhere else in the world. She loved every corner of this storybook town and most of its people. She cheered its successes and mourned its losses.
Now, the Night Horde MC was her family, too. Dozens of people whom she loved and who loved her. Dear friends and great company. So many people they filled a ramshackle old house to the rafters.
And the essential core of her family, the three people who’d always been there, were happier than they’d ever been. Her dads had remarried and her best friend was engaged—and she saw them all more than before because they all spent whole weeks together throughout the year, in Indianapolis or in St. Louis, and sometimes on a destination vacation together. She’d actually gotten Cox to Costa Rica last year. He’d even gone snorkeling.
Now, the man she loved more deeply than she’d known love could root was kneeling before her on the lawn of a house he’d bought her and offering her a ring, his love, his name, and the rest of his life.
What would their future together look like? She didn’t bother to try to imagine it, didn’t even feel an impulse to plan. They would make the life they wanted together, and they would decide together what it was. They would celebrate the joys and contend with the sorrows together, as they came upon them.
The only way any life was ever lived: step by step.
She brushed his beard with her fingertips and gave him her answer. “Yes.”
Cox’s grin split his face in two. When this man, her man, smiled, her whole world shone.
As he stood, drawing the ring from its seat, a high-pitched squeal came from the direction of the house. The front door was open, and most of the club and family had spilled out onto the porch. If they weren’t careful they were all going straight through that old thing.
But that thought barely caught her notice because her fathers and Ida and Rand were on the steps. Pom was in Pops’ arms, weeping. It was Pom’s squeal she’d heard.
Cox had brought her whole family together for this moment.
The man who’d once sworn he hated everyone and cared about nothing had done all this for her.
He took her hand and slipped the ring on her finger. It was a little loose, but not so much she couldn’t wear it before she got it sized.
“I love you,” he said again, this time in a whisper as he lifted her hand to his lips.
“And I love you.”
Autumn wrapped her arms around her man’s neck and started climbing, not caring that she’d come straight from the office and was wearing a vintage Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress and probably flashing everybody around. Nobody around cared about either public affection or a little extra skin. Signal Bend was cool like that.
Cox caught her, hugged her close, and kissed her until she forgot anyone else in the world existed.
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THE END