Chapter 16 #3
The Silver family home stretched behind her—beautiful without being showy, the kind of house that felt like home even if you were just a guest. Selah and Chloe were inside, making breakfast. Through the kitchen window, Tiffany could see them moving around, could hear the faint sound of their laughter.
She’d never had this. A home full of people who wanted her here, for no reason at all.
The screen door opened behind her.
“Hey, Tiffany. Mind if I join you?”
Selah Silver walked toward her on the grass, two mugs of coffee in her hands. She wore jeans and a soft flannel shirt, her blonde hair loose around her shoulders. There was something about her—a warmth, a steadiness—that reminded Tiffany of what she imagined a mother should be.
“Please.” Tiffany gestured to the other Adirondack chair.
Selah settled in, handed her one of the mugs. The coffee was perfect—strong, with plenty of cream and sugar. Tiffany hadn’t told anyone how she liked it. Clearly they had a mole.
They sat in comfortable silence for a moment, looking out at the lake. A sailboat had appeared in the distance, its white sails catching the morning breeze.
“How are you feeling this morning?” Selah asked.
Jayden would have deflected. Fine. Great. Never better. Performance mode, even in response to kindness.
But she wasn’t Jayden anymore.
In fact, Dakota had come up with a new name.
TJ.
Felt right.
“Still healing,” she said honestly. “But good. Really good.”
Selah’s gaze dropped to the Bible in Tiffany’s lap. A small smile crossed her face—not surprise, not making a big deal of it. Just . . . pleasure.
“It was my sister’s.” Tiffany smoothed her hand over the worn cover. “She died a few years ago. Cancer.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I used to just carry it. Couldn’t bring myself to read it—not really.” She looked out at the lake, at the spot where she’d released Skylar’s ashes. “But lately . . . I don’t know. It feels different now.”
Selah nodded, understanding without needing explanation. “Sometimes we’re not ready until we’re ready.”
They drank their coffee. The sailboat tacked, its sails snapping in the breeze.
“The wedding’s this weekend,” Selah said. “Are you sure you’re up for the trip?”
Scarlett Hathaway and Ford Marshall’s wedding. In Key West. The entire Jones, Inc., team was attending.
“I’m going,” Tiffany said. “With Dakota. Because I’m part of his life now.”
Selah smiled. “You’re part of all our lives now.”
The words landed somewhere soft in Tiffany’s chest.
“Are you still in pain?” Selah asked gently. “The wound, I mean.”
Tiffany considered the question. “Pain just means you’re alive,” she said. “And it’s good to be alive.”
Selah reached over and squeezed her hand. Didn’t say anything. Didn’t need to.
“I called my parents yesterday,” Tiffany said after a moment. “Told them I was okay. That I’d been in an . . . accident but I was recovering.”
“How did that go?”
She thought about the conversation. Her mother’s distracted tone, the sound of the TV in the background. Her father asking if she needed money. Neither of them asking if she needed them.
“They were . . . themselves.” She shrugged, and it didn’t hurt the way it used to. “I think I’ve stopped expecting them to be different. They lost Skylar, and something in them broke. They don’t know how to love what’s left.”
“That’s a hard thing to accept.”
“It is.” She looked at Selah. “But I’m learning that family isn’t just about blood. Sometimes it’s about who shows up.”
Selah’s eyes glistened. She squeezed Tiffany’s hand again.
A pause. The breeze rippled the lake, sent patterns of light dancing across the water.
Footsteps sounded in the grass behind them.
Tiffany looked up to see Dakota coming down the lawn from the house. He was dressed casually—jeans, a T-shirt, bare feet in the grass.
He was devastating in the morning light. Not just handsome—though he was that too. Powerful in the way he moved, steady and certain. And she went to liquid in the way he looked at her, desire, hope . . . love in his eyes.
“Morning, Selah.”
“Good morning, Dakota.” Selah stood. “I’ll leave you two. See you in the Keys.”
She took Tiffany’s finished coffee mug, then touched her shoulder—a brief, warm pressure—before heading back toward the house.
Dakota watched her go, then turned back to Tiffany. His eyes crinkled at the corners. “Hey, TJ.”
The nickname still made something flutter in her chest. Tiffany. Jayden. Both parts of her, woven together into something new.
“Hey yourself.”
He crossed the remaining distance and stood in front of her chair, looking down at her with that steady gaze she’d fallen in love with. The gaze that saw everything and accepted all of it.
“You were up early,” he said. “I saw you on the dock.”
Of course he had. He noticed everything.
“I was saying goodbye,” she said simply. “To Skylar.”
He nodded, understanding without needing details. Then he reached down, slid one arm behind her back and one under her knees, and scooped her out of the chair.
She gasped, laughed, clutched the Bible to her chest as her free arm went around his neck. “Dakota—”
“Careful. I’ve got you.”
He settled into the chair himself, arranging her on his lap with her legs draped over the arm. His arms wrapped around her—gentle, mindful of her healing side.
She leaned into him, her head finding the hollow of his shoulder. He smelled like coffee and clean cotton and something that was just him—the scent she’d learned in Australia, in hotel rooms and the safe house and one terrible, wonderful boat ride across Sydney Harbour.
“Got our bags in the car,” he said against her hair. “Ready to go?”
Key West, the whole Jones, Inc., family gathered to celebrate, and she would be there—not as a cover, not as an operative, but as herself. As Dakota’s partner. As part of something bigger than her own lonely story.
“Anywhere with you,” she said.
His lips brushed her forehead—soft, reverent. Then her temple. Then the corner of her mouth.
“I love you, TJ,” he murmured against her skin.
Her heart swelled—full, finally, in a way she’d never thought possible. “I love you too.”
They sat there for another moment, wrapped up in each other, the lake glittering before them. Then Dakota stood, lifting her with him, setting her carefully on her feet.
“Come on.” He took her hand, laced his fingers through hers.
They headed toward the driveway, the lake stretched out beyond them, silver and gold, holding Skylar’s ashes somewhere in its depths.
“He lifted me out of the slimy pit . . . he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.”
She’d spent so long running. So long performing. So long believing she had to earn love by being whoever someone needed her to be.
But here, with Dakota, she was just . . . enough.
This was enough.
Dakota had indeed packed the car, and she climbed in. He closed the door, rounded the hood, slid behind the wheel.
The engine started.
“Ready?”
“Just get me there in one piece.”
He laughed. “I’ll do my best.”
And TJ—not Jayden, not Lynx, not even just Tiffany, the woman she was—headed toward her future, Dakota’s hand warm in hers, the morning sun spilling gold across the road ahead.