Epilogue
“Once I sell the Willow Creek Ranch, it won’t matter,” Jordan said. “Nobody will have to sleep in the barn.”
They weren’t at the sleep-in-the-barn point yet, but the ranch was getting crowded.
Hayes had returned home and reclaimed the foreman’s house while he waited for his fiancé Bailey to wrap up her temporary job in Havre.
Dylan, Trev’s roping partner, needed a place to land for a spell, and Jordan was taking a hiatus to get his head together before starting his consulting business.
They were okay for now, but once Trev returned for good, which he was working on, it was going to be elbow to elbow for a while. Not that Wade minded.
“You’re sure about this buyer?” Hayes asked Jordan.
“I don’t think that the broker would be pushing this hard if he wasn’t certain he wanted the place.”
“If the sale doesn’t go through—”
“Don’t jinx me,” Jordan warned.
All Jordan wanted was to get out from under the property he’d inherited so that he could buy the parcel that Jim Reed was about to put up for sale and cut all ties to his biological father.
The Reed property adjoined the Tree Fork and would give Jordan the perfect homebase for his consulting business while keeping him at hand to tend to ranching matters when necessary.
Wade wasn’t unhappy with the fact that it would also give the Tree Fork another one hundred acres of grazing.
Maclyn put a hand on Trev’s shoulder, and he covered it with his own.
It was time to head back to Missoula for another exciting week of khakis and button-downs.
The saving grace was that his time there was officially short, and Mac had made a contact that led to her getting hired for the summer with a ranch twenty miles from the Tree Fork.
Indications were that the summer job could lead to a full-time position in the fall when the current wrangler retired.
It was, in essence, a trial and a training period.
She would live with Trev at the Tree Fork and drive the twenty miles to her new job, which led to the current housing conundrum.
“We can work this out,” Hayes said over the noise of the television, which had just ratcheted up another notch.
Wade had wisely retreated to his recliner while his boys figured out living arrangements but apparently couldn’t hear over the din in the kitchen.
Not that he could ever hear the television unless it was blasting sound.
“We have faith in you,” Trev said, pushing his chair back.
“We also have to get going.” They braved the living room to say goodbye to Wade, then left Hayes and Jordan plotting ranch sales and future living arrangements at the kitchen table.
Once they were outside in the crisp night air, Trev put an arm around Mac’s shoulders, and she leaned into him.
“Wade is loving this,” she said.
“So am I,” he confessed. “I like having everyone together and I don’t mind sleeping in the barn if it comes to that.
” But even with Dylan there, it shouldn’t.
When Bailey returned, she’d bring her live-in horse trailer with her and that would take the pressure off.
When she and Hayes left again in the fall, Trev would take over the ranch, and Jordan would, hopefully, be building on his new property.
Dylan could stay or go, but Trev had a feeling that his friend would land another ranch job in short order. The guy had skills.
“Wherever you sleep, it’ll be with me,” Mac murmured as they approached the truck.
“Always.”
When they reached the truck, she turned so that she faced him, and he automatically settled his hands at her waist. “I’ve never been a big believer in things working out,” she said, “but look at where we are.”
Look indeed.
“I got a job and a partner.” She appeared utterly content, a look he’d not often seen when she’d first come to work on the Tree Fork that spring.
“A lifelong partner?” he asked in a low voice. It was a question that had been playing in the back of his mind since they moved to Missoula. He hadn’t meant to address it so soon, but the moment was here and who was he to step in the way of fate?
“I can’t imagine life any other way.”
He didn’t mean to swallow, but he did. He wrapped his arms around her thinking that he’d never felt so right. “Lifelong it is.” When she didn’t answer, he wondered if he’d been clear. “That’s a proposal you know.”
Mac eased back so that she could see his face. “I made the jump.” The corners of her mouth twitched as she fought a smile. “I was savoring the moment, but since you’re impatient, the answer is yes.”
“A hard yes?”
The smile broke though, sensual as hell. She took his face between her hands and backed him up a step. “Allow me to demonstrate.”
A moment later, wedged between a Ford and the woman he loved, he found himself rethinking that barn-sleeping situation.
When Maclyn ended the kiss, she let out a soft exhalation and closed her eyes as if centering herself.
Her voice was a little shaky when she said, “The drive home could prove interesting.”
“You think?” He glanced at the house where Jordan and Hayes were clearly visible through the kitchen window while he, too, recentered. A whiskey bottle now sat between them. He looked back at his new fiancée.
“We’d better get going,” she said. “And not because it’s going to get interesting.” He caught her arm as she moved away. There gazes met and he realized there was nothing that needed said. About them that is. There were still a few other loose ends to address. He cleared his throat.
“How about we don’t tell Wade just yet?”
Mac cocked her head. “The horse theory?”
“Don’t want his head to swell.”
“Really? You’d deny an old guy his glory?” She gave him an oh-come-on-now look and he relented.
“Fine. We’ll let him think he’s onto a system of predicting marriages through horse boarding. It only makes sense.”
“You’re worried about Jordan,” she guessed as she started around the hood of the truck to the passenger side.
Trev pulled open his door and waited for Mac to climb in before he uttered his truth.
“Damn right I am. The guy is two for two. There’ll be no stopping him now.”
The End