Epilogue
The kitchen at Elliott’s cabin was warm with the scent of roasted tomatoes, fresh basil, and bread just cool enough to slice.
Rachel stood at the counter with one hand braced lightly against the wood and the other resting, almost without thinking now, over the gentle curve of her stomach.
It still felt new enough to catch her by surprise sometimes, that quiet rush of happiness that came when she remembered she was carrying Elliott’s baby.
Outside, through the open kitchen window, voices drifted up from the yard. Laughter. The shriek of a child. Thaddeus’s deep voice carrying across the grass. Lucy, no doubt, somewhere in the middle of it all.
Inside, Elliott was setting the final platter onto the island, his expression intent in that way it always became when he was putting the last touches to food. He wore an apron over a faded blue T-shirt, and there was flour dusted faintly along one forearm that he clearly had not noticed.
Or had noticed and forgotten.
Rachel smiled to herself.
There was something deeply satisfying about watching him here, in his own kitchen, with sunlight spilling across the counters and his recipes laid out not for cameras or deadlines, but for family.
Though those things had come too.
Home-cooked had done better than anyone had expected.
Better than Elliott had expected, certainly, no matter how steady he had tried to sound when the first numbers came in.
The show had followed, filmed right here in this kitchen, with the mountains beyond the windows and the sense of home woven through every episode.
People loved it, not only because of Elliott’s food, but because of the way he talked about it.
The way he understood that the meals people remembered were never only about the food itself.
They were about who stood in the kitchen with you.
Who sat at the table. Who reached for one more roll or stole a piece of cake before dinner and laughed when they were caught.
Food as home.
It had always been him.
And now it was their life.
Rachel set chopped herbs into a small bowl and looked up as Elliott turned toward her, lifting a spoon. “Taste this?”
She stepped closer, and he offered it without ceremony. She tasted the dressing, bright with lemon and garlic and something just slightly sweet.
“It’s good,” she said.
His brows lifted. “Only good?”
She smiled. “Very good.”
“That’s better.”
He set the spoon down, then looked at her for a second longer, his gaze softening in that familiar way that still made something inside her go quiet. There were moments when she still caught him looking at her as if he had not quite gotten over the fact that she was here.
As if she were the miracle.
“Are you tired?” he asked.
“No.” Rachel rested a hand over her stomach again. “Well. Maybe a little. But in a good way.”
He moved closer at once, one hand settling lightly at her waist, the other brushing a strand of hair back from her face. “You’ve done enough. I can take the rest out.”
“I chopped herbs,” she said. “Hardly heroic.”
“You’ve spent all morning helping when you should probably be sitting down with your feet up.”
She laughed softly. “You sound like Eleanor.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“You should.”
He bent and kissed her, slow and sweet and entirely unhurried. Rachel’s hand came up to rest against his chest, and for a moment the noise outside faded until it was only this—the warmth of the kitchen, the scent of food, the sure feeling of him.
When he drew back, his forehead rested briefly against hers.
“I love you,” he said, in the quiet, certain way he always said it now. Not as if it needed proving. Not as if it needed ceremony. Just as the truth.
Rachel smiled. “I love you too.”
His hand slid down to the curve of her stomach, reverent now, and his expression changed into something that still undid her every time. Wonder. Joy. A kind of tenderness so deep it made her chest ache.
“And I love this little one too,” he murmured.
Rachel covered his hand with hers. “Good. Because there’s every chance this baby is going to inherit Lucy’s ability to talk without pausing for breath.”
“I can’t wait.”
“And your talent for making a mess in the kitchen.”
He gave her an innocent look. “I have no idea what you mean.”
She glanced pointedly at the scattered bowls, the used spoons, the tea towel abandoned by the sink.
“Ah,” he said. “That.”
Rachel laughed, and he kissed her again, this time more quickly, with the ease of a man entirely at home in his own happiness.
From outside came the sound of children running across the yard, voices rising and falling in the late afternoon light.
Elliott picked up the large platter of grilled chicken and roasted vegetables. “Ready?”
Rachel lifted the salad bowl. “Ready.”
He caught her eye as he held the door open. “Watch the step.”
“I know,” she said, but there was no irritation in it. Only affection.
Outside, the yard was bright with soft gold light and full in a way that made Rachel pause for just a second and take it all in.
The long table Elliott had built with Spencer the previous spring sat beneath strings of lights, though they had not yet been switched on. Bread sat under linen. Pitchers of lemonade caught the sun. Platters and bowls were already spread along the table.
Beyond it, the children moved through the grass in the loose, happy way children did when the day had already been a good one.
Percy and Lucy were together near the edge of the yard.
Aria and Adara were crouched under the trees over some small, serious game of their own.
Caleb and Hannah’s toddler was close by, and Leo and Estelle’s little boy was in Eleanor’s arms, drowsy already.
Matt and Tessa were at the table, Tessa’s hand resting lightly over her stomach.
Spencer and Meryl were laying out the last of the glasses.
Kirk and Isla stood nearby with Percy never quite far from them.
Thaddeus rested one arm along the back of Eleanor’s chair, watching it all with quiet satisfaction.
For a moment, Rachel simply stood there.
Not because it was perfect.
Because it was full.
Because it was real.
Elliott came up beside her then, setting a hand lightly at the small of her back. “You all right?” he murmured.
Rachel looked up at him and smiled. “Yes.”
Together they carried the food to the table, and soon everyone was more or less in their places, children climbing into chairs or onto laps, glasses being filled, dishes passed from hand to hand.
Eleanor looked around the table, her expression softening. “Well,” she said, “this is a sight to be thankful for.”
There were murmurs of agreement. Thaddeus lifted his glass. The others followed.
“To family,” he said simply.
“To family,” everyone echoed.
Rachel looked down the length of the table then. At the children. At the women beside the men they loved. At Eleanor and Thaddeus, who had built this family and held it together long enough for all of this to exist.
Then she looked at Elliott.
He was already looking at her.
The love in his face was quiet and open and entirely unguarded, and Rachel felt that familiar swell in her chest, the one that still seemed too big, too precious, to hold.
Thaddeus looked across the table at his youngest son and said, with the faintest trace of teasing, “So where are you off to next, then?”
There was laughter, because they all knew what that question had once meant.
Another trip. Another country. Another leaving.
Elliott looked around the table, at the people gathered there, at the children, at the food, at the life laid out before him.
Then he looked at Rachel, and his hand came to rest over hers, and then over the curve of her belly.
“Nowhere,” he said.
His smile deepened, quiet and certain.
“I’m home.”
Coming Soon
The Enemy Dragon Next Door
A brand new series in a brand new world!