Chapter 36
Months Later
Kara stood at the edge of the crowd with Zoe beside her, watching as Richard was brought out in handcuffs.
The sight of him made her stomach churn.
After everything he had done, all the fear and uncertainty, seeing him finally being taken away should have brought relief. Instead, she felt almost numb.
Richard looked around at the crowd as he walked past, his expression calm. Then that cold smile appeared on his face, the same one Kara remembered from before. It sent a chill through her.
Vargas walked beside him, keeping a close eye on him as they made their way toward the waiting vehicle. A few people shouted from the crowd, their anger impossible to hide.
“You’re a murderer!”
“You’ll pay for what you did!”
Richard didn't respond. He simply kept walking, his eyes moving over the people gathered around him.
Most of the crowd remained quiet. They looked stunned, as though they were still trying to understand that the man standing in front of them was responsible for so much pain. Some had known and trusted him. Now they were watching him being taken into the court to determine his fate.
Kara couldn't take her eyes off him.
She thought about everything that had happened since the fire. The questions, the fear, the searching, and all the lives that had been affected. So many people had been left with questions they never thought would be answered.
Then one sound cut through the crowd.
A woman crying.
Kara turned toward the sound and saw Kevin's mother standing a short distance away. Someone had an arm around her, trying to keep her steady as she watched Richard being led away.
Her crying wasn't loud, but somehow it was louder than everything else.
It wouldn't bring Kevin back. It wouldn't erase the pain his family had carried or undo everything Richard had done, but at least now there would be answers. At least the person responsible would have to face what he had done.
Kara looked back at Richard.
For so long, she had wondered if they would ever get to this moment. There had been times when she wasn't sure any of them would make it out alive. Now, standing there and watching him being taken away, it finally felt real.
Zoe slipped her hand into Kara's, giving it a gentle squeeze.
“You okay?” she asked.
Kara nodded, though she wasn't sure she could put what she was feeling into words.
“Yeah,” she said quietly. “I think I am.”
Zoe looked toward Kevin's mother, then back at Kara.
“It’s finally over.”
Kara took a slow breath.
She wanted to believe that.
Maybe it was never really about getting revenge. Maybe it had always been about making sure the truth came out and that the people who had been hurt didn't have to keep wondering what happened.
Vargas opened the car door, and Richard stopped for a moment before getting inside. His eyes moved across the crowd one last time.
Kara held Zoe's hand tighter.
Then Richard disappeared into the back of the vehicle, and the door closed behind him.
For the first time in a long time, Kara felt like she could finally breathe.
“Dad didn’t do it,” Zoe said.
“No,” she said, but her gaze stayed fixed on Richard. “He just built the world where it could happen.”
By mid-September, when the leaves were just starting to turn, the tautness that once clung to every sidewalk and supermarket aisle in town had begun to fade like summer heat. Faces that once turned away now nodded politely. Some even smiled.
It hadn’t happened overnight. But over coffee runs, grocery lines, and the slow grind of daily life, the town’s sharp edge had dulled.
The drama, the scandal—those things had lost their heat and had quieted.
People moved on. They always did until something new happened.
When the rumor mill got a whiff of the local priest and his secretary’s affair, they were old news.
Kara and Colin had found happiness, one they no longer felt the need to hide. She often thought of Isaac and hoped he’d found happiness. He used to call often, months ago—but not so much anymore.
With Colin, though, she breathed easier.
She didn’t have to pretend, didn’t have to hide the cracks.
She was just herself, broken in places, healing in others, and he loved every single part of her.
They took walks without glancing over their shoulders.
Ate at his restaurant and others without gasps threading through the booths behind them.
Some days they worked side by side—her in the small litigation office next to his restaurant, him ducking in between lunch rushes to steal a kiss or bring her tea. Other days, they played hooky entirely. Drove up into the hills with nothing but a picnic and each other.
There was a slowness to their time now. A gentleness. It wasn’t perfect—but it was theirs. And after the storms, it finally felt like enough to just be.
Later that fall, they joined Zoe and her husband on a weekend camping getaway.
The flicker of the campfire cast warm, dancing shadows across Kara’s face as she leaned back in her folding chair, toes tucked under a blanket, a steaming mug of cider in her hands.
The scent of pine, smoke, and toasted marshmallows wrapped around them like a familiar memory, one they were still building piece by piece.
Peter was tending to the fire, poking the logs with unnecessary precision. “We’ve got at least another hour of heat left,” he said, more to himself than anyone else.
Zoe sat nearby with a hand resting gently over her slightly rounded belly, her cheeks flushed from the cold mountain air and the excitement of wrangling a two-year-old all day.
The toddler, now asleep in the pop-up camper behind them, had spent the better part of the afternoon trying to eat sticks and chase butterflies. Kara had felt content that she had in weeks. The Montana air had breathed life back into her.
Colin returned from the SUV, two more blankets draped over one arm, a bottle of wine in the other. “Reinforcements,” he said, handing Kara the extra warmth before settling beside her, shoulder pressed gently against hers.
Zoe watched the two of them with a faint, knowing smile. “You two fit right in,” she said softly, eyes flicking between them and the fire. “Like you’ve always belonged here.”
Kara leaned her head briefly against Colin’s shoulder. “It’s strange,” she murmured, “but this…this feels easy. Not perfect, but like we’re building something that matters.”
Zoe nodded. “Traditions have to start somewhere.”
Peter raised his bottle in mock toast. “To new traditions.”
They all murmured their agreement, clinking bottles and mugs quietly so as not to wake Isabel.
Kara looked across the fire at her sister. “When did you find out?”
Zoe’s hand rubbed her stomach with a contented smile. “Two weeks ago. I wanted to wait to tell you until we were all together. Figuring the woods, a fire, and the smell of burnt hot dogs seemed like the right moment.”
Kara let out a soft chuckle, the kind that warmed her from the inside out. “I’m happy for you. Zo.”
Zoe’s expression softened. “I know. I’m happy for you, too.”
The night settled deeper around them, stars poking through the black velvet sky one by one. The fire crackled softly. Peter leaned into Zoe. Colin drew Kara into his side, and she rested into him. Kara looked up at the stars. For once, the sky didn’t feel so far away.
No drama. No secrets. Just the four of them—five, counting the one on the way—and the rhythm of a night well-lived.
The sheets beside her were empty—Colin had already gotten up—but his scent still lingered on the pillow, grounding her in the present, in this house that was slowly becoming theirs.
She blinked sleep from her eyes, yawned, and shuffled to the bathroom. Her reflection startled her more than usual—eyes a little puffy, hair a little wild—but that wasn’t what made her gasp.
It was the ring.
Simple. Elegant. On her finger, like it had always belonged there. She stared at it for a full minute before a strangled sound escaped her throat—something between a squeak and a gasp.
“Oh my God,” she murmured, gripping the counter. “Did I get engaged in my sleep?”
"Colin!" she called, her voice cracking with panic and something dangerously close to joy. “Colin, what the hell is this?”
No answer.
Barefoot and still wearing one of his old shirts that hung loosely around her thighs, Kara padded down the hallway toward the kitchen.
Still clutching her hand, she bolted from the bathroom, barefoot and wild-eyed, scanning the hallway. “Colin!”
“Kitchen!” came his voice, far too casual for someone who had just set a life-altering decision in motion.
She stopped short at the doorway.
There he was, calm, collected, barefoot himself, dressed in joggers and a soft, worn t-shirt.
He stood at the stove with a mug in one hand and a spatula in the other, surrounded by the unmistakable signs of someone who had been up far too early: flipping pancakes like it was any other Saturday morning.
A tray sat on the counter—a mug of coffee, a bowl of fresh berries, warm croissants, scrambled eggs, and crispy bacon arranged with almost comical precision.
“Good morning,” he said, turning with a grin.
Her eyes narrowed, voice rising an octave. “Colin—”
He cut her off by stepping closer, wiping his hands on a towel.
“Look, I know it’s not how most people do it,” he said, voice gentler now. “But nothing about us has been traditional, has it?”
Kara was too stunned to speak.
“I love you. I love every hard, sometimes complicated, yet beautiful part of you. You came back and turned everything upside down, including me. I found what I had been lost, and with all that's happened, I wouldn’t change a second of it because it brought you back to me. Then he leaned in and kissed her—soft and slow, like he’d been waiting years for this exact moment.
Kara pulled back and gestured toward the tray of food. “Did you really make all of that?”
He grinned. “I had to keep myself distracted to avoid a panic attack.”
“You're unbelievable.”
He handed her a coffee mug. “I'm yours.