Epilogue
SHELBY
SIX MONTHS LATER
The fence is gone.
I notice it from the kitchen window while the coffee brews. April sun cutting through the glass, steam rising from the pot, and where the south fence line used to run between our two properties there's nothing but open grass.
Not damaged. Not fallen. Removed. The posts are pulled. The wire is coiled neatly by his truck. The ground is raked.
Cade Holloway took down the fence.
I pour two cups. Walk out in bare feet because the porch boards are solid now, every one of them, and the morning isn't cold anymore. Spring hit Bear Creek Valley all at once. Green everywhere. Wildflowers starting in the meadow. The aspens leafing out along the ridge.
He's standing where the fence used to be. Dirt on his knees. Hat pushed back. Buck grazes in the open space between our properties, wandering back and forth across a line that no longer exists.
"Morning," I say, handing him the coffee. It's real coffee now. A French press from the hardware store, decent beans from Durango. Mabel tried to take credit for the upgrade. I let her.
"Morning."
"You took down the fence."
"I did."
"Between our properties."
"Yep." He drinks the coffee. Wipes his mouth. Looks at me with those brown eyes that still make my pulse skip after six months of waking up next to them.
"Any particular reason?"
"Seemed unnecessary."
"A property fence seemed unnecessary."
"That one did." He sets the mug on a fence post that's leaning against his truck bed. Steps toward me. His hand finds my hip, thumb hooking into the belt loop of my jeans. "The property line's still there on paper. But I figured we could stop pretending it matters."
My heart does something ridiculous. "Cade."
"I filed the paperwork last week. Joint property agreement. Both parcels under both names. Dana looked it over." He reaches into his back pocket. "Kevin's claim was dismissed three months ago. Your lawyer sent the final order Tuesday. The cabin is yours. The land is yours. Nobody can take it."
"I know. Dana called me."
"She called me too." His jaw works. "I asked her about combining the properties. She said as long as both owners consent, it's straightforward."
"You called my lawyer?"
"I called my lawyer. Then she called your lawyer. Then your lawyer called me and asked if I was proposing or just doing a land deal."
My breath stops.
He pulls a small box from his back pocket. Pine. Sanded smooth. The grain catches the morning light.
"I'm not good at speeches. You know that. Griffin coached me through one and I forgot it the second I saw you standing on the porch in bare feet."
"Cade."
"I'm saying this wrong." He opens the box. Silver band with a thin line of turquoise through the center. Simple. Perfect. The color of the valley sky on a clear morning.
"I don't want a property line between us anymore. I don't want two separate cabins and a fence I keep finding excuses to cross. I want one life. With you. On this land."
"Are you asking me to marry you?"
"I'm asking you to be my wife, Shelby. I'm asking you to let me stop being your neighbor and start being your family."
The ring is warm from his pocket. He holds it out, not sliding it on, not assuming. Offering.
I take it. Slide it onto my finger myself.
"That a yes?" His voice is rough.
"That's a yes."
His mouth covers mine. Warm, certain, his hands pulling me against him.
Coffee abandoned in the grass. His body solid against every curve of mine, hip to chest, his arms locking behind my back.
He lifts me off the ground. My legs wrap around his waist. He carries me across the open grass, no fence, no boundary, straight toward my cabin because it's closer.
Through the front door. Down the hallway. My back hits the mattress with his weight over me. His mouth moves to my neck, my collarbone. My shirt comes up. His follows. Bare chest against bare skin. The heat of him everywhere.
"Been thinking about this since five this morning," he says against my throat. "You were asleep and your shirt rode up and I spent twenty minutes not waking you."
"You should've woken me."
"I'll remember that." His hand slides down my stomach. Unbuttons my jeans. Pulls them down with my underwear in one motion, mouth dragging along my hip as the fabric clears.
He kneels at the edge of the bed. Pulls me to him by the thighs. Buries his mouth between my legs.
Slow. Devoted. His tongue tracing my clit with the same patience he brings to everything, reading every response, adjusting pressure until my hips lift off the mattress. Two fingers push inside me, curving, and my hands grip the sheets so hard my knuckles whiten.
"Cade. God, right there."
He groans against me. The vibration sends a bolt of heat through my core. His free hand spreads flat on my belly, holding me open while he works. Licking, sucking, his fingers stroking that spot that makes my thighs shake.
The orgasm builds fast and breaks hard. My whole body arching, his name spilling out of me in a voice I don't recognize. He doesn't stop. Works me through it until I'm gasping, pulling at his hair, oversensitive.
He kisses my inner thigh. Stands. Strips the rest of the way, his cock thick and hard. Reaches for the nightstand. Condom on in three seconds.
"Come here." My voice is wrecked.
He covers me. Braces on one forearm. Guides himself in with his other hand, slow, steady, my body stretching around him. Both of us exhale when he bottoms out.
"Look at me," he says.
My eyes find his. Gold flecked with dark, pupils blown wide. His jaw is tight. His arms are shaking. This man who carries two hundred pounds of feed without breaking a sweat is shaking because he's inside me.
He rolls his hips. Deep, grinding strokes that press his pubic bone against my clit with every thrust. My legs wrap around him. My nails drag down his back. The headboard taps the wall and neither of us cares because the nearest neighbor is a herd of Angus and they don't gossip.
"Harder."
He drives in faster. His hand hooks under my knee, pushing my leg higher, changing the angle. Deeper. Fuller. I cry out and he catches it with his mouth, kissing me while he fucks me, swallowing every sound.
My hand reaches between us. Fingers on my clit, circling fast. His eyes drop to watch, and his hips stutter before he locks back into rhythm.
"Come on my cock, Shelby. Let me feel it."
The words push me over. I shatter around him, clenching hard, his name caught in my teeth. He follows three thrusts later, burying deep, forehead pressed to mine, a low sound pulled from his chest.
We lie tangled. His weight half on me, half on the mattress. My fingers tracing the muscles of his back where my nails left marks. His mouth pressed to my shoulder. Both of us breathing hard.
"I love you," he says into my skin.
"I love you." My hand lifts. The turquoise ring catches a stripe of sunlight from the window. "I love you and I'm keeping this ring and this cabin and this mountain and you."
His laugh vibrates against my collarbone. "Good."
We stay in bed until noon. Because we can.
Because the cattle are pastured and the generator works and the porch holds.
Because the fence is down and the property line is just a line on paper and the woman who bought a cabin sight unseen to disappear is lying in bed with a rancher who tears down fences instead of building them when he decides something belongs to him.
Spring in Bear Creek Valley. Open land between two cabins that don't need a boundary anymore.
Mabel is going to be insufferable about this.
I reach for my phone on the nightstand.
Me:
We're engaged.
Mabel:
I KNOW. Cade asked me about ring sizes three weeks ago. I am READY. Wedding at the church. Pastor Luke is available in August. I've already talked to Hank about closing the bar for the afternoon. Don't argue with me on the biscuits.
Me:
I wasn't going to argue about the biscuits.
Mabel:
Smart girl. Welcome to the family, sweetheart.
I set the phone down. Cade's arm tightens around my waist. His mouth finds the spot behind my ear.
"Mabel already knows."
"Mabel always knows."
His hand spreads across my stomach. Wide, warm, certain.
Home. Both sides of the fence. All of it. Ours.