Epilogue
Six Months Later
Isabella sat on the veranda of The Wexley Inn on a warm June evening with her laptop open to some boring financial reports.
They did show steady profitability, which was great.
She also read reviews praising the character and comforts of her new inn while answering emails from guests requesting reservations.
The inn had exceeded all projections. Word of mouth had spread throughout the Lowcountry and beyond. Travel magazines had featured it. The Historical Society had used it for events, and Emma’s consultancy was thriving, with the inn as her showcase project.
Thomas emerged from inside carrying two glasses of sweet tea and settled into the rocking chair beside her.
He’d moved into Isabella’s cottage, his own sold to a young couple who’d fallen in love with it just as Isabella had fallen in love with him.
Isabella had moved into the inn so she could be there for the day-to-day operations.
“Busy day?” he asked.
“We’re fully booked through September. We’re already taking November reservations,” Isabella said, closing her laptop. “How’d that consultation go for the Beaufort property?”
“Good, really good, actually. The owners want to move forward with restoration. I told them that it would require some input on the hospitality side from you, designing the spaces that work. Our first official joint project outside of the inn. Well, if you want it,” Thomas reached for her hand.
“I’m not trying to volunteer you for anything without asking. ”
“I want it,” Isabella said. “Working together on the inn was… well, let’s just say it was the best professional collaboration of my life, and I’d love to do it again.”
“Equal partners?”
“Always equal partners,” Isabella said, smiling.
Luella appeared in the doorway. “Dinner service is finishing up. Tonight’s guests are all settled in, so I’m going to head to my cottage. You two don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
“Well, that leaves us a lot of options,” Thomas said dryly.
Luella laughed and headed down the porch steps toward her cottage, waving without turning around.
“She’s pleased with herself,” Isabella said.
“She’s been pleased with herself since we got back together. Keeps reminding me she knew it would work out,” Thomas said, pulling Isabella from her chair onto his lap.
“She’s insufferable about being right.”
“She was right, though. Annoyingly so,” he said, laughing.
They sat together as the June evening deepened, watching fireflies emerge from the marsh grass and listening to the sounds of the inn settling in for the night.
“I’ve been thinking,” Thomas said carefully, “about us. About the future.”
Isabella’s heart rate picked up slightly. “What about it?”
“I want to marry you,” he said, directly. “Not right now, necessarily, but whenever you’re ready. But I want you to know that that’s where I’m headed. That I’m not going to keep you guessing on my intentions. That I am all in on us, on this, on building a life together.”
She was quiet for a moment. Then she smiled against his shoulder.
“I want to marry you, too, when we’re both ready, when we’ve had time to prove that we can do this. But yes. Eventually, definitely, yes.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” She pulled back to look at him. “You’re my partner, Thomas - in business and in life - and I can’t imagine doing this with anybody else. I want to grow old together, sitting in rocking chairs on the front porch of this old inn, listening to the sounds of the Lowcountry.”
“Good.” He kissed her softly. “Because I’m not going anywhere. No matter what challenges we face, I’m staying, and we’re facing them together.”
“Together,” she agreed.
They sat on the veranda as the stars emerged, the inn quiet around them. Some things were worth fighting for, some patterns worth breaking, and some love was worth the risk of vulnerability and staying even when you were scared.
The Wexley Inn had taught them that, and they would carry those lessons forward to whatever came next. New projects, new challenges, new chapters of a story that had started thirty years ago and was just now finding its true beginning.