Epilogue
EDEN
Two Months Later
The box marked KITCHEN UTENSILS is full of ammunition.
I set two bricks of nine-millimeter ammunition on the counter and keep digging. More bullets. A bore brush. One spatula, thrown in for plausibility.
“Tanner.”
He comes through the front door with a nightstand under one arm, shirt soaked down his spine from his fifth trip into the hundred-and-four-degree morning. “Yeah?”
I turn the box so the label faces him. “This says kitchen utensils.”
“It came out of the kitchen.”
“You mean the clubhouse kitchen?” I ask.
“Yeah. But it was my drawer in the clubhouse kitchen.” He crosses to the counter and picks up the ammunition bricks before setting them back down in a neat row. “Drawer under the coffee filters. Nobody looks under coffee filters.”
“I look under coffee filters. I drink coffee.” I dig the spatula out and hold it up between us. “Is this the club’s?”
He takes it, turns it over once, and hands it back. “It was in my drawer. It’s ours now.”
I point it at the ammunition. “We’re getting a safe.”
“Ordered one Tuesday.” He’s already moving for the door to grab the next load.
The Cholla Road house has been ours for eight days. The prospects painted and cleaned it before we got the keys, and when I tried to pay them, all of the guys refused.
So, I fed the guys casseroles instead. I’ve won them over.
Everything inside is new. I came from my parents’ house with one suitcase, and Viper lived at the clubhouse his whole adult life, so between the two of us, we didn’t own much.
My mother dropped off a housewarming box with cleaning supplies, pots and pans, spices, and some groceries.
Exactly one piece of furniture is assembled and in place: the bed. Viper built it the night we got the keys. Before the couch. Before the kitchen table.
A man with priorities.
This is a fresh start for both of us. He even put my name on the deed. I found out at the signing, with the pen already in my hand.
“Equal,” was all he said when I looked up. One word.
By early afternoon, he has emptied the truck alone, because he won’t let me carry anything bigger than a lamp.
I make him a turkey sandwich. I fill a glass from the door of our refrigerator, set both on the counter, and point at a stool.
“Sit.”
He sits.
“Drink the whole glass,” I say. “It’s a million degrees out there today, and you’ve been hauling furniture since seven. Fluids, protein, twenty minutes off your feet. Those are the rules.”
“Whose rules?”
“Mine. This is my house.” I wink.
“Half yours.”
“The kitchen half.”
He smiles and drains the glass without setting it down, eyes on me over the rim the whole time. Then he puts it on the counter with a click.
“You going to take my blood pressure next?”
“Don’t tempt me.”
He eats half the sandwich in two bites. Then his hand closes around my wrist when I reach for the empty glass, and he reels me in between his knees.
“You’re sweaty,” I inform him, from approximately one inch away.
“You like me sweaty.”
He stands, the stool scrapes, and I’m over his shoulder before I can object, one arm locked behind my knees, getting carried down the hall past boxes we are clearly not unpacking.
“What about the truck?” I’m laughing into the back of his shirt.
“Truck’s empty.”
“The boxes!”
“Boxes aren’t going anywhere.” He drops me onto the bed. “Neither are you.”
We get exactly nothing done for the next hour. The bed, it turns out, was the right thing to build first.
Two orgasms later, with my cheek on his chest and his thumb drawing slow lines up my spine, I ask, “Any news from National?”
“It’s quiet. No Warriors have crossed into our territory since National rolled in.” The thumb doesn’t stop. “Saber thinks the Warrior’s Prez is waiting for them to leave.”
“And what do you think?” I ask.
“It’s calm right now. I just fucked you. I’m happy.”
I kiss his cheek. “I’m happy, too.”
His arm tightens, and his hardening cock tells me he’s ready for another round.
I’d let him win if the clock weren’t already against us. “Don’t get comfortable. We’re due at my parents’ house at six, and there’s still so much to do.”
He groans into my hair, but he lets me go.
We end up sitting on the porch steps with my mother’s leftovers stacked in our new refrigerator and the sun going down over the desert past the fence line. He has a glass of ice water sweating against his knee. I have my feet in his lap.
“You survived supper,” I say.
“Your mother hugged me.”
“And my father called your truck ‘sensible.’ Do you understand what happened at that table? That’s the warmest thing I’ve heard him say to another man. Ever.”
“I’ll take it.”
“Did you catch the rest of it? He’s letting Mama start a women’s group at the church. Her own group. And they’re going to Florida in October. She picked the place. He asked where she wanted to go, and then he booked it.”
“I hope he keeps treating her better.”
“I know this is just a start.” My thumb finds the rim of his glass and spins it once. “But I really have hope for them.”
He squeezes my knee.
“Shelby texted earlier,” I say, changing the subject. “Saber’s sister is moving back to town.”
And then it happens. Viper laughs. Loudly.
“What? What’s funny?”
“Cassidy is great.” The laugh hasn’t left his face. “She’s had it bad for Crash since she was a kid. Used to invent reasons to be at Bones and Bucks every shift he worked. Whole club knew. Whole club pretended not to.”
“She likes Crash?” My brows furrow. “The man is the biggest flirt I’ve ever met. She’s setting herself up for heartbreak. Remember when he proposed to me in front of you?”
“I remember.” He takes a sip of his water. “I’d have knocked him out if he wasn’t joking around.”
“What does Saber think?” I ask.
“Saber and Crash might be the only ones who don’t know. Doesn’t matter, though. Cassidy is off-limits to every Hellborn Kings member.” He’s still laughing. “Crash most of all.”
“Oh no,” I say, delighted. “Oh, that’s going to be a disaster.”
“Yep.”
Crickets take over where the gossip stops. He works a thumb up the arch of my foot, in no hurry, and neither am I.
“Clinicals start back Monday,” I say. “By spring, you’ll be living with a licensed nurse.”
“I’m so proud of you, Eden.”
I bite down on my lower lip. “The county hospital wants me before I’ve even graduated. Shelby says I should hold out for a signing bonus.”
“Listen to Shelby.”
“Thank you for everything.” I tip my head against his shoulder.
He goes quiet. Then he moves my feet off his lap, stands, and lowers himself to one knee in the dirt in front of the steps.
A box comes out of his cut. “Eden.” He opens it, and the ring is simple and not small. “I’m not good at this part, so here it is plain. Will you marry me?”
“How long has that been in your cut?”
“Three weeks,” he responds.
“Why now?”
“Why not?” He raises a brow. “You gonna give me an answer or what?”
A laugh and a sob trade places in my throat. “Yes, Tanner. Yes.”
He slides the ring onto my finger.
Then he’s up off his knee, and I’m off the steps, and he catches me when I jump.
My arms are around his neck. “I want to celebrate!”
“Let’s celebrate in every room,” he says against my ear.
“Deal.”
He carries me into our house.
This is the man I chose. The life I chose.
And I never asked anyone’s permission.