Epilogue
Sophia
The banner said Welcome Home in Maisie's handwriting. The letters were crooked. The C was backward. There was glitter. There was a catastrophic amount of glitter.
"Maisie, honey, that's enough glitter."
"There's never enough glitter, Aunty Soph."
I looked at Callie. Callie looked at the glitter. The glitter was on the banner…and the table, the porch, Maisie’s face, and the dog.
"She's your daughter," I said.
"She's her father's daughter," Callie said. And went to get the broom.
I was on fairy light duty — stringing them through the oaks. My arms were tired. My fingers were sticky with tape. A strand tangled around my ankle.
"Higher on that branch, Soph,” Maggie said with her hands on her hips.
"I'm on a chair and I still can't —"
Jack walked over, lifted the strand, and hung it without stretching. Six-three.
"That's why I’m marrying him," Maggie said.
Aunt Lou had been cooking since dawn. Uncle Owen was on the porch with his coffee, his eyes checking the road.
"What time did Clay say?" I asked.
"Four-thirty. He left at noon." Uncle Owen checked his watch. "Wanted to be early."
"Clay has never been early for anything in his life."
"He's early for his brother."
Clay's truck came up the drive at four-forty. He got out grinning, carrying two bags that weren't his, and pointed at the banner. "The C is backwards."
"I know,” Maisie shouted. “That's the best part!”
Jessica stepped out. Sun-streaked hair. Golden skin. White linen dress. She stretched her arms overhead and said, "God, it smells like Texas."
The back door opened. Hunter.
He was tanned. Deep. His hair longer. His shoulders loose in a way I'd never seen — the tension gone from his jaw, his traps, his hands. He stood by the truck, looked at the house, the oaks, and the fairy lights, and his throat worked and he didn't say anything.
Maisie hit him at shin level. He crouched. Scooped her up. His eyes closed. His hand on the back of her head.
"Did you bring me a present?"
"A stuffed kangaroo. It's in my bag."
She squirmed down at full speed.
Aunt Lou came down the steps. Eyes wet before she reached him. Her hands on his face. Her chin trembling. She kissed his forehead. "Welcome home, sweetheart."
"Hi, Mom." She turned to Jessica. Pulled her in tight. Both of them holding on.
Uncle Owen gripped the back of Hunter's neck. Long. Firm. Then he reached for Jessica — one arm, firm — and kissed the top of her head. Her face crumpled. Her hand gripped his shirt.
I watched from the porch. My chest full.
The table was loud. Every seat taken. Six months of stories spilling out — Hunter and Jessica talking over each other, their hands touching between bites.
"— and Blake Mackay takes us to this pub and the whole bar starts cheering because apparently he once rode a bull through the parking lot on a dare —"
"The bull walked through the parking lot,” Hunter corrected. “Blake was technically on it."
Jessica arched a brow. ”That's riding, Hunt."
Clay grinned. Maggie threw a roll at him. Maisie asked if the bull had a name. Liam sat across from me, shaking his head, his mouth twitching.
Hunter put his fork down. He looked at Jessica. She looked at him. Her mouth curved. She nodded — small, quick. He cleared his throat. "We have something to tell you."
The table settled. Maisie's kangaroo slipped off her head. Aunt Lou's fork stopped halfway to her mouth.
Jessica held up her left hand. A ring. Simple. Gold. A small stone that caught the fairy lights.
"We got married." Her voice was steady. Her eyes were not. "Three weeks ago. On a beach in Portugal. Just the two of us."
One second of silence.
Aunt Lou's fork clattered onto her plate. "You — Hunter Owen Blackwood — you got married without your mother there? On a beach? In Portugal?" Her eyes streaming. "I have been planning your wedding since you were twelve years old. Twelve."
"Lou." Uncle Owen's hand on her arm.
"Don't Lou me, Owen." Her voice broke. Both hands over her face.
Jessica got up. Walked around the table. Crouched beside her chair and pulled her hands gently from her face.
"We're going to have a wedding party. Here. Under these oaks. And I'm planning every detail. The flowers you picked when he was twelve? We're using them." Her thumbs on Aunt Lou's hands. "You didn't miss anything. The best part hasn't happened yet."
The smile came through the tears. Slow. Shaky. "That's a high bar, young lady."
"It's what I do."
"Jessica Blackwood." Aunt Lou tested the name. Pulled her in tight. “Sounds meant to be."
The table erupted. Clay hugged Hunter. Maggie cried. Maisie pulled Callie's arm: "Can I be a flower girl? Can I?" Uncle Owen gripping Hunter's neck, then folding Jessica into a hug.
The noise hadn't settled when Liam cleared his throat. Stephanie's hand in his. He looked at her. She bit her lip. Nodded.
"While we're making announcements. Steph and I are having a baby."
Aunt Lou's hands flew to her face. The sound that came out of her was beyond words. My jaw dropped. My big brother was going to be a dad. A wonderful, perfect dad, just like ours was. Just like Uncle Owen had been to us after our parents died.
Wyatt's hand hit the table. He looked at Ivy. Ivy pressed her lips together — a tiny shake saying, don't you dare. Wyatt looked at the table, the sky, back at Ivy. "I have to. I'm sorry."
"Wyatt —"
"We're pregnant too."
Aunt Lou's shrieked. Uncle Owen actually laughed out loud. She turned into his chest — laughing and crying, hands fisted in his shirt. “Two, Owen. Two grand babies."
"I heard." His hand on the back of her head. "I heard, Lou."
Maisie's voice cut through. "Am I going to be a big sister?"
Callie crouched beside her. "You're going to be a big cousin, baby. Two baby cousins."
Maisie's eyes went wide. "Can they share Horsey?"
"They can absolutely share Horsey."
Both fists in the air. The kangaroo went flying.
I walked around to Liam. My brother. My blood. I put my hands on his face.
"You are going to be the best dad." My voice steady. My eyes not. "The best. Just like ours."
His face broke. His mouth pulled. His eyes spilled over. His hands found my wrists and held on.
"Soph." His voice came out wrecked.
"I am so happy for you, Liam."
He pulled me in. His arms tight. His face in my shoulder. Shaking. My brother. My blood. I held on. My chin on his shoulder. My eyes closed.
Stephanie's hand found my arm. I reached back and caught her fingers. The three of us standing while the table roared.
"Sophia Walker, you are not leaving before pie,” Clay ordered. Pie in both hands.
"I have a shift."
He looked over at Liam. "Liam, is this legal?"
Liam laughed. "It's not illegal, Clay."
I kissed Aunt Lou's cheek. "Eat on shift, sweetheart.”
"Yes, Aunt Lou." Hunter's nod across the table: drive safe.
Maisie screamed, “Bye, Aunty Soph.” She pie on her chin, and her kangaroo under her arm.
The porch light burned on the rail of the main house. The fairy lights in the oaks threw their soft gold against the dusk. My car door clicked shut. The ranch behind me in the rear-view mirror, smaller and smaller, until the dust rose up and took it.
The county hospital at night was a different country. Fluorescent lights the color of bone, linoleum cold under the soles of my shoes, the hum of machines coming through the walls in the steady untroubled key of a building that didn't know it was night.
It was one thing after another. A broken wrist, appendicitis, abdominal pain, an animal bite. Before I knew it, I was four hours into my shift with eight to go.
Around eleven, the intake nurse caught me at the desk. "Stitches. Exam three."
I picked the chart up off the counter and started down the hall, rolling the kink out of my neck and cracking my knuckles against the heel of my hand the way I always did before I crossed a threshold I hadn't yet seen the room behind. I pushed the door of exam three open with my shoulder.
There were two of them.
The patient was in the chair — a young guy in his late twenties with a sheepish look on his face and a bloodied tea towel wrapped around his hand. He was the easy half of the room.
Standing against the wall behind him with his arms crossed and his eyes already on me —
My feet stopped on the threshold.
Tall. Dark hair falling across his forehead.
A jaw that — my breath snagged. Sharp. Defined.
Shadowed with stubble. His arms were crossed over his chest and the position pulled his t-shirt tight across his shoulders and his biceps and his forearms and I was looking at his forearms. The tendon.
The vein running from wrist to elbow. The grease in his knuckles. My mouth went dry.
My mouth went dry. Over a forearm. In an exam room. At eleven o'clock at night. This wasn't in the training manual.
I gripped the chart tighter. Looked down. The flush was already climbing — I could feel it, the heat starting at my collarbones and rising up my neck, and there was nothing I could do because I was fair-skinned and I blushed like a damn sunrise.
The chart. The patient. The laceration. Focus.
I lifted my eyes, and his were waiting.
Brown. Dark. Warm. Something behind them — quiet, held close. His gaze met mine, and my stomach dropped. A real, physical drop. My knees loosened. The back of my neck went hot. My ears went hot. My skin prickled from my scalp to my wrists.
I had dated a resident in my second year who talked about gastric reflux at dinner.
A teacher who brought tulips and bored me so thoroughly, I once fell asleep between the entrée and the dessert.
Neither of them had made my ears hot. Neither of them had made any part of me hot.
I was beginning to think my thermostat was broken.
My thermostat wasn't broken.
His mouth curved. One side. The left. Slow. And my ribs tightened, and my lungs forgot the next breath.
Black Iron Customs. The logo on his t-shirt. The letters stretched across his chest. My brain filed the name.