“I know it’s a lot.” She rushed on, mistaking my silence for hesitation. “I know I don’t have any right to show up here after how I left things yesterday, after the promotion thing, but I couldn’t—I had to tell you first. Before I lost my nerve. Before my dad called in favors to get me involuntarily committed for throwing away my career.”
“Gillian.”
“And I get it if you need time to think about it. I mean, I just upended your entire morning, which probably wasn’t fair, but?—”
“Gillian.”
She stopped, mouth still half-open around whatever explanation she’d been about to offer. The morning light caught the gold in her hair, turned her skin luminous, made her look like everything I’d ever wanted standing right there in my firehouse, choosing me.
Two steps. That’s all it took to erase the distance between us, to close four years of wondering and wanting and what-ifs. My hands found her face, fingers sliding into that copper hair, thumbs brushing against cheekbones that fit my palms like they’d been made for this exact purpose.
The kiss wasn’t gentle. Couldn’t be, not with everything that had been building since I’d seen her across the park on the Fourth of July. Not with the memory of yesterday’s fight still sharp between my ribs. Not with her standing here, choosing me over everything else.
She made a sound against my mouth—surprise melting into something else—and her hands came up to grip my shirt, pulling me closer like she needed an anchor. The faint flavor of coffee lingered on her lips, probably her third cup already because some things never changed. Behind us, the station hummed with its usual morning rhythm—the industrial fans churning, someone’s radio playing classic rock in the kitchen, a wrench clanging against concrete—but all of it was distant, muffled, like we’d stepped into our own pocket of time.
Her body curved into mine, soft where I was solid, warm despite the morning heat that had nothing on what was burning between us. This wasn’t nostalgia. Wasn’t goodbye. Wasn’t any of the things I’d been afraid it might be. This was Gillian choosing to stay, choosing us, choosing a life that had nothing to do with spreadsheets and conference calls and everything to do with late nights at the saloon and Sunday dinners at Doc’s and maybe, eventually, building something together that belonged to no one but us.
I pulled back enough to study her face, needing to see it in her eyes. No uncertainty. No second thoughts. Just Gillian, cheeks flushed and lips swollen and looking at me like I’d hung the moon. For the first time since she’d walked back into town, I wasn’t thinking about the past. Wasn’t cataloging all the ways this could go wrong or all the reasons she might leave again. She was here, fingers still twisted in my shirt, breath coming fast, and she was staying.
The future stretched out in front of us, uncharted and thrilling and ours.
“So this is what you guys do instead of washing trucks?”
Moose’s voice boomed across the bay, and Gillian tensed against me, probably remembering we had an audience. But I didn’t let her pull away, just kept one arm around her waist while I turned enough to shoot him a glare that promised creative revenge during our next training drill.
He stood near the kitchen doorway, arms crossed and grinning like he’d just won the lottery. Behind him, Twitch bounced on his toes, practically vibrating with the effort of not saying whatever was fighting to escape. Donkey leaned against the wall, shaking his head but smiling that quiet smile that meant he was already planning how to give me grief about this for the next decade.
“Guessing this means she’s staying?” he called out, not even trying to hide his amusement.
I kept my eyes on Gillian’s face, on the way her lips curved up at the corners despite the blush spreading down her neck. “Damn right she is.”
The words came out sure, solid, a declaration and a promise and maybe a little bit of a warning to anyone who might try to convince her otherwise. Her father, her old firm, that voice in her head that sometimes whispered she wasn’t enough—theycould all go to hell. She was mine now, or I was hers, or we were each other’s. The specifics didn’t matter.
Gillian laughed, the sound muffled against my shoulder as she turned her face into my shirt. The vibration traveled through my chest, lodged somewhere behind my ribs where I knew it would live forever. This exact moment, this exact sound, this exact feeling of everything finally sliding into place.
EPILOGUE
GILLIAN
The Christmas lights still twined around the bar’s rough-hewn posts, catching the late afternoon light that filtered through frosted windows. January in Huckleberry Creek meant darkness came early, but I’d grown to love the way the saloon glowed against winter evenings—warm and welcoming, like a beacon calling folks in from the cold.
“Getting an early start on next year’s decorations, or just lazy?” Old Pete Garrison settled onto his usual stool, third from the end, same spot he’d claimed every Tuesday through Saturday for the past decade according to Doc.
I pulled his usual draft without being asked, the motion automatic now after six months. “Strategic planning. Why waste energy taking them down when they’ll just go back up in eleven months?”
Behind me, my laptop screen glowed with a custody agreement I’d been reviewing for the Hendersons. Nothing like the multi-million dollar mergers I used to orchestrate—just two people trying to do right by their kids through a rough patch. The cursor blinked patiently between paragraphs while I topped off Pete’s glass and slid it across the scarred wood.
“Your granddad used to say the same thing about the Halloween skeleton in the storage room.” Pete took a long pull of his beer. “Think it’s still wearing that Santa hat from three years back.”
The door chimed, and Margaret Wheeler bustled in, shaking snow from her coat. “Lord, it’s getting nasty out there. You got my table ready?”
“Always do.” I’d already set aside the corner booth for her weekly dominoes game. The ladies would trickle in over the next half hour, order white wine and nachos, and proceed to get more competitive than any sports team I’d ever seen.
The laptop dinged softly—an email from the Hendersons’ mediator. I scanned it quickly, fingers flying across the keyboard to confirm tomorrow’s meeting time, then turned back to Margaret.
“How are you liking small-town law?” She unwound a magnificent purple scarf that had to be six feet long. “Smart girl. Though we already knew that.”
I grabbed a wine glass, already reaching for the Pinot Grigio she favored. “Turns out I enjoy helping neighbors sort through problems more than helping corporations devour each other.”
