Page 89 of Wild Promise

Now the counters were covered in food I’d cooked. The dining room was full of people I loved. And the man in the other room had given me the keys to his house and told me, It was never a home until you were in it.

“You okay in here?” Nate wandered over, leaning against the counter beside me.

“Yeah.” I cleared my throat. “Just having a moment.”

He nodded like that was a perfectly reasonable thing to be doing. “Want me to carve the turkey?”

I considered it. My dad usually did it—it was tradition. But maybe it was time for something new. New house, new people, new chapter.

“Actually, I think Zane should do it,” I said. “Since it’s his house.”

“Our house,” Zane corrected from the kitchen doorway, and I turned to find him leaning against the frame with his arms crossed and a look on his face that made my chest ache. “How many times, firecracker?”

“At least a few more,” I admitted. “It’s hard to get used to.”

“What part?”

“The part where I have something this good and I didn’t have to sacrifice everything to get it.”

His expression softened, and he crossed the room in three strides, pulling me against him. “You sacrificed plenty. You just don’t give yourself credit for it.”

Behind us, Nate slipped out of the kitchen without a word. He always knew when to disappear.

“That’s what I have you for,” I murmured.

“Damn right.” Zane kissed my forehead, then my nose, then the corner of my mouth. “Now stop being emotional and let me carve this bird before your sister stages a coup.”

“Too late!” Olivia called from the dining room. “The coup is already in progress.”

Zane laughed and released me, rolling up his sleeves as he approached the turkey with the kind of determination he usually reserved for important things, like making me come. I leaned against the counter and watched him, this man who’d walked away from everything for me and somehow ended up with more than he’d started with.

We both had.

Dinner was loud and messy and perfect. Dad sat at the head of the table, Mrs. Walker beside him, the two of them trading stories about winters past while Lucy listened with wide eyes. Olivia and Avery argued about something I couldn’t follow, and Nate ate in his usual methodical silence, occasionally smirking at whatever chaos was unfolding around him.

And Zane, at the other end of the table from my father, kept finding excuses to touch me. A hand on my knee. His fingers brushing mine when he passed the gravy. His foot hooked around my ankle under the table.

Every point of contact said the same thing. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. This is real.

After dinner, while the others migrated to the living room, I found myself at the sink again. Same window. Same snow. But nothing else was the same.

Zane came up behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist and resting his chin on my shoulder. “Good dinner, firecracker.”

“Good life,” I murmured, leaning back into him.

“Getting better every day.” His arms tightened. “You know, a few weeks ago, I was standing in a ballroom in a suit I hated, wondering if I’d lost you for good.”

“Good thing I came and found you.”

“Now I’ve got a house full of people who actually like me, a woman who loves me, and a plate of Mrs. Walker’s snickerdoodles waiting for me on the counter.” He pressed his lips to my neck. “I’d say things turned out all right.”

“Just all right?”

“Okay, pretty fucking spectacular. But don’t let it go to your head.”

I turned in his arms, looping mine around his neck. “Zane?”

“Yeah?”