He nearly crashes into a tree, and I forget I’m supposed to be directing him. Still laughing, he stops and kisses me before we continue on.
Home.
EPILOGUE
ZOE
Winter Lake is both exactly what I had expected, but also nothing like it at all.
Small, friendly… warm.
Exactly the sort of place a person might want to settle to mend a bruised heart because mine has been bleeding for so long, I can’t remember what it was like not to hurt.
I sit on the back porch of Chris’s house, or our house, he keeps reminding me. It’s early. Far earlier than I’ve gotten used to waking up in the days since we returned from Washington. I’ve discovered my favorite thing in the world is lazy mornings in bed with Chris. Getting up requires brute force, for him and for me.
But not this morning.
This morning, I needed to get outside. So I slipped on one of his T-shirts I like to wear to bed and crept down the stairs and into the backyard that overlooks a lush, green forest that surrounds this quiet retirement town.
A bird loudly flaps its wings, taking flight from the top of a tree and up into the dusky blue sky. Tilting my head back, I track the small, fast bird until I lose sight of it.
Soft steps creep down the stairs. A door creaks open, and then a blanket settles heavily on my shoulders.
I smile gratefully at Chris as he sits on the porch step beside me.
He wraps his arm around me, tucking my cooler body against his warmer one, and presses a kiss on my forehead. “You don’t have to hide your hurt from me. Aerin grieved for days before she said she felt right again.”
I smile faintly and lean against him as I gaze into the distance.
When we returned from Washington, Aerin, the Winter Lake’s very pregnant Luna, stopped by to see how I was. She took one look at me and said she’d like us to talk one day. Just us.
And we had.
She’d told me about the abusive mate who’d hurt her so badly she thought she would never recover from his cruelty. But she had recovered, had rejected him and started a new life with Mack, the man she says she will love forever. And the true father of her child.
“It’s not so bad today,” I quietly admit. “Sometimes I feel so hollow, and then I remember why I ran from him and why I never wanted to go back.”
I think it does something to you to cut a soul deep bond. I’d laughed with Chris as he’d driven us away from my former pack.
Later, I’d hurt so badly Chris had pulled over to the side of the road, drawn me into his arms and held me as I sobbed.
We lean against each other, and slowly, I shake off the hurt and the grief. Every day, it gets a little easier to do, and I know that soon, I won’t hurt anymore.
This isn’t the first morning Chris has found me out here. But this is the first time I decide I don’t want to sit and let the sun warm us before we go inside to eat breakfast.
I get to my feet, shrug off the blanket and hold my hand to Chris, smiling. “How about a run? But only if you promise not to run from me.”
It’s become a running joke among the pack—my pack—that the two people who spent more time running from love and people ran to each other.
His smile is so dear, and so sweet, I wonder how I didn’t fall in love with him immediately. “Don’t you know by now that you’re the only woman in the world I would run to and not from?”
Seeing the love in his eyes, I nod.
He takes my hand and I pull him to his feet. He steps closer, sliding his free arm around my waist. “I love you, Zoe Winters.”
“And I love you.” I scrutinize his expression for any hint of guilt about Gracie’s death. “Do you need me to remind you that you’re not to blame today?”
A smile pulls at the corners of his eyes. “Not today. But I wouldn’t say no to the kiss that accompanies each reminder.”
Smiling, I stretch up to him on tiptoes as he winds his arms around me; the sun warming us both.
It’s the start of another beautiful, happy day with the man I love. The man I will always love, because Winter Lake is my home, and this is the life I should have lived all along.
