"I love you too, sis. Now go get your man."
I ended the call and turned to find Griffin watching me with careful eyes. "Everything okay?"
"My brother thinks I'm an idiot," I said with a shaky laugh.
"Smart man."
"Griffin..." I took a step toward him, then another, until I was close enough to see the flecks of gold in his brown eyes. "I need to tell you something."
"I'm listening."
"I lied yesterday. When I said this was just physical, that it didn't mean anything." I reached up to cup his face in my hands, feeling the rough stubble against my palms. "It means everything. You mean everything."
His breath hitched, hope flaring in his expression. "Lila..."
"I'm terrified," I continued, the words tumbling out now that I'd started. "Terrified of losing control, of getting hurt, of messing this up. But I'm more terrified of losing you."
"You're not going to lose me," he said fiercely, his hands coming up to cover mine. "I'm not going anywhere."
"How can you be sure?"
"Because I'm falling for you," he said simply. "Hard. And I don't know about you, but when I commit to something, I see it through."
The words broke something open inside me, something that had been locked away for so long I'd forgotten it existed. "I’m falling for you too Griffin," I whispered. “In fact, I think I already have. As in head-over-heels.”
He kissed me then, soft and sweet and full of promise. When we broke apart, we were both smiling.
"So what happens now?" I asked.
"Now we figure it out together," he said. "I'm thinking I might take Elise up on her offer to split my time between hereand Foxfire Valley—for now. Oakcrest Bay could use a good search and rescue pilot."
"And I could use a good distribution partner," I added with a grin.
"Just partners?"
I kissed him again, longer this time, pouring all the emotions that filled in my heart into the contact. "Partners in everything," I said against his lips. "If you'll have me."
"Always," he murmured. "Always."
As the sun set over the vineyard and the first stars appeared in the darkening sky, I realized that sometimes the best things in life were the ones you never planned for. Sometimes, you had to let go of control to find what you were really looking for.
And sometimes, love found you on a desert highway when your perfectly planned life fell apart.
I wouldn't change a single moment of it.
Epilogue
Griffin
Six weeks later
The coastal mountains of Oakcrest Bay stretched out below my helicopter like a living map, the late afternoon sun casting long shadows across the rugged terrain. I'd just finished a search and rescue training exercise with the local emergency crews—my third this month since officially splitting my time between here and Foxfire Valley.
"Base to Rescue One," crackled through my headset. "Exercise complete. You're clear to return."
"Copy that, Base. Heading home."
Home. The word still felt new on my tongue when it referred to anywhere other than Foxfire Valley, but that's exactly what Oakcrest Bay had become. What Lila had become.
