Total pages in book: 18
Estimated words: 16571 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 83(@200wpm)___ 66(@250wpm)___ 55(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 16571 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 83(@200wpm)___ 66(@250wpm)___ 55(@300wpm)
"You know, I think I will stay," I reply, almost casually, but the words make me a little giddy to say out loud. He might not know how enormous a statement that is for me to make, but, as the cabin comes into view once more, I can see him grinning out of the corner of my eye.
"Well, then," he murmurs, as he pulls me into his arms right there on the track, leaving Woodrow to run ahead of us. "I suppose I better give you a damn good reason to be sure, huh...?”
I smile as his mouth finds mine. All the pain, for a moment, falls away completely. I know that it will not always be so distant, but, for now, I feel as though I can live with it. And that’s the best we can hope for, to live with it, alongside it, to make a life that isn’t weighed down by everything we have endured.
And, as his strong arms wind around me, I know that I can find a way to make that happen. Just as long as I am here, where I belong. Far from home – but already in the process of building a new one, with him at my side.
Epilogue
CORA
"I always heard women complaining about how badly their feet hurt," I moan, as I lift my skirts to track the last few hundred yards to Elias’ cabin. "But this is worse than anything they warned me about..."
"Want me to carry you?” Boone asks. I cock an eyebrow, and gesture to my swollen belly.
"Uh, not sure you could manage, given the circumstances..."
He gives me a wicked grin.
"You sure about that, girl...?"
I let out a shriek of laughter and try to dart off between the trees, Woodrow galloping excitedly beside me. The smell of flowers is heady in the air, that floral perfume a promise of all the newness that filled this long summer with light.
And one of those new lives, in fact, is the very one we’re celebrating today. Daisy is a year old as of today, and June and Elias insisted we come and visit to celebrate. I protested at first, given that I’m about ready to pop, but it’s not as though I would ever have missed her birthday.
Because that’s what she is to me, my family, maybe not the one I expected, but the one who has made me feel at home. Boone is the centerpoint around which everything else rotates, a strong, steady, solid certainty as we look forward to welcoming our first child into the world. This time next year, we’ll be playing with her, getting her all dolled up in dresses and ringlets. I can hardly wait.
I giggle as I take off through the woods, not that I make it far before Boone catches up with me. He sweeps me into his arms and kisses me hard, knocking what little of the breath that remains from my lungs. Backing me up into a tree, I can feel his hardness already stirring at my hip once more – he's been particularly ravenous for me since I fell pregnant, as though the sight of me so ripe with his child is unbearably alluring to him.
He makes me feel like a goddess, so desired and wanted and needed, and I am already trying to wrap my head around not having time for all the fun we want when the kid comes along."
"Don’t we have to get to the cabin?” I murmur against his lips, though there is little in the way of conviction in my voice. He chuckles.
"Yeah, we do," he concedes, as he brings his mouth to my neck. "But I think I’m fine out here just a little longer..."
And, as his hand makes its way beneath my dress, I can’t find it in me to argue.
Smiling, I lose myself to him, stealing a last moment with just the two of us before we join the family once more.
Soon enough, everything in our lives is going to change. But, in the last few months, I have found that change can be exactly what you need.
Even if you could never have imagined it.