“I’m sure of you.” He pressed a kiss to the top of my head. “The rest is just details.”
We stood there for a moment, wrapped up in each other, while the rescue operation hummed along around us. Volunteers moved between stations. Dogs barked. Someone called out a question about feeding schedules. Life continued, loud and messy and beautiful.
“So what happens now?” I asked. “With the lease, the council, all of it?”
“I’ll talk to Dr. Hanson tomorrow. Draw up an amended agreement that covers the rescue operation properly—expanded use provisions, liability waivers, the works. Make it official so nobody can complain about technicalities.” He pulled back enough to look at me. “And I’ll handle the neighbors myself. Most of them are reasonable. They just want to feel heard.”
“What about Mayor Pearce?”
“Tessa’s on our side, even if she can’t say it outright. She fought hard for that firehouse—practically went to war with the council to make it happen. She’s not going to let a rescue operation for homeless dogs become a political problem if she can help it.”
I nodded slowly, the knot in my chest finally starting to loosen. “Okay. So we have a plan.”
“We have a plan.” He smiled—a real smile, warm and unguarded in a way I was starting to realize was rare for him. “And after we finish here tonight, I’m taking you to dinner like I promised. Then home. Then bed.”
Heat rushed through me at the memory of his earlier words.Slow. Thorough. Until you forget everything except how good we feel together.
“I like that plan too,” I managed.
The sun was sinking toward the mountains now, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink. Warrick guided me toward the edge of the lot, away from the bustle of the operation, to a spot where we could see the view stretching out before us.
I leaned into his side, his arm solid around my shoulders, and watched the colors deepen.
Two days ago, I’d driven to Wildwood Valley with nothing but a broken heart and a need to fill the void Benny had left behind. I’d expected long hours, hard work, and the quiet satisfaction of helping animals who needed it.
I hadn’t expected Warrick. Hadn’t expected to find someone who saw me—really saw me—and wanted me anyway. Hadn’t expected to feel, for the first time in my life, like I’d found the place I was supposed to be.
“Thank you,” I said quietly.
“For what?”
“For not letting me walk away. For choosing this—choosing us—even when it would have been easier not to.”
He turned his head, pressing a kiss to my temple. “Easiest decision I ever made.”
The sun slipped below the ridgeline, leaving the sky awash in purple and gold. Somewhere behind us, a dog barked happily. Volunteers laughed about something. The world kept spinning, full of noise and life and possibility.
And I stood there with Warrick’s arm around me, watching the last light fade, feeling something I hadn’t felt in a long time.
Home.
Not a place, but a person. Not somewhere I’d been searching for, but someone I’d stumbled into by accident and couldn’t imagine leaving behind.
I was twenty-three years old. I had a semester of community college left and a life waiting for me in Hartsville. Nothing about this made sense on paper. But standing here, leaning into the man who’d somehow become my everything in the span of two impossible days, I didn’t care about paper.
I cared about this. About him. About the future we were going to build together, one weekend at a time.
EPILOGUE
WARRICK
Four years ago, I thought I knew what wealth meant.
Now I was standing on the porch of what used to be my bachelor cabin—expanded twice now to make room for the family I’d never planned on having—watching my wife chase our three-year-old son across the yard while our eighteen-month-old daughter shrieked with laughter from her perch on my hip. Now I understood I hadn’t known a damn thing.
The house sat on the same ridge I’d claimed years ago, the views still stretching for miles in every direction. I’d originally built the cabin as a sanctuary—a place where nothing could touch me. Now it had a wraparound porch, two extra bedrooms, a playroom covered in toys, and more life inside its walls than I’d ever imagined possible.
Bear bounded after Peyton and our son, Lionel. The rescue dog’s coat was glossy now, his body filled out from years of good food and love. He was unrecognizable from the terrified, matted creature who’d huddled in the back of that kennel four years ago.