He leaned in and kissed me softly. “For always.”
I closed my eyes, letting the bliss wash over me, filling in all my broken pieces, making me whole.
We moved to the dining room, and Ronan went to Bibi.
“I didn’t get a chance to say hello,” he said, his voice thick.
“You were a little busy getting acquainted,” she replied. “Oh, honey.”
I watched as he bent his tall, powerful frame to hug her. I watchedhow she closed her eyes against his shoulder, holding him tight. And how she seemed bigger than him somehow—his shelter from the storm, like she’d been for me my entire life.
My battered heart rejoiced and finally knew peace because my beautiful man, who’d been lost and cut adrift, was safe at last.
“My darling boy.” Bibi took his face in his hands and kissed his cheek. “Welcome home.”
EpilogueI: Shiloh
Six months later
“Don’t wake our boy,” Ronan whispered into my ear.
Ronan nuzzled my neck, nipped my ear, and his hands began exploring and caressing…
I laughed. “How are you ready again? I need a few minutes to recharge.”
“If you insist.”
“What’s with you tonight anyway?” I reached up to sink my fingers in his hair. “You’re in an unusually virile mood.” Actually, there was nothing unusual about it. Ronan didn’t have an off switch. He’d been known to wake with only a kiss and be inside me a minute later if that was what I wanted. “Are we celebrating something?”
“Nope,” he said. “Oh, except that Hector and I got the bid.”
“You did?” I screeched, and we both glanced fearfully at the baby monitor on my nightstand.
Ronan had built an addition on to Bibi’s house—August’s room—where my work shed used to be. It took up most of the backyard, but leaving Bibi alone to get our own place would break her heart, and I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her anyway. We were a tight fit but too happy to notice.
The monitor remained quiet, and I turned my arched brow on Ronan.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He pulled me on top of him so that I lay flush with his warm, broad chest, his smile lazy. “I’m telling you now.”
I rolled my eyes, laughing. “Well, damn, that’s amazing news. But what does that mean exactly?”
“It means we are now the proud owners of that rotting little cottage down on Beachside.”
“God, Ronan, I’m so happy for you,” I said, kissing him and marveling at how fast life moved.
The Bluffs apartments Ronan’s uncle had lived in had been condemned. As much as Ronan hated to unhouse the tenants, there was nothing he could do. The best option was to sell the land to the city, then use the profit to upgrade the apartment complex at Cliffside. He hired a contractor, Hector Morales, and together they put in a new HVAC system and a new roof and upgraded the fixtures, all without raising the rent one penny. It was imperative to Ronan that he provide decent homes for people without strangling them financially.
Throughout the process, he and Hector hit it off and decided to use Ronan’s restitution money from the state to start their own construction business…with a bestselling author and a Grammy-winning rock star as key investors. The only way Ronan would allow Holden or Miller to give him any money was if they were going to get it back once the business took off. Which it would, because I knew Ronan would work his ass off to make sure he let no one down. Just last week, he and Hector had put in a bid to buy the “rotting little cottage on Beachside” that they planned to flip and make beautiful. Make a home for someone. A family maybe.
“I was thinking,” Ronan said, settling beneath me and brushing my braids away from my face. “We’re going to need some help with the remodel on the cottage. Neither Hector or I have the first damn clue about backsplashes or lighting fixtures or…whatever.”
I grinned. “You want me to choose the design elements? Or…whatever?”
“You’re the artist,” he said as if it were the simplest thing in the world.
It was total, how much he believed in me. And with Ronan being back in our lives and taking his share of the stress off my shoulders, I’d been able to make my shop what I wanted—attending craft fairs, advertising, and reaching out to other artists for collaborations and showcases. For the first time since its second grand opening, Rare Earth turned a profit three months in a row.