EPILOGUE
Bee
(One month later)
"You know?" I said, leaning back on my elbows and lifting my face up to the sun. "I can't remember the last time I took a day off."
Finn shifted on the blanket, so that he was closer to me. "Same," he said, turning to brush a kiss across my shoulder.
"The falls are low," Jackson observed as he packed up the remnants of our picnic lunch. "I wonder what they look like in the spring."
"I could hear them back then," I said. "But I didn't come up to see them." I screwed up my lips. "I kind of regret that."
"We'll come here in the spring," Jackson promised. "This is too amazing for words."
Time and again it hit me, especially when both of them said things like that. That we'd do things together in the future. The three of us, as a unit. Jackson was looking ahead, building up plans for his restaurant, maybe expanding to a location on the other side of town. I was looking to the future, baking dessert for Indigo twice a week while working on contracts at both the school and the hospital to bring in baked goods for their meetings.
And Finn, of course, couldn't help but look towards the future. His mind was always five, ten years out, and when he spoke about his desire to build a house up on the western ridge, I knew he was thinking about the three of us living there together.
And I knew he'd be the one to make it happen.
None of these things had been spoken aloud yet. But then again, we'd never even really discussed this in the first place. Why talk about something that didn't need to be discussed? We were together. All three of us.
A team.
"What's that?" Finn asked, sitting up on his elbows.
Jackson leaned forward. "Dammit," he grumbled. "People coming up here."
"We can't really expect to have this place all to ourselves all day long, can we?" I teased him.
"I wanted to," Jackson grumbled, trailing his fingers up my thigh. "Out here in nature? Doesn't that sound appealing?"
A shiver went up my body. "It sure does." The thought of their naked bodies burnished in the late-summer sun sent a small thrumming pulse down to my pussy.
But at that moment, a woman with bright auburn hair, emerged from the trail in the woods. "Beautiful day!" she called to us.
"Sure is!" I called back, forever the hostess. "Would you like to join us?"
She paused and looked behind her. From out of the woods a big group, two women and four more men.
And one toddler who came tearing out of the trees and made a mad dash right for the water's edge.
"Ellie no!" the redhead shouted.
Almost before I'd realized it, I shot out my arm to catch the careening toddler, who landed with a heavy thump on her diaper-padded butt. She looked at me with her big brown eyes, and her lower lip wobbled for a moment.
"Oh my God, thank you!" one of the other women cried, running up to collect the little girl. "She's a wild thing," she sighed.
"She gets it from her mother," the blond man behind her said, and held out his hand in greeting. "Callum Reese," he said.
Finn stood up and brushed off his hands on his pants before clasping Callum's. "Finn Walker," he said. "And this is Jackson Nye and Bee Henry."
Callum squinted at all three of us. "This might sound weird, but, didn't I see you in the paper this morning?" he asked
For a moment, all three of us froze. My jaw dropped and I turned to stare at Jackson who was standing stock still with his palms pressed together. Suddenly my eyes widened. "Holy shit, the review!" I squealed, clapping my hands.
"I can't believe we forgot to check for that!" Finn exclaimed. "We knew it was coming soon..."
"I didn't forget," Jackson rumbled. "I was actively avoiding it, honestly"
Callum nodded. "Well it looks like they liked you," he said. "My wife Harper and I decided to call and put in a reservation this morning for our anniversary. Before this review gets too much attention and we can't get one at all."
The brown haired woman, holding the squirming toddler squinted at Jackson. "Wait a minute, you're the new chef?"
I grinned and looked up at him. "Oh yeah," I said. "He's the chef."
Finn muttered something about ingratitude, and extended his hand. "Finn Walker," he said. "I'm the business manager at Indigo."
"Harper," she said with a confident air. "My brother Rett is over there with his wife Brynn, with the blond hair. And you saw our friend Autumn first, she's got that red hair that makes me want to murder her," she laughed. "And her husband Cole is... somewhere. Probably doing some kind of business deal on his cell phone." She hoisted the squirming toddler up on her hip. "This is our daughter Ellie, and that's Grayson over there with the diaper bag."
The darker haired man stepped up to us and extended his hand, "Grayson Abbott," he said.
I blinked. "Any relation to Jerry Abbott, the police officer?" I asked, excitedly.
Grayson nodded. "He's my cousin. Reckless Falls is full of Abbotts."
I pressed my fingertips to my lips. I wasn't really sure why that made me feel so excited, that I knew people here, that I had connections to this town now.
But it did.
Harper suddenly wrinkled her nose, and lifted Ellie upward. "Wow, little girl, how do you do that?" She turned and handed her to Grayson.
"Daddy's got you," he said, with a smile, and took her off to the side with the diaper bag.
I squinted, looking at the three of them. "Daddy?" I asked.
Then I bit my tongue. It was none of my business.
But holy shit. Were they a threesome too?
Harper cocked her head to the side and regarded me with a penetrating look. "Are you new to Reckless Falls?" she asked.
"Yeah, I moved here about five months ago," I told her.
"All three of you?" she pressed. The way she asked let me know she suspected me, just like I suspected her.
"Yeah," Finn answered, completely oblivious to the subtext. "Jacky-boy and I used to live in New York City."
She grinned looking between me and Finn and Jackson with a rather knowing smile. "Me too. You all seem to be settling in pretty well," she said with a smile.
There was something in her knowing tone of voice, and the way that Cal had introduced her as his wife, but Grayson had called their little girl his daughter that made me smile too, I reached out and grabbed her hand, and she squeezed it tight.
"Well, it's a little late, but welcome to Reckless Falls anyway," she said. Then she lowered her voice and leaned in to whisper in a voice meant just for me. "You should come over for dinner to our place some time," she said. "All three of you."