Epilogue

Three years later

 

Victoria

Clay stepped inside the front door of their home. He’d take Sydney into Napa to practice for her driving test she hoped to take the following week. He stood in the doorway, a stricken expression on his face.

Victoria met him with a kiss and a smile. “You look traumatized.”

He scrubbed his hand over his face. “A little.”

“Told you.” Ross sat in the middle of their living room, surrounded by a toy train track. Two-year-old Travis crouched on the other side of the track, reassembling a bridge that had fallen over.

“Driving with Sydney is pretty scary,” Clay said.

Sydney pushed past him, a grin on her face. “We didn’t even drive, because my driving instructor, Captain Obvious, wouldn’t let me. All we did was practice parallel parking, which, I might add, I did perfectly.”

“On the twenty-seventh try,” Clay muttered.

“Mom and Dad said she can have a car if she passes her driving test, so she can pick me up from football practice.” Ross said. “I’m not getting in a car with my sister.”

Clay nodded. “If you do, keep your helmet on.”

Sydney laughed loudly, set her purse on the counter and crossed to the living room. “Very funny.”

Travis looked up from his train track and grinned at Sydney. He got to his feet and went to the girl, who pulled him onto her lap. She might not be the best driver, just yet, but she had a way with children. Travis adored her. He adored Ross too.

“Travis thinks Auntie Syd is a good driver, doesn’t he?” she cooed.

The boy stuck his thumb in his mouth and nodded.

Sydney chuckled and kissed the top of his head.

“He’d agree to anything you told him too,” Ross said.

Sydney and Ross came to visit Napa several times a year, staying for a week at a time. A few times they’d come with their mother and father, who had reunited. When their children went missing, and were feared dead, the estranged couple had made peace. According to Ross, they never squabbled anymore. The whole family was close now, happily living in Sitka Lake. Even he and Sydney rarely bickered.

The group gathered at the dining table and Victoria served lunch. The kids’ spring break was winding down and that night they were having dinner with Victoria’s mother at the hotel. Tomorrow, Clay would take them to the airport. Victoria felt a pang of sadness to see them leave. The four of them had an unusual bond. Clay and Victoria, not quite parent-figures to them, but so much more than just friends of the family.

Charlie wandered in and lay a polite distance from the table, in case someone wanted to offer him a bite to eat. In the last few weeks, Travis had decided he didn’t need to sit in a booster chair. He got around this by giving his father his best, pleading look before meals. Clay relented on this point, allowing the boy to have his way. He lifted him to his knee and let him sit with him. While Travis didn’t have a lot of words, mostly just sound effects, he got just what he wanted from Daddy with a well-timed, woeful look.

“I had some news from the Phillips’ lawyers today,” Clay said.

Everyone except Travis turned their attention to Clay. Mr. and Mrs. Phillips owned the cabin, or had owned the cabin, before they’d passed away. The elderly couple had died a month before the four of them crash-landed in the cabin’s front yard. They’d left no children, only a niece who had no interest in a log cabin, deep in the wilds of Alaska.

After they returned to civilization, their story became the subject of new casts and magazine articles. Film crews descended upon the remote cabin. As minors, the children were shielded from the public’s curiosity, but Clay and Victoria were hounded by the press. Especially when it was discovered they’d married a month after.

The interest had faded long ago. In the meantime, Clay and Victoria had done their best to find the cabin’s owner so they could say thank you and to give compensation for all the food and supplies they’d used. When they finally learned who owned the cabin, Robert and Doris Phillips, they discovered the owners were recently deceased, so they began a new search to learn who would inherit the Phillips’ property.

“The niece has agreed to my offer,” Clay said.

Sydney. “You’re buying it?”

“Yes.” Clay wrapped his hand around Victoria’s.

“I can hardly believe it.” Victoria said. “We offered a year ago, and the owner said she felt guilty for selling her uncle and aunt’s place. I guess she changed her mind.”

Everyone spoke at once, except Ross. He sat quietly, a stunned expression on his face. Each of them had special memories about the cabin, but out all of them, Ross missed the cabin the most. He hadn’t ever said those words exactly, but he hadn’t needed to. For a moment, she thought he might tear up and wouldn’t Sydney give him grief then.

“If your parents agree, we’ll take you in the summer.” Victoria said.

“That sounds awesome,” Sydney said. “No one’s been there since we left?”

“Just film crews.”

Sydney pursed her lips. “Aw… poor little cabin. I don’t think houses like to be empty. It makes them sad.”

“Really?” Clay asked dryly. “Like actually depressed?”

“I think the cabin misses us,” Sydney said, with certainty.

Clay shrugged. “Maybe so. You can ask when we go back.”

“How soon can we go?” Ross asked, still looking thunderstruck.

“Ask your parents,” Victoria said.

“They’ll say yes,” Ross said. “They’d let us go to Siberia with you.”

“We were pretty close,” Sydney said.

“When summer rolls around, we’ll have a bunch of people who want to visit,” Clay said. “My sisters and step father want to see the place. Paul’s going to want to fish as much as he can.”

Victoria smiled. After they left the cabin, Clay had made peace with Paul. Or perhaps it was the other way around. She wasn’t sure. As Paul tried to regain his health, the two men fished together. Fishing trips helped them forge a relationship they’d never had.

“We’ll have a big old party up there,” Sydney said.

She wriggled in her chair, and Travis chuckled at her antics.

They finished lunch and later Clay took Sydney, Ross and Travis to “Nana’s” hotel. Nana was the name Victoria’s mother preferred. “Better than Grandma,” she liked to say.

When Clay returned, he came with the dinners her mother had the chef prepare for their date-night-at-home dinner. Victoria lay in her tub amidst the bubbles and listened as he put the plates away. Soon he strolled down the hallway. When he stepped into the doorway, he gripped the frame above his head and gazed at her for a long moment. He was every inch the sexy beast, standing in the doorway and holding her in his heated gaze.

“You’re pregnant,” he said.

His deep baritone echoed across the marble surfaces. A small gasp escaped her lips. He’d called her first pregnancy with a startling accuracy. But it couldn’t be true. Could it? His expression was smug and certain.

She flicked bubbles at him and frowned. “Shut. Up.”

His lips thinned, and he crooked his finger. “Come over here. Say that to my face.”

Her lifted her brows and she shrugged a shoulder. “All right.”

She got to her feet, and stepped out of the tub. Bathwater sluiced from naked body as she crossed the bathroom. His eyes grew hooded as she drew near. His lips curved into a smile and his body tensed.

She grabbed his shirt. “Shut-“

He stopped her with a hard kiss, and lifted her in his arms, walking her back to their master suite, keeping his mouth on hers. Carrying her to the bed, he held her in an iron grip until he reached the edge of the mattress. He laid her back, keeping her locked in an indecent kiss. His tongue stroked her. His hands skimmed down the length of her wet body. And after he lowered over her, his knee coaxed her thighs apart.

She was already wet, swollen and so needy. Her reaction came over her the moment he’d stood in the doorway and spoke. There was something about the man’s voice.

He broke the kiss and nibbled his way down her neck while she squirmed beneath him. She soaked the French linens beneath her, the bathwater seeping into the fabric while her husband did filthy things to her. When his mouth covered her breast, she drew a sharp breath.

Please.

He sucked her nipple, teased her with his tongue and lingered while she arched beneath him. The sweet torment of his mouth made her beg for more. She threaded her fingers through his hair, holding him to her breast.

When she couldn’t take another moment, he moved from her breast, trailed kisses down her stomach and pushed her thighs apart. He covered her with his mouth and flicked his tongue. He gave her a slow, steady rhythm and just when she thought she might fall apart, deliberately held back, making her beg.

“I shouldn’t have said… you shut up,” she murmured. Because that made total sense.

He gripped her thighs and pushed them back so she lay beneath him, open, vulnerable to him. He continued his torment, teasing her until she writhed and pleaded. When she begged him for release he eased his hand down and stroked her as he sucked her clit. She screamed his name as she climaxed.

Without waiting a moment more, he stripped down, prowled over her and settled between her thighs. “God, I love you,” he said softly. “From the first moment.”

“I love you, too.” She smiled. “From the second moment.”

He pushed inside her, delving deeper. She wrapped around him, clinging to his hips with her thighs. Holding firm, he began a slow and steady cadence.

“Mine,” he said as he took her.

“Yours,” she replied. “Always,”

He teased her with his slow pace, deliberately toying with her. Desperate for more, she pleaded for him to give her what she needed. Sometimes he made love to her gently and tenderly. Other times he was fierce and so overcome with passion, he’d take her hard. And then there was a playful love-making. He’d give her just enough to make her wild, but not enough to let her come until he was ready.

She had ways of making him give her what she wanted. When she told him how much she needed him, he’d relent and take her over the edge.

“I need you,” she whispered.

“To do what?”

“Fuck me, Clay.”

He growled his approval. He drove her deep till she dug her fingers into his skin and came hard. He followed, thrusting hard as he gripped her hips.

She lay in his arms for a long while, both of them dozing off.

When they woke, he rolled over to face her. “I put a test in the top drawer. Go take it. I want to know.”

She sighed, reluctant to leave their bed. Inside the bathroom, she found the test, took it and returned to the bedroom. “What if I told you there was only one little blue line?”

“I’d call bullshit.”

“Really?”

“Really. The titty fairy has already come to visit.”

She shook her head and showed him the two lines on the test. “What a lovely thing to say, to your pregnant wife.”

He smiled, wrapped his fingers around her wrist and tugged her down to the bed. “Come back to me. Your mom has the kids for at least another three hours.” He nuzzled her neck, giving her a small nip. “You and I aren’t done yet.”

 

 

THE END

 

*** BONUS CHAPTER ***

 

Isolated from the modern world, doing whatever it takes to survive in the Alaskan wilderness, Victoria and Clay find time to have some fun! Subscribe to Sasha’s email list to read one more, hot chapter of Victoria and Clay’s simmering new love for each other.

 

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