EPILOGUE
Augusta - three months later
“Boys!” I called down the stairs, voice lost among the clatter of noise coming out of the basement studio. “Dinner!” I grinned when the sound system finally switched off, laughter floating up the stairs to greet my happy ears.
After two weeks of searching, a cash bid, and a horrendous few days in a moving truck driving all the way from Tennessee down to Mississippi, we were finally settled in Landry. Our house was just a half a mile from Jack Christopher’s, near enough to ride a bike to, and almost near enough to throw a baseball at. I knew—Fallon and Jack had tried, making it their new challenge to launch a baseball with a potato gun from his backyard to ours.
We were that close.
We were that happy.
Things were that good.
“Learned the opening lines of ‘Hotel California’ today!” Jack buzzed into the kitchen, gleeful grin on his face.
He was barefoot, both boys were as they entered the kitchen, so at home and cozy in the not-so-little house Fallon had bought.
Apparently, he hadn’t been kidding when he said he wanted to settle.
I was thinking maybe we’d rent a while first, but Fallon had plans far beyond my wildest dreams.
His first order of business was outfitting a basement bedroom into a home music studio, recording equipment and mixers to his heart’s content.
Once in a while when I woke up to find the bed empty beside me, I found him down there, mixing new songs or working on lyrics. Watching Fallon make music was a dream come true, like watching magic unfold before my eyes. He inspired me to spend more time writing, some of my lyrics even finding their way into his songs.
He’d already been more active on his once-defunct video channel, the one that’d first launched his career. And while TMZ hadn’t caught up with us yet, the buzz around where Fallon Gentry was producing his music, and the new, modern sound he was creating—a catchy blend of Southern rock and bluesy-country—already had the channel growing exponentially. It only took one new remix of “Whiskey Girl,” a duet where we shared the haunting lyrics of his hit song, to go viral, and attention grew. And then the largest streaming channel came callin’, offerin’ a one-night unplugged performance featuring Fallon that they wanted to film and release to the masses. Fallon had the chance to go worldwide again.
And after so many sleepless nights of considering all the possibilities, we finally said yes.
Fallon insisted that we sing “Whiskey Girl” together, and even asked if I’d perform a few of my own songs alongside him, along with his other crowd favorites. He went from being a Nashville has-been to building his own career from the ground up, exactly how he wanted it.
He inspired me more every day.
His sister was glad he was finally settled, her updating of his fly-by-night tour schedule on the website not needed anymore because he was no longer doing public gigs. And I could update the website now if required anyway.
But the true gift, the one that put all else to shame, was watching him be a dad to Jack.
Calvin had been generous, allowing Jack to move back and forth between our homes from day one.
Jack had now taken to callin’ me Mom, which slayed my heart with so many happy tears I’d nearly broken down in front of the poor kid, and Fallon Pa, which made me laugh more every time he said it.
And the way Fallon’s eyes crinkled at the corners made me think he liked it too.
It took weeks for us to truly settle into our new roles as parents, being good role models and watching our words, adapting to the idea that something made up of equal parts of us walked around outside of our bodies every day.
I ’didn’t think either of us had ever felt so vulnerable, so responsible, and so overwhelmed with love to get the chance.
We also had to make peace with the time we’d lost with our sweet boy, Fallon taking an especially long time to adjust. But the more he lost himself in the music, the more his true feelings seemed to come out in the lyrics.
Staying busy and creating what he loved was therapy, more than whiskey ever had been, and he was finally in a good enough place to see the light.
After dinner, once we’d walked Jack home and we were both wandering the hallways of our all-too-often empty house, Fallon caught up with me, wrapping me in his arms from behind and guiding me out into the silver moonlight of our back porch.
I looked up across the fields and forests that surrounded our little neighborhood, and knowing the same moon cast light a few houses down on our son, tucked in and well-loved, I felt truly at peace.
I wasn’t running, I wasn’t chasing, I wasn’t even searching for Fallon. I could finally stop, pause, enjoy, and just be.
“I think it’s time we expand this little family we’ve built,” he whispered at my ear, sending a pleasurable chill running down my spine.
I turned up my lips, my hands holding his and bringing them to my belly. “We already have, Gentry.”
His muscles stiffened, arms spinning me to assess my face head on. “Does that mean what I think it means?”
I nodded, warm tears pooling at my eyelashes as I thought of all the love we had to give, how great a brother Jack would be, the life we’d build in Landry, makin’ music and bein’ free. Finally free of the past, of anyone else’s expectations, of everything.
“I was thinkin’ the name Jett.” I pressed a kiss to his inked knuckle. “Or Presley.”
Happiness shot through Fallon as he hoisted me in his arms, spinning me in circles while still managing to hold me gently.
“I don’t give a shit what we call it. You just made me the happiest man alive, Augusta Belle.”
I giggled, his beard tickling across the hot skin at my chest.
That beard had gotten me in trouble all those weeks ago.
I just couldn’t say no to him. His overprotective nature was so attuned to me, the way his hand hovered at my waist as we stood in line, how he pulled out my chair when we sat down for dinner, how he tucked me into bed with such care each night, as if he wanted to memorize every moment we had together.
Fallon, from the moment we’d met, had never stopped making me feel special.
“Swear, Augusta Belle, still surprisin’ me.” He shook his head, catching my lips with his.
I moaned, hands working at the nape of his neck as sparks of desire ran through my veins.
“I think this is the part where you finally say yes to that question I’ve been askin’.”
“Oh?” I breathed, too caught up in him to even think straight.
“You know.” He was working his hand between my legs, coaxing the answer he wanted out of me.
“Sure I don’t have any more secrets up my sleeve?” I half teased.
“Don’t care.” The roughened pad of his thumb slid between my breasts, yanking down the neckline of my dress as he went.
“Are you sure? There was just one more thing…”
“Really don’t care, Augusta Belle.” He caught my lips in a kiss meant to hush me. “Nothin’ you could say could make me change my mind. Been to hell and back with you already, Mama. Might as well make this official.”
I hummed, expressing quiet reservation. “Nothing at all?”
He huffed, finally growing exasperated with my line of questioning. “You could tell me you’ve got triplets in there, and I’d be a happy fucker. What could you possibly have on your mind that needs sayin’ at this minute?” He slid a palm against the small of my back and applied pressure, our hips grinding together as he showed me exactly what I did to him.
“Well, the more we’ve talked to Calvin, it’s just gotten me thinkin’ ’bout that day, Fallon. And somethin’ ’bout it doesn’t sit right.”
“Oh yeah?” He sighed out a breath at my ear, still not paying attention.
“So I got to diggin’ through that box—”
“Shit, diggin’ up the past again?” He finally stilled, hands at my shoulders and eyes on me. “What’d you find this time?”
“Nothin’ much really.” I thought back to the stack of papers I’d found just this morning when the boys were still asleep. “Just a background check, but it was on your dad. And dated the day…well, that day. I’m assumin’ my dad did it at work, but it had your address on it, and it just got me thinkin’. What if he… Well, your dad believed it was arson, right?”
Fallon nodded, eyes shuttering closed before he pushed a hand through his hair. “Yup.”
“What made him think that?” I asked, still piecing everything together.
Fallon whipped his eyes up to meet mine, a strangled look covering his face. “Because I saw someone.”
“You saw someone? The person your dad thinks started the fire?”
Fallon nodded, eyes searching the ground at his feet. “Person throwin’ a gasoline-soaked rag in a bottle.”
My eyes popped wide, heart throttling to a gallop as I realized there was more about that night Fallon hadn’t told me. “Who did you see?”
He worked his hand back and forth at his beard, eyes closed as he tilted his head up almost in slow motion. “Didn’t get a real good look.” His throat looked tight as he swallowed. “But they were drivin’ a green Volvo.”
My heart slammed to a halt, unable to form the words I knew I needed.
His eyes avoided mine, his hands rubbing at his face and head, anything to take his mind off the conversation.
“Really?” I finally squealed, tears welling. “You’re sure?”
Fallon’s eyes finally hung heavy on mine, the same dark irises that’d pulled me in so long ago, made my heart sing and were the only thing that made life worth livin’ for so long. “Sure enough that I couldn’t bring myself to tell you.”
“No.” I dropped into his arms, covering his T-shirt in my tears as I thought about all the lies, all the regrets, all the awful things my father had done and hidden from me. He’d taken so many secrets to his grave and left them all for me to uncover. Peeling them away one layer at a time.
Fallon stroked my arms, doing his best to soothe me. My father’s decision to put Fallon in his will suddenly made sense. He’d taken Fallon’s home from him, I guessed in some small way he thought he could give it back.
I just wished he would have been around to explain it all. Living without the closure of what really happened had brought about a slow death for all of us.
“That’s how I know we can get through anything, Augusta Belle. Because we already have,” he finally crooned, pulling me into his lap as he settled us down into the porch couch cushions. “You know what that old-timer said. I act too damn old for my age.” His playful smile did its job and began healing me little by little. “The upside of that is when I know somethin’s right. I know this is right, and you and I are right as rain together, Augusta Belle. Whiskey and sunshine, soft angles and rough edges. Nothin’ about us has ever made sense, and that’s exactly the reason we make perfect sense.”
I swallowed the lump still lingering in my throat, ready to leave the past where it belonged and move on with the only man who had ever made me feel like me.
“Yes.”
“Say again?” He tilted his head to the side, cocky grin lifting up his lips.
“Yes, Fallon Gentry. I’ll be your wife. As long as you promise me we’ll keep makin’ music together, I’m in.”
That mischievous grin that’d stolen my heart from the start deepened. “So long as you promise me we can keep makin’ babies together…”
I swiped at his shoulder, but his reflexes were too quick, and he caught my wrist in his hand, turned it over, and slipped a canary diamond the size of the state of Mississippi onto my finger. His lips hovered over mine, eyes crinkling with unbridled joy.
“Here’s to music, babies, love, and my whiskey girl.”
THE END