Epilogue

Summer stretched out, a mountain of work and sun. While Becca and Monica worked on Becca’s therapeutic horsemanship hours and the foundation programs, Alex and Gabe focused on the bunkhouse, Jack on the cattle with Hick.

Things weren’t perfect, but they were clicking. Alex wouldn’t say any of the guys were quite comfortable around Monica yet, but it had only been a few weeks. Her kid, Colin, was a riot, and all three of the guys got a kick out of teaching him about things around the ranch.

They’d all decided by way of unanimous vote to put off bringing men in. They still had a lot of work to do, not just with the ranch, but with themselves. They had decided to give themselves time, and with time, all of the foundation’s goals seemed infinitely possible.

“Are you going to get out of bed anytime soon?” Becca demanded, finishing braiding her hair by fastening a bright-yellow band around the end.

He had no idea why, but it never failed to arouse him, the deft way she spiraled her hair together. Not that much about her failed to arouse him.

“I like watching you get ready in the morning,” he replied from where he was still sprawled out on her bed. “Now come here.”

She rolled her eyes. “I am not falling for that. I have work to do, and you have your appointment to get to.”

He grimaced, because though the therapy sessions with Monica were…well, helpful, he didn’t particularly enjoy them.

“You’ve been doing better,” Becca said gently, smoothing over that annoying observation by scooting onto the edge of the bed next to him.

Which was true. He still had nightmares far more than he was comfortable with, but he felt himself regaining his footing. It was hard, like learning a new skill, to try to not control everything, but he could actually feel the progress he’d made, in his bones.

That progress had some to do with therapy, but it also had some to do with the beautiful woman sitting next to him. “Maybe it’s just all the sex,” he replied, tugging the band out of her hair to her shriek of outrage.

“Damn it, Maguire.”

But her mouth was curved, and when he rolled her under him, she did nothing but ineffectively give him a little push…that quickly turned into her arms around his neck.

“You know the bunkhouse is mostly done. The guys can move out whenever we want to kick them out.”

She cocked her head at that, studying him in that way he was learning to appreciate rather than fear.

“The guys as in…you won’t be going with them?”

“I’ve been thinking.”

She smiled, ruffling his hair with her hands, toying with that lock that never would stay all the way down. “You’ve been thinking, huh?”

“I don’t know what point there is to me moving out there when I’m planning to spend every night in your bed.”

Her smile softened, and she brushed a kiss against his jaw. “I like that line of thinking.”

“Good.”

“That’s probably something I’m going to have to break to my mother at dinner tonight.”

“You sure you want me there for that?”

“Oh, you’ll be there,” she returned, trying to squirm free of him. “Now let me get to work.”

“Hold on a sec.”

“We do not have time for sex!”

“I bet I could change your mind,” he returned with a grin, nuzzling into her neck in a way that made her go boneless. “But that’s not why I was asking you to hold on.”

“Then why?” she asked on a sigh, melting into him.

He considered it, the timing, the way it would ruin the whole plan he’d been making, but then he figured that was kind of symbolic. Tossing out a plan in lieu of a better opportunity, one that would make her happy.

He hoped.

He rolled off of her and off the bed. “Stay put,” he ordered, striding out of the room. Nerves threatened, but he wouldn’t have gotten to this point, wouldn’t have started a plan if he wasn’t sure. Even now, he wasn’t a man who did things without being sure.

He went to his bedroom and opened the top drawer with a jerk. Okay, so he was a little nervous. Didn’t mean he was wrong—just meant he was an idiot.

He grabbed the item and stalked right back to her room, propelled by…something. Those nerves, irritation at himself, whatever.

But she was sitting on her bed, braiding the hair he’d messed up, and that smoothed it all away. The fears or jitters or whatever else, because how could he not want this?

Every day. Always.

“So what am I screwing up my day’s schedule for?” she asked him with an arched brow, pushing to her feet.

He could have said a great many things, but he found his throat too tight to get any of them out. So he held out what he’d brought instead.

She fell right back into a sitting position on her bed. “That’s a ring,” she said on a shaky exhale.

“My mother’s engagement ring, actually,” he returned, twisting the ring in the light dappling the room. “She was buried with her wedding ring, but Dad thought I should have this.”

“Alex.” She fisted a hand to her heart.

“Don’t cry,” he said, walking toward her. “Just say yes. Please.”

She blinked profusely, clearly trying to keep the tears at bay. “You didn’t ask me a question.”

“Always so difficult,” he muttered with the shake of his head. Then he figured he might as well go whole hog, because he would, without a shadow of a doubt, do anything to make her happy.

He got down on one knee, wincing a little when he remembered it was his bad knee. “Hold on.”

“Oh, get up here,” she said, pulling him onto the bed before he could switch to the other knee, covering his face with sloppy kisses, wet with tears.

“I love you, Bec. I don’t know that the nightmares will ever completely go away, but—”

“Shut up,” she managed, her voice rough. “Like I care about that.” She kissed him on the mouth. “I love you. As you are, however you are,” she murmured into him, where it reached into his soul, his bones.

“Becca?” It was Jack’s voice echoing through the hallway.

“Go away,” Alex returned, because he was not going to be interrupted.

But Alex and Becca both grinned when they could hear Jack’s groan all the way through the door.

“Your damn goat is on the roof again, and I don’t care what you’re doing in there, but I am not touching that rooster.”

“Goat duty calls,” Becca said with a sigh, still touching his face, a few stray tears dotting hers.

“This first,” Alex said, slipping the ring onto her finger. “Proposal trumps goat.”

“Every now and again,” she returned, her grin wide and pretty and sure.

She’d healed him, in some ways, and he was still healing in others, but he knew he’d found where he belonged, and he was ready to take that leap of faith. Forever.