Epilogue
“Did you know it’s officially the first day of summer?” Pru asked after Dad finished the prayer and Sunday dinner went into full swing.
“You know how the Irish know it’s summer?” Gramma Finnie asked.
“The rain is warmer.” At least three, maybe five, Kilcannons said it at the same time.
And Gramma gave each one of them a dirty look. “You children can jus’ tell me when you’re all sick of my sayings.”
“Never, Gramma,” Molly assured her. “And yes, Pru, you are right. First day of summer. A nice long day that we used to celebrate by playing Manhunt when it finally got dark.”
“Manhunt?” Pru sat up straight, her hazel eyes wide. “What is that?”
Garrett glanced to his side and added a little bit of pressure on Jessie’s leg. “It’s kind of grown-up hide-and-seek,” he explained. “It can be a lot of fun…with the right partner.”
“You play with partners?” Pru asked.
“And teams,” Molly said. “I’m up for a game when it gets dark. Who’s in?”
“I’m totally in,” Jessie said, adding that same pressure to Garrett’s leg. “We used to play it all the time when I was younger and spent the weekends here,” she told Pru.
“And now you live here in Mommy’s old room,” Pru said. “How fun.”
“Just temporarily,” she said. “But it has been fun.” Jessie beamed at Dad. “You’ve been so kind to let me stay here while I get my bearings in Bitter Bark. Lola and I couldn’t be happier here.” She looked over her shoulder where Lola lay, her eyes on Jessie, as always.
“Stay as long as you like,” Dad said.
But it wouldn’t be long if Garrett had anything to say about it. Yes, she’d moved into the house while she started working on her first book, which they affectionately called For the Love of Lola. But that living arrangement wasn’t ideal.
She’d danced around a few apartments in town, but nothing had been quite right. Because Jessie shouldn’t live alone. She should live with him.
Garrett had his eye on a house not far from where he and Shane lived now, but he wanted things to be…official.
“I’ll play a game of Manhunt,” Garrett said. “But be warned. I have the best hiding places in all of Waterford.”
“I’ll catch you, Uncle Garrett,” Pru said. “Mom, be on my team.”
“I’ll play, too,” Darcy said. “Shane, partners?”
“Sure,” he said. “But be warned. I don’t lose. At anything.”
“We know,” Molly said, rolling her eyes.
“Count me out,” Liam said. “I don’t play games.”
“That’s your problem, big guy,” Shane told him. “You need to play more games. Gramma?”
Gramma laughed. “No, lad. I’m going to watch a movie in my room. And, Daniel, don’t forget you’re driving me to that Apple store to get my new computer bright and early. I have an appointment.”
Dad rolled his eyes. “Oh yes. I remember. But I have a meeting…” He glanced at Liam, then shook his head. “I’ll figure that out tomorrow.”
The chatter continued as night fell slowly, but a plan took shape in Garrett’s head quickly. By the time they finished, cleaned up, did the evening walk of about fifteen dogs currently in the kennels, it was dark enough to let the games begin.
The players met in the middle, set rules and a timer, and spread out to hide, but like he had seventeen years earlier, Garrett took Jessie’s hand and tugged her around to the kennels.
“This is the first place they’ll look for us,” she said.
“So? We’re repeating history, right?”
She smiled up at him, her eyes bright in the moonlight. “I have a better idea.”
She had an idea? For his big moment? She didn’t know it was his big moment, but still, where was she taking him?
“To the creek?” he asked as she led him toward a familiar route.
“Past that.”
“The mud path?” He frowned, pulling out his phone to use the flashlight and make it safe for them.
“No, but don’t give our location away.”
Laughing, he held her hand as they ran down the hill. “You should have been on Shane’s team if winning means so much to you.”
“It’s not only about winning,” she said. “I want to come…here.” She reached the edge of the lake and, still holding his hand, walked him farther and farther back until they were under a massive sugar maple tree.
“Here?” he asked.
She stopped and looked up at the blackness of the branches overhead, the big tree looming in the dark. “Where were you when you fell?”
“When I…” Suddenly, he understood. “With Moses, my French bulldog?”
“The French bulldog who saved you. Who wouldn’t leave you alone, even though you wanted him to.”
He let out a breath. “You remember that story? The very first thing I told you?”
“I love that story,” she said. “While you were telling me, I was watching you drive. Your hands, your face, your whole body was so…I don’t know. I guess I was falling so hard in love with you that I wanted to sit on you like Moses.”
He smiled down at her. “Any time, any place. But I really wanted to take you into the kennels tonight.”
She flicked her hand. “So seventeen years ago.” She looked up at the tree. “Let’s make a new memory.”
“I’m ready,” he said, itching to say the words. “Jessie—”
“I’ll go first.”
He drew back. “What?”
“I’ll climb first. That’s a climbing tree, and no one is going to find us if we’re up there. If we stand here and discuss it much longer, I can guarantee you Shane will find us. In fact, I wouldn’t put it past him to go get Lola from the house to sniff us out.”
He choked softly. “I didn’t come out here to play a game.”
“You want to feel me up again, right?”
“Yes. Among other things.”
She laughed, then gasped softly. “Listen. I hear them at the top of the hill. Come on. Up the tree, Garrett, or we’re totally going to be out.”
She scrambled to the trunk, placing a sneaker on the first notch of wood, then pulling herself up to the branches. And he followed, fairly certain he hadn’t climbed this tree since the day he broke his leg.
Moving along the thickest branch a good fifteen feet off the ground, she made room for him and put her finger to her lips when Shane’s voice drifted toward them.
“Shhh. Let them go right by down to the creek,” she whispered. “We’ve got this.”
Shane’s words grew louder, followed by Darcy’s laughter.
“I know you’re down here, Garrett!” Shane called.
Up in the tree, they got closer together, quiet.
“They went down to the mud path,” Darcy said. “Let’s go!”
Their footsteps and voices grew distant, and soon, the only sounds were the hoot of an owl and the soft rustle of trees in the breeze.
Garrett pulled her closer. “The last time I was in this tree, I had pretty much the worst day of my life. The second-worst day.” He pressed his lips on her forehead. “The night you walked out of my house was the worst day.”
She drew back. “I hate that we have that memory.”
“It’s gone.” All the explanations and apologies had been made on a street in Brooklyn with tears and kisses and promises. “It happened and, like the day I fell out of this tree, it made me love you more.”
“So, I’m like fat Moses, the bowling ball you couldn’t get rid of.”
He laughed. “Yeah. Just.”
She elbowed him. “Kiss me, Kilcannon. It’s not a game of Manhunt without some sneaky boob feels.”
“You really do want to fall and break your leg.”
“No.” She leaned against him. “I like to kiss you.”
He pressed his lips to hers, the sweet taste something he never tired of. “It’s a precarious position in this tree,” he said. “I can tell you from experience that one wrong move and you’re broken.”
“Then don’t make a wrong move, Garrett.”
“Well, you see, I might.”
She eased back a little. “Don’t make us both fall.”
“Then hold on, because…you might get dizzy.” He reached into his pocket and closed his hand around the small box he’d brought to dinner on the not-so-off-chance that tonight might be the night. “When I give you this.”
“Give me wh…”
He opened the box with one hand, holding her tight with the other, because he knew from experience that it was a long way down.
“Garrett.” His name was barely a whisper on her lips.
“You know, Jessie, I had a dog named Moses.”
She looked up at him, her eyes glistening.
“And the thing about him was, he was a forever dog. He wasn’t going to leave me, no matter what. And you once asked me the moral of that story, and I guess I finally figured it out.”
“What is it?”
“That I want another Moses in my life. Someone who will never, no matter what, leave my side. And in return, I will love that person with all I have because she will be my number one.”
In the dim light, he could see the tear trickle down her cheek.
“You’ve taught me so much already,” he said. “But one thing I’ll never forget you saying is, ‘Anytime you can ask a “why” question, you’ll get the best, most honest answer.’”
She nodded, staring at the diamonds he’d spent so many hours picking and then up at him. “That’s true.”
“There are so many ‘why’ questions,” he mused. “Why do you love me?”
“Because your heart is so good.”
“Why did you come back here?”
“Because there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”
“Why am I the luckiest guy in the world?”
She smiled. “Because I love you.”
“Why do I love you so much, Jessie Curtis?”
“Um, because I’m…your Moses?”
He laughed and held the ring closer. “Why would you go one more day without being the woman I’m going to marry?”
She dropped her head back and laughed. “I can’t. I won’t. I mean, I will! Yes! Why can’t you ask normally?”
He leaned close and put his lips to her ear. “Will you marry me?”
“Yes.” She cried a little when she said the word. “Yes, I will marry you.”
Still kissing her, he slid the ring on her finger, and they sat in the tree and kissed until the voices of his family grew distant and silent.
“They gave up,” Jessie said.
“That means we won Manhunt.”
“Yeah.” She leaned in and sighed. “And we won life.”
DON’T MISS THE NEXT BOOK IN THE DOGFATHER SERIES:
New Leash on Life
Former attorney and current dog whisperer Shane Kilcannon doesn’t like to lose. At anything. So when he messes up his chance with a beautiful stranger whose confident smile and haunted eyes intrigue him more than any woman he’s ever met, he’s ready to snarl like one of his beloved pit bulls. But Shane’s work with the wildest and wariest of his family’s rescue dogs has taught him patience and persistence. When his father asks him to work alongside Chloe, helping to convince the locals to support her groundbreaking tourism plans, he agrees…as long as she is willing to help him by giving a temporary home to one misunderstood dog.
Chloe Somerset has built a reputation in the tourism industry as someone with big ideas that put little places on the map, and she’s confident she can do the same for Bitter Bark, North Carolina. All she has to do is convince one small town to change its name, open her germophobic heart to a dog with a penchant for face-licking, and avoid the landmines of local politics when her plans divide the townspeople. But none of that is as scary as the feeling of falling hard for a handsome charmer who whispers all the right things and tempts Chloe to forget a lifetime of hard lessons. Shane might be the best trainer in the family, with an instinct for how to get through to the creatures who need care the most, but he’s met his match with Chloe, and it’ll take every trick he knows to teach her to fall in love.
Watch for the whole Dogfather series coming in 2017 and 2018!
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Sit…Stay…Beg (Book 1)
New Leash on Life (Book 2)
Leader of The Pack (Book 3)
Bad to the Bone (Book 4)
Ruff Around the Edges (Book 5)
Double Dog Dare (Book 6)
Old Dog New Tricks (Book 7)