Epilogue
Six months later
“Mr. Evans, don’t make me call a guard,” a scowling nurse said, glaring at Will from the door of a hospital room.
Will smiled his most charming smile at the nurse. “Not even five more minutes? It’s not every day a guy gets to meet his first niece and nephew.”
Though the nurse tried to keep her firm expression, Tori knew that telltale pressing of lips together.
Unlike the nurse who shook her head no, Tori was forever falling for Will’s charm. Sometimes she tried to be irritated over, but love did funny things to people. So she was learning.
Sam and Hayley had left dutifully at the nurse’s first visiting hours are over warning. This was now her third, and Tori had no doubt she’d follow through with her threats this time. Will must have finally gotten that through his head, because he sighed and walked over to Brandon.
He handed off the first bundle as smoothly as if he’d had experience with twins himself. When he made an attempt to hand the second baby to Brandon, Lilly—despite her exhaustion—was having none of it.
“If you do not give me one of my babies, you will be barred from this hospital room, Will Evans.”
“Mommy’s such a meanie,” he whispered to the boy, Aiden Skeet—good Lord, Lilly must have really lost her mind—Evans. The girl, Grace Phoebe Evans, was dutifully handed off to Brandon.
The parents stared, rapt, at their little charges, only a few weeks early and in perfect health. Lilly really was Wonder Woman.
“We’ll be back tomorrow. Text whatever you need me to bring,” Will offered, taking Tori’s hand in his.
“Don’t you have excursions tomorrow?” Lilly demanded.
“Cancelled. Not many are too keen on hiking in the subzero temperatures. Looks like you planned the perfect time to have babies, Lil.”
The nurse cleared her throat, and Will rolled his eyes, clearly reluctant to leave, but Tori squeezed his hand and led him out if only so the nurse would be kind to them tomorrow when Will would inevitably test her patience, no matter how charmingly.
“Can you believe how small they are?” Will said wonderingly.
“ No.”
“When do you suppose you’ll stop being a coward and hold one?” he asked as they walked out of the hospital.
Something fluttered in her stomach. Though she didn’t think he was hinting at something, how could she not . . . go there?
She’d watched him hold two little bundles of life like the precious gifts they were and . . . Well, she’d made a few decisions. Decisions she’d been putting off out of fear for the last six months.
She’d given herself some slack. Learning to love—Will and even herself—was hard work, and the future was a scary, intimidating thing. One challenge at a time, and all that.
They climbed into Will’s Jeep, driving out of the hospital in Benson and back toward Gracely and home.
Her home. Except . . . No matter how often Tori had said no to Will’s suggestions of moving in together, her home had become something like theirs. And no matter that she kept rejecting him, she liked it. Him there so often, his things infiltrating their things.
She’d thought she could only trust that in the present, but . . . Well.
“All right,” she said, giving a sigh that she hoped sounded exasperated. Even now she was sometimes afraid to give something the weight it deserved. “If you really think moving in together is a good idea, I guess you can move in.”
She snuck a glance out of the corner of her eye as he turned onto the corner of Hope and Aspen. Nothing on his face had changed, just that same amazed, peaceful smile he’d had on his face ever since Brandon had introduced him to his niece and nephew.
And it had been that, and seeing him cradle two little newborns, that had unwound a knot in Tori’s chest she hadn’t realized was still there. She’d been living day to day, trying to trust the moment, trust love.
She’d succeeded, and she’d been happy, but she hadn’t been too keen on trusting the future. Not planning for it, not imagining it or what she’d want for it.
When he still didn’t say anything, just pulled his Jeep behind her car on the little concrete pad next to her house, she frowned a little. “Did you hear me?” she demanded. Maybe he was in some baby fog.
He nodded. “Yup.”
“And?” she demanded.
He grinned. “I already did,” he offered with a shrug.
“What?”
He didn’t explain, just hopped out of the Jeep and started walking to the house. She stared openmouthed after him. He’d been bugging her for almost two months to move in together, and she’d hemmed and hawed and held him off.
How could he have already moved in?
She scrambled after him. He opened the door with the key she’d given him as something of a consolation prize one time he’d asked about the whole moving-in thing.
Maybe that’s what he meant, that they had all but been living together and agreeing didn’t really make much of a difference since they rarely spent a night apart.
She frowned, stepping inside as Sarge rushed to greet them. Will patted the dog absently and sauntered into the living room, big and beautiful and so damn perfect that little flutter of fear settled itself.
But he stood by the mantel over the fireplace and grinned at her and it soothed, because he would smile at her. Hold babies like precious cargo. Climb rocks and fling himself down rivers, and he loved her.
No doubts.
“See?” he offered, pointing to the mantel.
She frowned, realizing there was something on it—and as she wasn’t much of a decorator it was usually empty.
She stepped closer. It was a rock. Why would . . . Oh. Oh. The rock she’d held on to that day at the lake, when she’d decided to make love with him and leave.
The day he’d convinced her to stay.
“You were supposed to give that back,” she said, reaching out to touch the smooth, colorful stone.
“Leave it to you to pay attention to the rock-rock and not the metaphorical rock.”
She frowned at him and he pointed to another item she hadn’t noticed. A velvet box. She blinked at it.
“Well, are you going to open it?”
“I . . .” She swallowed. It could only be one thing, and she thought she was ready to give him the answer he’d want in this one thing he hadn’t asked her yet, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t surprised.
Will plucked the box off the mantel, and in his eyes she saw a million things. Certainty and uncertainty, hope and fear, humor and nerves. Love, most of all, love.
“Tori,” he said, a corner of his mouth quirking as he did the most unimaginable thing she could have predicted, got down on one knee.
She didn’t know what to do, so she could only stand, gaping at him like a fish as he opened the lid of the box. A slim, sparkling band was nestled inside, simple and perfect.
“I love you. Wholeheartedly. Unreservedly. Be my wife. Be my family. Make children with me. I know you’re scared of planning for the future, but—”
She sank to her knees, covering his hands with hers, realizing there was a tiny tremor there. Always surprising her with ways he was brave even when he was scared or nervous.
“I’m not scared anymore,” she said, and it was a truth unlike any other. She wasn’t scared anymore. She’d learned, she’d grown on a foundation Will had built for her. Now it was time to grow together, not just build. “I want you. A family with you. A future with you. I want to make a promise with you. A life.”
He grinned that charming grin, but emotion laced his words. “Well, then, that settles it.” He pulled the ring out of the box, slipped it onto her finger.
She stared at it for a second, surprised at the weight of it, but it was hardly just a ring. It was love, a promise, a future.
“I’m glad you came back,” he said when she looked up at him again.
“I came home,” she whispered. Then she flung herself at him, and he laughed as they toppled backward, her sprawling across him. Intrigued by the commotion, Sarge came over with a yip, then licked both their faces.
Her little family. Her wonderful future with a man who’d taught her love, and a town that had given her a chance to heal.
Tori Appleby was quite officially the luckiest, and she wouldn’t let anyone argue with her on that simple fact.