Page 106 of Montana Memory

Epilogue

Jada

Six months later

The cardboard box didn’t make a sound as I sealed it shut, but somehow the moment felt louder than anything else in the room.

Hunter crossed the cabin’s living room, hauling the last stack of flattened boxes to the door, and our three cats weaved around his boots like they knew change was in the air. Moose jumped up on the windowsill, tail flicking like a metronome, watching the summer wind blow through the trees outside. Biscuits claimed the top of a half-filled box and was glaring at anyone who got too close. Sir Pounce decided to try getting his face stuck in the tape roll.

I sat back on my heels, exhaling as I rubbed my wrist, which still gave me twinges all these months after Kelly had broken it. “That’s the last of the kitchen. You think we’ll ever find half this stuff again?”

Hunter looked over his shoulder and smirked. “Not if you keep putting things in boxes labeled ‘Miscellaneous.’”

“Hey. Watch it. Some things defy categorization,” I said, grabbing another roll of bubble wrap.

He walked over, leaned down, and pressed a kiss to the top of my head like it was a habit. Like we’d been doing this for years.

Seven months.

Seven months since the worst and best night of my life. Since he’d saved me, then stuck around long enough for me to save myself. Or at least make more attempts to become the person I wanted to be.

“You sure you don’t want to call it for the day?” he asked. “I can finish tomorrow morning.”

“And let you pack the rest without my micromanaging?” I looked up at him. “Not a chance.”

That earned me the low chuckle I loved. The one he didn’t give to many people.

I stood and stretched, brushing packing tape off my leggings. Across the room, Sir Pounce was now on Hunter’s duffel bag, chewing the zipper pull with alarming determination.

“I almost took them back,” I said, softer now, stepping up beside him. “I’d decided it was selfish to keep them when everything felt so temporary.”

“Good thing I’m here to remind you things are not temporary,” he said. “And that I am a sucker for Thing 1, Thing 2, and Thing 3.”

“As evidenced by the huge jungle gym you built for them.”

He just grinned as Sir Pounce butted his chin.

I leaned into his side and felt the exhale more than I heard it. “Tomorrow,” I murmured, “we start living in a new house.”

“Our house,” he said.

The house across town that Kenzie had helped us find and buy as our real estate agent. She’d even given us the friends and family discount. If that wasn’t evidence of true forgiveness, I didn’t know what was.

“Our home,” I whispered.

Home.

It was such a strange word. Too sharp in my mouth, too loaded in my chest. Hunter and I said it more now, like we were trying to teach ourselves the shape of it. Like if we used it enough, we’d stop waiting for the ground to fall out from under us.

Over the past six months, I’d done everything I could to piece together the fragments of my childhood. Caleb had been pretty much my only source of information. My only tie to the past. I’d gone to visit him once a month since Kelly and Johnson had been arrested, and I talked to him on the phone usually at least once a week.

He’d been very patient with all my questions, painting a picture of our childhood, even though that picture wasn’t all that pretty. He told me about our mom. Her temper. The way she’d made me feel small for breathing too loud. He didn’t sugarcoat it, and I didn’t want him to.

He said I was probably better off not being able to remember a lot of it, and I had to agree. I think Caleb and I understood each other better now than we ever did when I had my memories. I wouldn’t be turning my back on my brother again. He was the only family I had left.

But that wasn’t really true, was it? I had found I had family all around me here. Both Hunter and I were realizing thathomehas less to do with a building or a place and more to do with who you surround yourself with. The people of Resting Warrior and Pawsitive Connections and, honestly, nearly the whole town of Garnet Bend were family.

Because family wasn’t about blood—it was about the ones who stood by you when everything fell apart. They were the ones who wanted what was best for you, even when it might not be what was best for them.

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