Page 41 of Rescue in Misty Mountain

She’shere.

And I want her to stay.

Once she’s settled back in bed, I press a kiss to her temple.

“Thinking about clearing out a drawer,” I say.

She looks up, smiling. “Awhole drawer?”

“Maybe even closet space.”

“Well, damn.” She grins. “You sure know how to romance a girl.”

I wrap my arms around her and breathe her in.

Outside, the rain keeps falling.

Cleansing the land. Soothing the scars.

We step onto the porch, coffee mugs in hand.

She tucks herself into my side, her cheek pressed to my chest.

“I came here running,” she says quietly.

“But I’m staying,” she adds, “because I finally stopped.”

I press my lips to her forehead.

“And because you found something worth staying for,” I say.

She nods against me.

“Someone,” she whispers.

I know—without doubt, without fear—that this time, neither of us is going anywhere.

EPILOGUE

TESSA

The wood stove crackles. Snowflakes drift lazily past the windows. The whole cabin smells like the fresh coffee Gage made and the cinnamon rolls I baked from scratch.

Well, not completely from scratch. But I did open the canister, space them neatly on a pan, and put them in the oven until they were gooey and delicious.

There’s a bird eating on the feeder attached to the window.

Whiskey is asleep on my feet, which are perched on an ottoman in front of the fireplace.

Somewhere behind me, a fox kit snores in a laundry basket lined with fleece. He’s not the same one we rescued when I first came to Misty Mountain. We’ve long-since released that one into the wild. But after a late April snow-storm, we found more than a few animals in need of shelter. With the rescue clubhouse full, we brought in the kit we’ve been bottle-feeding.

And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

From the loft we built on over the summer, Gage’s voice echoes down, low and amused. “Have you checked your analytics?”

“Not today,” I call back.

“Don’t look now, but someone has gone viral. Again.”

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