Page 163 of The One With the Mountain Man

The pavilion overflowed with guests eating and laughing. People milled around the tent with plates of food. The lawn was scattered with folding chairs and even more guests watching our every move.

"Come here, wife." Jackson steered me away from the pavilion.

"Oh, is this where we sneak off to have sex?"

"Don't tempt me. You know I'll do it." And by the wicked gleam in his eye, he absolutely would.

"Well then, where are you taking me?" Shockingly, no one chased after us.

"I'm feeding my wife so she doesn't pass out between Sharon talking her ear off about her murder plotting and Charley hogging all her dancing time."

"Charley wouldn't. She knows it's all yours tonight."

"She would but that's just because she forgets we share joint custody now." He led me to a shadowy bend in the creek where a small table and two chairs had been set up under a tree. Jackson removed the covers on the plates and revealed Scottie's brisket and mac & cheese, and Annie's vegetables and truffle fries.

He held out my chair, then pulled his as close as possible and sat too. Before he touched his food, he pulled up my dress, slid his hand underneath, and massaged my thigh. "We're married."

"We are."

"And you're happy?"

I leaned in for a kiss. "So happy." We carved out our happiness, took what we needed, and made it ours. There wasn't anyone I wanted to do that with more than Jackson. Not by a mile. "This is lovely." The creek babbled by, drowning out the noise of our guests.

His thumb swept over my knee. "I thought it would be nice to grab a few minutes between everyone staring at us and everyone partying."

I hummed around a bite of brisket and realized I was starving.

"I also thought it was kind of... I don't know... poetic? After what we said last night, how I want to have all my lunches with you. We started over food and I thought we should have a moment over food tonight too."

He was always doing this. Quietly, unintentionally being romantic. I was a lucky, lucky lady. "I was so afraid of falling. Falling and falling and it never ending. I fell anyway and it turned out to be a great thing."

"Still scary," Jackson hummed.

"Absolutely terrifying. But falling in love with you has turned into the adventure of a lifetime."

"Aw, wifey," Jackson leaned in to press a kiss to my cheek. "Now you're makingmeblush."

The pink in his cheeks was pretty sexy. "I think I'm starting to understand why you like making me blush."

His eyes darkened as they swept over me. "I'm going to turn you strawberry red tonight."

I squeezed my legs together, happy that this was my life and excited that Jackson was myhusband. "Looking forward to it."

"Good," he grinned as he forked up a piece of brisket. "Because I plan on doing it for the rest of our lives."

Epilogue

Jackson

Two years later...

I scannedthe room even though the crowd was small. Whenever Marley was doing an event, I made it my job to watch the crowd so she didn't have to. The back room of the TBR Pile had been transformed to accommodate three small groups of readers for Marley and Sharon's debut murder mystery. They sat together at a table, smiling and answering questions.

My wife was happy. That alone filled me with the kind of contentment I didn't think was possible.

"I just needed the right partner in crime," Sharon said in answer to a question I didn't hear.

Even though she put her real name on the cover of this book, it didn't take a group of murderous little book nerds to connect the dots to Sharon's previous works.

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