"Everything I want is right here." Her whisper was honest, ragged, as she stood.
"This place was empty without you. I couldn't look in the yard without imagining you there. I'll make you happy, Farrah." He knelt beside her, captured her completely with the openness of his gaze. "I can't promise things will always be easy, but I can promise I'll fight for us every single day. You and Dodge and Oleanna, you're my life. No matter what comes at us, we'll manage together. Please, just don't ever leave me again."
"I won't," she promised, kissing his dimple, then his lips to seal the oath. "I'm home."
Epilogue
Summer had come to The Landing and everything was bathed in shades of green. Plants sprang to life after months of dormancy, and the trees sprouted lush leaves like the long, cold winter had never occurred. Five new calves had been born and the peep peep of chicks in the coop was constant.
Farrah leaned more comfortably into the lawn chair they'd set out for the celebration and Luna, now nearly full grown and looking more like a wolf every day, licked her hand and curled onto the ground beside her.
Aanon talked to Ben, Briney, and Billy's dad, and their laughter filled the clearing. He cradled Oleanna against his shoulder, rocking gently as he shifted his weight from side to side. There was no more a beautiful sight than a man enamored with his child. And though Oleanna had dark hair and eyes and was obviously not the child of his blood, she was the child of his heart.
Aanon was in trouble when she got older. Already, he couldn't refrain from giving her everything she wanted at the slightest whimper. He kissed Oleanna's forehead absently, and her little fists bunched his shirt until the corner of his tattoo peeked out from under the gray fabric.
Dodge ran around the men's legs with a couple children his age, laughing and yelling as they played tag. Whatever Erin had done, it hadn't had a lasting effect on the boy. Not with Aanon as his father. She stepped in when Dodge seemed to need mothering, and their bond had grown until he was her child as much as Oleanna was.
"Spill it," Mayva said, taking a long pull from a strawberry daiquiri Briney had made her.
"Yeah, nobody in town has heard the story yet," Audrey said from her other side. "I know. I've asked."
The ring on her left hand sparkled in the sunlight that doused the yard, and she stared at it for the hundredth time, still bewildered. "It was the second day in the hospital. While I took a shower, Aanon took care of Dodge and Oleanna and ordered me breakfast. So I readied for the day, and when I opened the tray of breakfast, the ring sat on top of a stack of pancakes. I just stared at it, confused and kind of grossed out at the kitchen's carelessness. Then Aanon dropped to one knee beside the bed. He said he wanted Oleanna to have his name. That she was a Falk from the moment he knew about her existence. He told me that he couldn't imagine living another day without me wearing his ring. That the time he spent with me has been the happiest of his life, and that he wanted me forever."
"He actually said forever?" Audrey asked, eyes shining.
"Forever," Farrah whispered.
"Oooh," Mayva said. "That is the sweetest thing I've ever heard!"
"And bonus, we aren't holding your engagement party at a bar," Audrey said, dabbing her eyes with the corner of a napkin.
"I heard that," Briney called.
Aanon's gaze swung to her, and her breath caught at his slow smile, the one he saved only for her. They were already a family, but the ring symbolized more. He'd chosen her, and she him. They'd be forever linked and would make their mark on the homestead and the land they loved. In a month's time, she'd be Farrah Falk, resident of Cooper Landing.
Her happy future stretched in front of her like the wilds of the land she now called home.
Aanon's smile widened as if he could read her affectionate thoughts, and the warmth of belonging filled her as she dropped her gaze to the ring once more, the shining symbol of their devotion-of her oath to live her days in The Landing with the man she adored.
Lifting her gaze back to him, she returned his adoring grin.
Forever was a nice start.
Other Books by T. S. Joyce
Bear Valley Shifters
The Witness and the Bear (Book 1)
Devoted to the Bear (Book 2)
Return to the Bear (Book 3)
Betray the Bear (Book 4)
Redeem the Bear (Book 5)
Bear Valley Valentine (A Bear Valley Short Story)
Hells Canyon Shifters
Call of the Bear (Book 1)
Fealty of the Bear (Book 2)
Avenge the Bear (Book 3)
Claim the Bear (Book 4)
Heart of the Bear (Book 5)
Wolf Brides
Wolf Bride (Book 1)
Red Snow Bride (Book 2)
Dawson Bride (Book 3)
Standalone Shifter Romance
Coveted by the Bear
Available Now
Amazon
Shifter Romance Newsletter Sign-Up
For exclusive sneak peeks and new releases, sign up for T. S. Joyce's Bear Shifter Romance Newsletter HERE.
Sneak Peek
WOLF BRIDE
(Wolf Brides, Book 1)
Read on for a sneak peek of the thrilling first book in the Wolf Brides series.
Chapter One
Kristina
The last day of the carriage ride to Colorado was just as exciting as the first day of our journey from Chicago. I grinned saucily at Ms. Birmingham who clutched tightly to her frilly, purple hat. The good Lord blessed that woman with the sourest disposition known to mankind, but in the days since our journey began, she hadn't once managed to dampen my mood.
Her cherished plum colored hat, which boasted gads of silk ribbon and an array of dark plumage numerous enough to shield the perpetual frown underneath, gave me distraction from the endless wrenching of the carriage wheels on rugged road. There was no way the bird whose feathers decorated that hat had survived. Poor thing.
Ms. Birmingham was growing fidgety under my smile. My happy demeanor did that to people-made them uncomfortable-but I couldn't help myself. At nineteen, the possibilities of my future stretched on and on, like the stars of a midnight sky.
Her disapproving gaze slipped to the immodest cut of my dress for the hundred and sixteenth time. I'd been counting. I wasn't well versed on the area, because I hadn't ever traveled outside of Chicago, far as I could remember, but I was pretty sure there were whores in Colorado Springs just the same as everywhere else. Why, far as I could tell, whores were the nation's first ladies to settle here to keep the men happy.
Tipping my chin up primly, I slid the foot and a half to the window.
Besides, I was mending my ways. I was going to be a proper lady with a husband and a house and everything.
With a sigh, I rested my elbows against the wooden window frame as another jolt in the road nearly made my tailbone jump through my throat. For the price of an entire week's wages, Jack Bronson found me an advertisement to get me out of Chicago. I could count, but reading was beyond me, and going out on a limb to hire that drunkard seemed like a sound enough investment at the time. He'd found me an advertisement in the paper about a man seeking a wife. It was a simple ad and I'd memorized it easily because I'd recited it in the months that finally led to my travels.
Man seeks wife. Good birthing hips, tidy, quiet. Will cook for three brothers.
Well, one out of four wasn't bad. My hips were sound. I'd never been accused of being a petite little old thing. I wasn't big, but my curves didn't belong on a waif either. My reply had been equally short, but he seemed to like it fine enough, because one month later he wrote to me directly and told me to make arrangements for my travels with the money he'd sent along. Escaping had been tricky, but I was a wily creature and one not easily caged.
I bet Jeremiah Dawson was waiting right at this very moment for me in town. He wouldn't be a handsome man, or why would he be putting out an advertisement for a wife? Probably had a pockmarked face and rotted teeth, but who was I to cast stones? I was an ex saloon girl after all. Even if we didn't get along, he was just one man to please. I'd worked lots of them, and if ever there was such thing as a professional man-handler, well I held a certificate in that.
Perking up, I shoved my chest half way out the window. "I can see it," I squealed to Ms. Birmingham, who'd apparently been dozing off because she jumped straight in the air and smooshed the top of her hat onto the roof of the buggy.
Her mutterings were uncharitable, but I didn't give two figs what she had to say because we were finally there and I was finally going to meet him. Jeremiah.
His momma did right to give an ugly man a named that rolled off of the tongue like that.