“I’m sorry I can't just stop that wheel. It's already in motion, Jacob.”
“Don’t apologize! It’s exciting. It’s your life. I'm so proud of you, of everything you've created.”
Her cheeks go pink again. “Are you ending things with me or something? Are you about to break my heart? Because I'm not ready for that. I'm not ready for you to—”
“Stop,” I say. I cup her cheek with both my hands. “I'm not ending anything. I'm trying to tell you I've done my time in Polar Bear, Alaska. If you'll have me, I'll go with you. If it's to Winter Fallhaven or if it's to Home, Washington, or if it's anywhere else. I'll take up residency anywhere. Hell, I'm already living in your heart and you're living in mine. So, let's do this. Let me be your plus one at this Christmas party of Lemon’s; let's start Christmas traditions together. You and me, baby. Us.”
“You mean…?” she asks, tears filling her eyes.
“I want to spend my life with you, Juniper Jones.”
“Are you asking me to marry you?” she asks, her blue eyes wide and clear, her fiery hair blowing in the wind.
“Yes, I am.” I kneel before her, ring in hand, offering her my heart, my everything.
She flings her arms around me. “Yes, Jacob. Yes, I will marry you.”
She kisses me then, and I kiss her back, and I may have unlocked her chastity belt the night we met, but somehow, together, we’ve unlocked the missing pieces to both our hearts.
EPILOGUE 1
JUNIPER
Christmas Eve, Home, WA
They say there’s no place like home, and they’re right. I haven’t been back here in a year – not since last Christmas, and I already regret that I didn’t return over the summer. There’s nothing like driving a few hours north from Seattle, east another hour, cresting the Rough mountains and finally finding yourself Home.
“Wow, it’s beautiful,” Jacob says as we drive through the idyllic streets of the town where I grew up. We cruise down Cozy Corner, Tender Trail, Restful Road. Many of the businesses in town are a play on words, Home Slice Pizzeria and Home Cookin’ Diner.
“I know,” I say, a smile on my face, feeling butterflies in my belly. I’m taking my fiancé to meet the closest thing I have to family. I’m nervous – but in an excited way. “It’s ridiculously charming, and there is a reason most of the people who grow up here never move away.”
“So why did you leave?” Jacob asks as the GPS directs him past the Rough River and up the mountains toward Annie and Red’s big house in the woods.
“I was always a lone wolf,” I say, reaching for his hand. “Until I met you.”
“And the home you bought in the Puget Sound is pretty spectacular.”
“I wanted to live on the water; it felt right for a writer,” I tell him. We spent the last few days in Port Townsend, where my turn of the century house is, once we left Alaska.
After Jacob proposed, I wanted him to actually know what he was getting himself into.
“And considering I’m a writer too, I think you made a good choice,” Jacob says playfully as we wind up the mountain road. I still can’t get over the fact we’re both professional writers, engaged to be married, and that this is not just some fairy tale that’s going to end. This is real life. Our life.
And now I get to bring him home for Christmas to meet the most important people in my life.
“So give me the run down, so I know what to expect,” Jacob says as we pull up the large driveway to the house that will be full of all the living members of the Rough and Rowdy families.
“Well there are seven kids in the Rough family. Five boys, two girls.”
“Oh god,” Jacob laughs. “That’s a houseful.”
“It’s why I loved staying with Lemon so much. There was always a party at her house. And her mom, Annie – well, Anise, is the center of everything. Rye, he’s the oldest. He’s twenty-eight. Bartlett is twenty-six. Lemon is twenty-four, same as me. Graham is twenty-three.”
“Wait, is everyone named something food related?” Jacob asks.
I laugh. “You noticed? Yeah, so their mom, Anise, her family tradition was always to name the babies after whatever food the mom was craving during her pregnancy.”
Jacob snorts. “Good thing someone wasn’t craving pickles!”
“Well, the next in line is Reuben.”
Jacob looks over at me. “He’s the one who has a child? Who lost his wife?”
“Yeah, he’s the only Rough kid who’s gotten married, and he was so young, and to have lost her … but he has Plum. And you’ll meet her. She is like, the center of everyone’s universe.”
“It’s a lot of names to remember!”
I grin as the big house comes into view, green garlands wrapped around the big front porch, the lights strung over every rafter and rooftop. “I can’t forget Fig. She’s eighteen, the baby of the family, and her brothers won’t let her get away with anything.”