Jacob parks the car, and the property looks like a winter wonderland. The Christmas tree is in the big living room window, and you can see people wondering around the property, laughing, a big bonfire in the back. It’s a party in full swing.
Jacob opens the back of the SUV and grabs the bags of gifts and then reaches for my hand. “And who are those guys?” he asks, nodding over at the group of guys who are carrying a keg to the barn.
I laugh, waving at Cash when he sees me. “Those are the Rowdy boys, the Rough family’s cousins. They live one mountain over. There are five of them.”
Jacob shakes his head. “I feel pretty lucky. You had all these wild Rough and Rowdy boys to pick from and you chose me?”
I stop, drawing Jacob close, pulling his mouth to mine. “I may have grown up on this mountain, but you were the man for me.”
I kiss Jacob, savoring the moment, the winter sky overhead, the pine trees surrounding us, the fire crackling in the distance. Warm in ways I haven’t been in so damn long.
“Who are these love birds?”
We pull apart to see Lemon walking toward us, arms outstretched. I wrap her into a big hug, the embrace of a best friend unlike anything else. When I introduce her to Jacob, she starts to cry then she drags us into the house, calling for her mom and dad.
“Juniper’s here with Jacob! Mom! Dad!”
Jacob smiles – grins, really – as the introductions are made, and everyone gives him a hard time for falling so fast for their June, for proposing without their blessing, and Rye gives him a hard time, asking his intentions, what his job prospects are – insuring he can take care of me.
Redford, the dad of the house, pulls me aside next to the Christmas tree and asks me if I’m truly happy. “You’ve had a hell of a time, Juney. We just need to know you are truly happy with this man. We need to make sure our Juney is being looked after.”
I wrap Red in a big old hug because he was the one who told me, no if ands or buts about it – I was staying with them when I had nowhere else to go when I was just seventeen. He was the one who told me my stories were something special when I was still just a kid, and he bought me a laptop for my graduation. The laptop that I wrote my very first stories ever on. Red is the dad I never had and that he is here, hands on my shoulders now, making sure I’m happy, means everything to me.
“When I get married, will you give me away?” I ask him.
And then Red is crying too, and Anise comes over with tissues asking what we’re crying about, and when Red tells her, she’s crying too. “Oh, you sweet thing, you know, we need some champagne for this!”
Fig cracks open a bottle with a smirk on her face – she knows she is pushing things with that – but no one says a word. And glasses are poured and raised, and Jacob laces his fingers with mine and now he understands where I come from. Home. This place is something special.
“So if Juniper is getting married, I suppose it means the rest of you might start thinking about getting hitched,” Anise says as we stand around their living room, twinkling lights of the tree, neighbors and friends and family weaving in and out of the house.
The Rough kids all look at one another as if saying “not it.” I wonder if it is because their parent’s love story has been so picture perfect, or if Reuben’s loss has made them all scared of losing something precious.
Plum runs into the living room, eating a giant Christmas cookie. “Does Santa have any presents for us tonight?” she asks.
I bend down. “What did you ask Santa for?”
“I asked him for Patty Cake Goes to the North Pole!” She beams at the room before leaping out again.
Reuban groans. “That book has been sold out at every bookstore and online shop for five weeks. I’m screwed.”
I laugh.
“What’s funny about that? I’m the worst dad ever.”
“No,” Jacob says with a sheepish smile. “She’s laughing because I happen to have some autographed copies in my trunk.”
EPILOGUE 2
JACOB
One year later…
They set us up in different sections of the bookstore, which made sense. Her fans are young adults and adults alike, and her line wound around the entire bookshop hours before the event was to begin. Well, my fans are a much smaller variety, five, six, and seven-year-olds, all asking Santa for their two front teeth this Christmas. Still, it’s fun being at a book signing together, even though we have very different readers.