He wasn’t nervous. He just thought maybe his heart was going to beat out straight through his chest.
Wolf Garrett didn’t do nerves.
“I understand now,” Wolf said. “I understand what I was missing. I wasn’t as brave as her. But now... I hope I am. I hope to be. Because she deserves someone who loves as big and brave as she does. And that’s what I’m aiming for. To be what she needs. Everything she needs.”
“I appreciate that,” Cain said.
“You know, I was tempted to say we did things backward,” Wolf said. “I mean, a lot of people would say we did. But I don’t think so. I loved her from the first minute I saw her. I just had to take some wrong steps to find my way to the right ones.”
“Well, that I relate to.”
And then he sat down and had a beer with his future father-in-law.
But later Violet snuck into his room. And he told her that he loved her all over again. And it was without a doubt the best Christmas he’d ever had. But he had love. And for the first time, hope, that things might just turn out right in the end, after all. And the last thought he had before he went to sleep was that he was genuinely happy for his brother. But he didn’t envy him at all. Because he didn’t want Sawyer’s life. He wanted his own. And that was the miracle he hadn’t known he’d been waiting for.
EPILOGUE
ITBECAMEArunning joke, the number of times that Wolf asked Cain’s permission to marry Violet. And he was still doing it, every Christmas, five years later.
Thankfully, Violet’s next pregnancy was a much less dramatic announcement. And their son was thrilled at becoming a big brother, even if he didn’t know exactly what that meant. And once it had turned out to mean a lot of sharing of toys, the thrill of the younger sister had faded.
But the thrill of all of it never faded for Wolf.
He hadn’t really known what unconditional love looked like. Not in his life. There had been nothing but time limits and conditions, and now he was surrounded by it. All day. Every day. He had Violet. He had the kids. He had her whole family. And hell, he even had his. Their Christmas had become a marathon. Because of course they had to spend time with Sawyer and Evelyn and their kids, though they saw them all the time, since they lived at Garrett’s Watch. But they had to visit the Copper Ridge Garretts, which Hunter, Elsie, Evelyn and Sawyer joined them for. And then they had to do the big Donnelly thing.
He’d gone from being a loner to being anything but.
But his favorite times were still when he was alone. Alone with Violet.
Because that he had discovered was his very favorite type of alone.
Just the two of them. Just that quiet.
“I knew you were trouble,” she said, touching his chin and lips right before they went to sleep that Christmas Eve. “Right when you first walked into the bed-and-breakfast.”
“And you didn’t run the other way?”
“No. Because you were the first time trouble ever looked worth it.”
“Well, you were the first time love looked worth it.”
“Good thing we were both right.”
“Good thing.”
“I love you,” she said.
It didn’t terrify him. It made him feel full.
He understood now. About why they wrote songs about this. This power. This feeling. Because it was everything. Because it could take a broken man and mend him, when nothing else could.
At least, Violet’s love could. And had.
“I love you, too.”
HER COWBOY PRINCE CHARMING
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