Page 68 of A Soldier's Return

Only love.

He kissed her for a long time, until the sun had almost slipped into the ocean. She would never grow tired of his kisses, either.

“I love you, Elias Sanderson. I’m so in love with you, I’ve barely been able to function around you. I’m amazed I could do my job, I was so busy trying to hide my feelings about you.”

“Whatever you did worked. I had no idea.”

She wanted to laugh and dance barefoot in the sand and fly a hundred kites with hearts all over them. Joy soared through her, wild and fierce and perfect.

He wouldn’t be returning to harm’s way. He would be here in Cannon Beach with her where they could walk the dogs at sunset and teach Skye how to play billiards and listen to music at The Haystacks on Saturday nights.

They could work together, helping the neighbors and friends they cared about.

Storms would come. Tree limbs would fall and brambleberry bushes would be broken and torn. But they would get through it all together.

He kissed her, and that future seemed sweet and full of incalculable promise.

“I’m not that young, perky cheerleader anymore,” she eventually felt compelled to remind him when his hands started to wander.

“I know,” he murmured against her mouth. “You’re so much more than that now. A loving mother, a compassionate nurse, a loyal friend. And the woman who has my heart.”

She could live with that.

She smiled and kissed him as a warm, rose-scented breeze danced around them like an embrace.

Epilogue

Humming one of her favorite Christmas songs, Rosa Galvez twisted another string of lights around one of the porch columns. She only had two more to go, then this part of her holiday decorating would be done.

She loved this time of year. Brambleberry House was at its most beautiful at Christmas. The old Victorian was made for the season. Wreaths hung on the front door and in every window and her neighbor Sonia had been busy for the past two weeks hanging lights around the garden. Well, busy supervising a crew of teenage neighbor boys, anyway, who were earning a little extra change while helping them decorate.

The house would be spectacular when they finished.

She twisted the last of the strand of lights around the column, grateful for her coat against the cool, damp afternoon.

Though it was barely December, a Christmas tree already gleamed in the window of the first-floor apartment and she could see Skye peeking out. The girl waved at Rosa and at Fiona, sprawled out on the porch watching her work, then disappeared from view, back inside where she was baking something with Melissa.

Rosa had to smile, though she felt a little pang in her heart. The house would seem so empty when Skye and her mother moved out, but at least she wouldn’t have to worry about that for a few more months. Eli Sanderson and Melissa Fielding planned to marry here at Brambleberry House in April, when the flowers were first beginning to bloom in the gardens. It would be a lovely place to marry. She wanted to think Abigail would have been happy at the romantic turn of events.

Melissa and Eli were already looking at houses and seemed to have found a lovely Craftsman home close to Wendell Sanderson’s house.

She was happy for her friend but, oh, she would miss her and Skye. So would Fiona. Who was going to take the Irish setter on runs along the shore? Certainly not Rosa.

She was hanging the last of the lights when a big late-model pickup truck she didn’t recognize pulled into the driveway and a tall, serious-looking man climbed out. He stood for a moment, looking up at the house, then walked toward her.

For reasons she couldn’t have explained, Rosa tensed.

She hardly ever had the panic attacks and meltdowns that had afflicted her so much after the dark period of her youth, before she had been rescued by Sheriff Daniel Galvez and his wife, Lauren, who later adopted her. Those terrible months seemed a lifetime ago. She was a different person now, one who had worked hard to find happiness.

Every once in a while, she felt as if all the progress she had achieved over the last fifteen years was for nothing—that somewhere deep inside, she would always be a frightened girl, tangled in a situation out of her control.

“May I help you?” she asked as the man approached the porch.

“I hope so.”

Up close, he seemed even more grim than he had appeared when he climbed out of his vehicle. No trace of a smile appeared on his features, only tight control.

“I’m looking for a woman. I’m pretty sure she lives here. Her name is Elizabeth Hamilton.”

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