Page 96 of The Chances We Take

I’d always believed in true love—that everyone deserves their own happy endings. For a long time, I questioned whether I would get my own. But here in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere in Montana, with the boy I’d loved for the past year, my worries melted away, and I just knew.

This was the real thing. This lovewastrue.

epilogue

EIGHT YEARS LATER

Summer in Montana was breathtaking. Even at nine p.m., there was still a sliver of sunlight left before the sky turned into a canvas of pinks, purples, oranges, and blues.

Colter, Reid, Ellison, and I sat around the fire pit at Reid and my house just outside of Goldfinch. We’d moved here a few years ago from Silver Creek as our daughter, Stella Raine, was starting preschool. Colter and Ellison had also moved a couple years before us, bringing most of their cattle out of Silver Creek onto their new land in Goldfinch. They’d left some head back at the Carson family ranch, though.

Stella was a bundle of light andenergy and constantly kept us on our toes. She loved learning, and we loved learning alongside her how to be good parents.

We grew a lot in the time Reid and I were trying to make a long-distance relationship work. And those years we spent apart weren’t easy. We had our share of ups and downs, but it just made everything else worth it. It was a reminder that even the roughest of storms and the bumpiest of roads passed.

He proposed to me on a clear summer night, underneath a sky painted with stars. I didn’t suspect a single thing, which was a surprise to both of us, but it was truly everything I had dreamed of and more.

Reid told me once he’d always believed love was about giving one hundred percent all the time. And if he couldn’t give his absolute best, he wouldn’t be a good boyfriend, a good husband.

But the truth was, love was a team effort. It just meant sometimes you had to give up your last ten percent to fill their ninety.

I’d be his ten percent any day.

I twirled the wedding band on my finger as I watched our daughter squeal and chase Colter and Ellison’s six-year-old son around the yard, her wild, blonde curls bouncing with every step. They also had a two-year-old daughter, but she was asleep in Colter’s arms.

It was probably too late for the kids to still be up, but it was summer and they had the rest of their childhood to go to bed early.

Reid and Colter were still part of the PRCA and had won several World Championships. Their fourth win was shortly after our daughter was born. She was still really young, so I hadn’t wanted to take her with me to Las Vegas, but I’d watched from home and we’d had a bigcelebration when they came back. I still remembered it like it was yesterday.

“Shh,” I hushed everyone who had gathered in our small kitchen.

Caitlin and Clay had driven to Silver Creek to surprise Colter and Reid. Kacey, Ryker, and even Cooper were here, and Mikey, Jake, and Hayden were all in on the plan too. They were the ones who would convince Colter to come hang out tonight.

“I see their headlights. Everyone get into position!”

We all moved into our hiding spots, and when the door creaked open and Reid flicked on the light, we all jumped out.

“Surprise!”

He jumped, looking a bit taken aback. “What is this all for?”

“We wanted to throw you a congratulatory party, since we weren’t all able to be in Las Vegas,” I explained.

“You didn’t have to do that.” He cupped my cheek as he leaned in for a kiss.

“You know I’d do a whole lot more for you.”

Later, after we’d all finished eating dinner, I raised up my champagne flute, a sight reminiscent of Colter and Ellison’s wedding. “I’d like to make a toast, so if everyone could raise their glasses.” I looked at Reid and smiled.

He raised his glass as Colter, Ellison, Mikey, Jake, and Hayden followed.

“Here’s to the friends who stick together through thick and thin and to the four-time world champions.” I winked at Reid, knowing he wouldn’t want to be the complete center of attention. “And here’s to taking chances.”

“To taking chances,” Reid repeated as we exchanged a knowing look.

It was, after all, the chances we took that led us here. Reid wouldn’t have a growing relationship with his mother again without giving her another chance, and without taking the first step to extend that olive branch. And I wouldn’t have him.

Eileen had been in our lives for the past few years. It did take some time for Reid to trust her again, but I genuinely believed she was redeeming herself with the way she carried herself around Stella. She’d stayed sober and was repairing the relationship with all her children, day by day.

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