Page 11 of Mountain Man's Mail Order Runaway
“If he hadn’t been playing matchmaker behind my back…” I tightened my arm around her. “I never would’ve met the love of my life.”
Her eyes softened. “That’s me?”
“That’s you, angel.”
She kissed me then—slow, sweet, and lingering. The kind of kiss that settled into my bones and rewrote everything I thought I knew about the rest of my life.
We lay there for a while, listening to the birds chirping outside the window and watching the sun rising over the ridge. Finally, her leg slid over mine. Her hand followed, trailing down my chest, lower and lower, until I caught my breath.
“You sure?” I asked, already feeling my body stir.
She nodded, eyes sparkling. “I want you again. I want to feel that way again. With you.”
I rolled her gently onto her back, kissing her as the mattress shifted beneath us. She still wore my T-shirt. It bunched around her hips as I moved between her legs, and when I started to lift it, she caught my wrist.
“Not yet,” she whispered. “But soon.”
I nodded, brushing a kiss over her lips. “I can wait.”
“By the way,” she said. “My real name’s Renee. It’s my old name, though. I want to be Finley from now on.”
I stared at her a long time, but finally, a smile tugged at the corners of my lips. “Finley suits you. It’s perfect.”
She smiled, tugging me closer. We made love as the birds sang outside, sunlight warming the sheets and her body curling around mine like she’d been there forever.
And as far as I was concerned, she would be.
Forever.
EPILOGUE
FINLEY
I’d come a long way since I arrived at this cabin five years ago. It was hard to believe I was even the same person.
I smiled to myself as I checked the sheets hanging on a line in our backyard. We had a dryer, and my husband, Logan, encouraged me to use it. But I still liked the smell of sun-dried sheets. These had been in the sun all day.
“You know, you can rest.”
The male voice drifted across the short distance from the patio where we spent most of our nights after our four-year-old, Kandi, went to bed. I could definitely do this in the morning. I had a feeling he’d get up and have it folded and put away if I left it, though. He worked hard on the logging crew, and I hated to saddle him with even more responsibility.
I walked around the sheets, coming into view and locking eyes with the man who was my soulmate. My everything.
“I’ll leave it,” I said, “but you have to make me a promise.”
He smiled at me over his glass—a glass that I knew was full of whiskey and soda. “What’s that?”
“You won’t get up early and fold this and put it up.”
He chuckled. “You know me all too well. Okay, I promise I won’t get up early and take your sheets down. Now, come join me.”
I couldn’t resist. I never turned down an offer to sit and relax on the patio with Logan. Our private time together was the highlight of every day.
“I needed this,” he said as I settled in next to him, holding the stemless wine glass filled with my favorite chilled white wine.
He’d poured that and brought it out for me. It was those little touches that made him my hero.
“It’s been five years.” I looked over at him. “Did you realize that?”
