Page 195 of The Case of the Missing Love Stone

A few say they always knew I was innocent, which is a lie so obvious, I decide correcting it would waste everyone’s time. Mrs. Bell grips my hand and tells me my grandmother would be proud.

I don’t know whether that is true. I know I finally understand what she tried to preserve. She didn’t mark a path away from love. She preserved the right to choose it.

By evening, the cottage has absorbed another day of becoming ours. Wes installs one additional lock after asking where I want it. Honey delivers more food than three people can reasonably eat. Pepper leaves a tray of seedlings on the porch, with strict instructions not to let Wes water them. Junie brings a framed copy of the corrected route map, and Roman hangs it in the downstairs hall.

I stand in the bedroom while late light crosses the quilts in our nest. Nothing feels displaced. Their lives have simply settled beside mine.

Wes comes up behind me and places his hands on my waist.

Roman steps in front of me. “Too much?” he asks.

I listen to the house: the soft hum of the new security panel, boxes waiting to be unpacked, Wes’s cedar wrapping around my back, Roman’s warmth in front of me, the bond between us carrying affection, fatigue, and the low ache of everything we survived.

“No. It’s just right.”

Roman smiles.

Wes kisses the mark on my neck.

I turn in his arms and lower myself onto his lap when he sits on the edge of the nest. He gathers me close without hesitation.

Roman joins us, tucking my legs across his thighs and opening his sketchbook.

“You’re not drawing me right now. I’ve been sweating for an hour.”

“I’m documenting an important historical event.”

“What event?”

“The first recorded instance of Scarlet Sage voluntarily sitting still.”

Wes’s purr vibrates through my cheek.

I reach over and close Roman’s sketchbook.

He kisses my fingers.

BESTF still has a gang to track, a manufacturing site to find, and contaminated water to understand. Sweetheart Haven still has old lies buried beneath its prettiest traditions. The town will need time to heal. So will I. But I’m not waiting alone for the next thing to break.

I rest my head over Wes’s heart and place my feet in Roman’s lap. Cedar surrounds me. Cardamom and cinnamon warm the air. The cottage no longer feels like the place where I hide from the town. It feels like the place my pack comes home to.

Epilogue – Scarlet Sage

Three weeks later

Wes wakes me by purring against my back. The vibration travels from his chest through my spine, heavy and warm. His arm tightens around my waist, drawing me into the curve of his body while morning rain taps against the bedroom windows. Roman is sprawled in front of me, one hand tucked beneath his cheek and the other resting over mine. Between them, there is nowhere cold.

I stretch carefully, aware of every place our bodies meet beneath the blankets. Wes makes a rough sound when I press back against him.

“Good morning,” Roman says without opening his eyes.

“You’re awake?”

“I’ve been awake.”

“And you didn’t rescue me?”

His hazel eyes open. “From our alpha purring you back to sleep?”