He should say goodbye to Damon and Silas, Zeke knew. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to enter the Moose and go among the cheering crowd, find his friends, and tell them he was leaving. He’d never bothered with goodbyes before, and he couldn’t think of a reason to bother now.
They’d only ask questions, demand answers. They’d be unhappy with him for leaving Morgan too, and for hurting her. Though she’d get over that.
“I love you and that’s never going to change.”
Her voice rang through him, soft but absolutely certain.
She was wrong, though. Because love wasn’t fixed. It moved and it changed. It was never immutable.
Love was dependent on who you were and what you were able to give in return, and hadn’t his parents taught him that?
And as he’d stood in the community center, watching Morgan’s face fill with joy as her town had refused Izzy’s offer, radiating happiness to those around her, he knew he could never give her what she needed in return.
She was full of caring, full of generosity, full of love. Full of emotion, and she deserved to have all of that given back to her. Everything she gave, she deserved to have in return.
But he wasn’t full of emotion. He could barely work out what he felt, let alone take care of someone else’s feelings, especially someone who felt so strongly about everything as Morgan. He could be a friend to someone, like he was friends with Damon and Silas, and he could be a brother, like he was a brother to Izzy. But being the one someone needed and depended on emotionally? Yeah, he couldn’t do that.
He didn’t even want to try, not when the potential for pain was so great.
Bit late for that, isn’t it? You’ve already caused her pain.
Zeke tried not to think about it. About the look on her face as she’d told him that she loved him, or the sudden burst of joy that had welled up inside him as she’d confessed it, the lightning in his heart he’d felt back in the hall during the meeting, illuminating every part of him.
But he’d fought it down. He’d never wanted to hurt her. He’d never wanted to disappoint her. Yet he’d ended up doing both already, which was as good an indication as any that leaving was the best choice all around.
Better for him to leave now and hurt her a little than leave later and hurt her a lot.
His chest hurt, a nagging ache that wouldn’t go away, but he ignored it as he moved on past the Moose’s doors, along the boardwalk, heading in the direction of his campsite.
“You spoke well there, son,” a voice said, scratchy and a bit cracked but still holding a certain amount of authority. “I like an honest man.”
Zeke paused.
Phil was sitting on the carved wooden bench that faced the river, the youthful, sparky glint of his bright blue eyes belying his age.
Zeke didn’t particularly want to stop and chat, but he didn’t want to be rude either, so he paused beside the bench and gave the old man a nod of acknowledgment.
“I think you were surprised though,” Phil went on. “Didn’t expect us to hold out, did you?”
“No,” Zeke said with absolute truth.
Phil tilted his head to the side, looking very much like one of the birds he was rumored to knit vests for. “You remind me of my son,” he said, apropos of nothing. “Not in the way you look, though he’s got a bit of height to him too. But in the way you’re still trying to find your place.”
Zeke wasn’t sure what to say to that. “I’ve found my place just fine,” he finally said. It lay in the wilderness, the snow and the mountains.
“Have you though?” Phil was studying him with disturbing intensity. “You and Garrett are the same. Drifting around the edges of life, but not really taking part. Not involving yourselves.”
Zeke shoved his hands into the pockets of his parka. “I wouldn’t be standing here right now if I wasn’t involving myself.”
Phil only nodded, but Zeke didn’t think it was in agreement. “You think being here physically is what I’m talking about? No, son. No, I’m talking about emotionally.”
“Look,” Zeke said, losing patience, “I don’t mean to be rude, but—”
“You and Morgan have something,” Phil went on, as if Zeke hadn’t spoken. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed. Don’t think the whole damn town hasn’t noticed. Mal mentioned that you’ve done a couple of nice things for her, and I’m thinking that’s not entirely out of the goodness of your heart.”
The heavy feeling in the middle of Zeke’s chest became heavier. Weighted like a boulder.
“That’s really none of your business.”
“It’s plenty of my business,” Phil replied comfortably. “We look out for Morgan West here, but not in the way she truly needs.” The old man’s gaze became even sharper. “I think you can. I think you should. And I think you want to too.”
Zeke went rigid. “What are you trying to say?”
“It’s not good for you to deny her either,” Phil said, ignoring him. “A man needs people around him, son. And I say this as a practicing hermit. And again, I don’t mean physically. I mean people being there for you in times of need.”
“I don’t think—”
“Don’t isolate yourself, boy. Don’t cut yourself off. My son did that after his wife died and it damn near broke my heart. I don’t want to see you doing the same thing.” Emotion glittered in the old man’s eyes and he didn’t hide it. He let Zeke see it. “I think you need her like she needs you. And if you’re looking for a purpose, you’ve found it.”
Zeke was aware of deep surprise and a heavy, powerful emotion he didn’t have a word for shifting inside of him.
“Why should you care?” he asked bluntly, shaken despite himself. “Why should you give a crap about what happens to me?”
Phil just looked at him. “Like I said: you remind me of my son. But unlike him, you’ve got a woman who would do anything for you—and don’t deny it. I could see the way she was looking at you tonight. She’s a woman in a million, Montgomery. You could do worse.”
That heavy, powerful emotion twisted like a snake, wrapping giant coils around him, squeezing him.
“I can’t give her what she wants,” he heard himself say. “I’ll only end up disappointing her.”
“Well, that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, doesn’t it? And it makes a mighty fine excuse not to change.”
“I can’t change. That’s the thing—”
“Horseshit,” Phil said crossly. “Clive was a bit like you. Reserved. Didn’t say much. Bit too literal. But he married a nice woman, had a family, and fit in here just fine. It’s not about changing yourself, son; it’s about changing your attitude. You have to accept yourself before you can accept anyone else. So how about you get on that and put that girl out of her misery?” Abruptly, Phil gave a loud sniff, pushed himself off the bench, and walked away muttering, “Why is it always me giving out advice to idiots?”
Zeke stared after him for a moment, the boulder on his chest feeling like lead. Then he stalked away too, following the path by the river.
But he couldn’t shake what Phil said.
“You have to accept yourself before you can accept anyone else.”
But he had accepted himself, hadn’t he? That’s why he’d walked away from Houston all those years ago. Because he’d finally stopped trying to be what his parents had wanted him to be.
Yeah, you left to hide in the wilderness. Where there wasn’t anyone around to make you feel different.
Zeke scowled. Hell no, that wasn’t true. He’d gone into the army because he’d liked its structure and its rules, and gone to Alaska because he enjoyed all the physical stuff he could do there. Nothing more.
Keep telling yourself the same old excuses.
He ignored the thought, striding along the game trail, trying to think about packing up his campsite instead and where he might head after returning to Juneau.
The guys were relocating Wild Alaska here, which was their right, but it might make flying difficult. Or maybe he could base himself in Juneau? He didn’t like living there, that was for sure, but they might need someone in the city.
How ironic that it was him, who hated cities most, who was considering being the one to do it.
He stepped into the clearing and went over to the firepit, staring around at his little campsite.
It looked a little pitiful in the evening light. The rain had stopped and everything was wet, the fly on his one-person tent heavy with water, the ashes in the firepit gone black and sludgy.
He wasn’t a fan of wet, but normally he could deal. Tonight though, staring around at his wet campsite, it just felt…miserable. And lonely.
That ache in his heart deepened, a heaviness he’d been trying to ignore since Morgan had left him standing in the community center. Making him feel strangely as if the sun had gone behind a cloud. Permanently.
He’d done the right thing to end it and he knew it. His head told him so, but that ache in his chest, a heavy, painful beat, told him something different.
His goddamn heart. He’d never been able to figure it out. His heart had loved people who’d done nothing but make him feel like shit his whole goddamn life. What did it know about anything? His heart was a liar, just like everyone else.
Morgan’s not a liar.
The painful ache in his chest felt raw now, like it had been dragged behind a truck along a gravel road for miles.
He shouldn’t be thinking about her. He should never think about her again. About her smile and her laughter. About the way she called him bear. The way she’d accepted him, told him he was incredible. That his stubbornness and his honesty were assets, not failures…
No, she was wrong. Those things were just her rose-colored glasses talking. She hadn’t seen the real him, grumpy and surly and emotionally unavailable. Emotionally stunted.
She didn’t need that. She didn’t deserve that.
The thought was bitter, and he turned from it, trying to wrest his attention back to the job he had to do, which was to pack up his damn camp, when his attention was caught by something glittering in the grass near his feet. He bent to pick it up and found it was the necklace he’d bought Morgan at the farmers’ market. It must have fallen out of his pocket when he’d taken her here in the clearing with the bright sun falling down on them.
He’d clean forgotten about it.
The stone sparkled as he held it up, the color of the sky above his head, though now that sky was streaked with a golden twilight.
But he hadn’t bought that necklace because the stone was the color of the sky. He’d bought it because it was the color of Morgan’s eyes.
Something shifted in his chest, his pulse loud in his head.
Why don’t you believe all those things she told you? Why don’t you trust her?
Because trust was hard. Because people lied.
He stared down at the stone in his hand, and suddenly all he could hear was Phil’s voice in his head.
“You have to accept yourself before you can accept anyone else.”
And a heavy certainty settled down inside him, a realization and insight that maybe wouldn’t have been possible a week ago. If he hadn’t met Morgan. If he hadn’t spent a week fixing her roof and doing things for her. If he hadn’t experienced her bright light shining on him, warming him through.
It wasn’t Morgan that he didn’t trust. It was himself.
And it wasn’t that he couldn’t love her, give her what she needed; it was that he didn’t believe that he could.
“It’s not because you can’t, Zeke. You love your sister. You love your friends. You love nature. You’re just as capable of feeling it as anyone else.”
Morgan had never made him feel like he couldn’t. Morgan had only ever made him feel like he could. And, more, she made him feel not only like he could, but as if he wanted to.
Zeke closed his eyes, the lightning migrating from his heart, flashing throughout his entire body, wild and electric, impossible to deny. Impossible to ignore.
Phil had said it was his attitude he had to change, and hell, the old man was right. He couldn’t change the way he was put together, but he could change how he viewed himself.
Because it came to him that of course his excuses for isolating himself away from people were hollow. Because they were. He isolated himself for a reason, and it wasn’t due to him not liking people or preferring his own company or that he felt more at home in the wilderness.
Those were true, but a deeper truth lay underneath.
He isolated himself because he was ashamed. Because he’d never accepted the way he was, even though he’d told himself he had, told himself that other people were the problem, not him. He still actually believed it was him who was the issue. Always him.
But maybe he had to stop thinking like that. Maybe he needed to accept what his friends had all told him, what Morgan had told him, was true.
Maybe he had to accept himself. Believe he had something to offer. Believe he was the man Morgan saw when she looked at him.
Believe in the love that lived in her blue, blue eyes, the feeling that lived in his heart too.
Because he did love her. He knew what that feeling was, of course he did, and he had a feeling he knew how to give it back too.
The hard knot of emotion he’d been trying to shove down, pack away, suddenly expanded like a damned-up stream finding release, coursing through him, a wild river in flood. And he let it flow through him, fill him up with its truth.
Love wasn’t a lie. Love was powerful.
It was the solidity of the earth under his feet and the permanence of the mountains surrounding him. It was the softness of the air on his skin, and the delicious smell of wet bush in the air. It was the sound of an owl in the trees and the cry of a lone seagull.
But love was also the glittering stone in a pretty necklace. Love was food cooked with care and a cold beer. Love was freshly washed clothes sitting on a couch, waiting for him.
Love was a bathtub under the trees and cooking steak in her kitchen. Feeding her chocolate beside a fire and wrapping her up in blankets and hammering shingles on her roof. Holding her. Touching her. Kissing her.
Love was the look in her deep blue eyes when he’d told her she was pretty.
Love was who he was she looked at him.
Morgan West had told him she loved him, and even though she didn’t know it, she’d spent the past week showing him how to love her in return.
Now, he knew. Now, he was aware.
Now, it was time to start loving her right back.
Zeke closed his fingers around the necklace.
Then he turned and strode back the way he’d come.
* * *
Morgan couldn’t face going to the Moose with the rest of the town. But she didn’t want to go home either, not with the reminders of Zeke in every room.
She wasn’t sure how she was going to handle that, but maybe the pain would fade. Maybe his ghost would too, and she’d find some semblance of normality.
Except, she had a horrible feeling nothing would be normal again.
There weren’t many places to go in Deep River where you could avoid other people apart from home or heading into the wilderness, and since she didn’t particularly want to go home or into the wilderness, she went to the library instead.
It was situated in a little cabin by the river not far from the township, and the porch out front was the perfect place to sit and brood, with Phil’s hard-carved wooden chairs and the wind chimes chiming peacefully, the perfect accompaniment to a broken heart.
She could hear the laughter and shouts coming from the Moose and that eased some of the pain. She was glad for her town. Glad for the people here that they’d overcome their particular Goliath and now there was a sense they could do anything.
It was true. She believed that wholeheartedly.
But…she wished that, in all the jubilation, there might have been a little something for her. That wasn’t about the town or taking care of it. That didn’t have anything to do with her job or the fact she was a West.
Something that would help her feel less alone.
No, not “something.” She wanted Zeke.
But she’d asked him to stay, told him she loved him, and in the end that hadn’t been enough. He’d gone and left her the way everyone else had left her.
You’re going to have to find someone else to heal.
Yeah, but that was the problem. She didn’t want anyone else.
She didn’t think she’d want anyone else ever again.
There was a footstep on the path from the road, and she looked up to see a tall, gangly figure coming down it.
Connor, Astrid’s teenage son.
He was a good kid, though a few weeks back Astrid had been worried about him and his continual cutting of school. Everything had turned out okay though, once Damon had come on the scene, and he, Astrid, and Connor made a great family unit.
Though what was he doing here?
“Bit late for a library visit isn’t it?” Morgan observed.
The boy came up the porch steps and leaned against the rail. “Actually…I didn’t come here for the library. I wanted to see you.”
Great. Sometimes kids wanted to talk to her, and sometimes it was about serious issues. A parent who was drinking too much. A parent who never came out of their room. Kids at school pressuring them into doing things they didn’t want to do, all kinds of things.
More often though, it was about confessing to shoplifting something minor from the Market or that they’d had a beer they weren’t supposed to, and she couldn’t tell from the look on Connor’s face which thing it was that he wanted to talk about.
To be honest, it was the very last thing on earth she felt like doing right now, but her job was her job, and if someone needed her, she couldn’t turn them away.
“Okay, well, here I am.” She gestured to the chair next to hers. “Take a seat.”
Connor came up the steps and plonked himself down, then turned to look at her. His blue eyes were serious, his strawberry-blond hair gone almost orange in the long twilight. And for some reason, he reminded her so much of Cal her heart ached.
“What’s up?” she asked, mentally bracing herself.
“I have to tell you something,” he said in a very serious tone. “It’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you for a while, but Mom said I had to do it in my own time, so…I’ve kind of been building up to it I guess.”
Morgan put her cop face on. “Okay, so shoplifting in the Market isn’t a good idea, but—”
“It’s not about shoplifting,” Connor interrupted. “It’s about Caleb.”
Taken utterly by surprise, Morgan stared at him. “What?”
Connor lifted a hand. “Don’t freak out, okay? But…well.…Caleb is kind of my dad.”
Morgan blinked. “What?” she repeated. “What do you mean kind of?”
“Um, when Caleb was eighteen, he and my mom had a…” He gestured with some embarrassment. “You know, a thing. And anyway, Mom got pregnant with me.”
There was no breath in her lungs; it had gone. And there was no thought in her head. Just…nothing.
Connor was looking at her with some concern, but he went on, “Caleb couldn’t deal, which, I mean, I get. He wasn’t much older than I am now, but we had to leave and go south for a bit. It wasn’t great, but then Mom called my dad to ask him if he could help her and so he said to come to Deep River. So we did, and Mom didn’t tell me about Dad because she was worried for me and then I got a letter from Dad after he died telling me who he was, and then Damon turned up and—”
“Stop,” Morgan ordered, holding up a hand. “Go back to the beginning and say it again. Because you just said Caleb was your father and I think I must have misheard.”
Connor’s mouth tightened, anxiety creeping into his expression. “You didn’t. It’s true.”
And Morgan was unable to think of a single thing to say. Because she didn’t like surprises; she didn’t like them at all, especially when she still upset about Zeke.
But…maybe…not all surprises were bad ones.
Her eyes flooded with sudden tears because her heart had apparently accepted what Connor had just told her, even if her brain was taking a while to catch up.
“I’m sorry,” Connor said, obviously mistaking them for tears of grief. “I didn’t mean to—”
Before Morgan was even aware of what she was doing, she’d leaned forward and pulled Connor into an awkward hug, because even though she had no idea what to say, not with all the questions crowding in her head, one thing was very clear.
She wasn’t alone. She wasn’t the only West anymore.
Somehow her brother, who’d left her years ago, had come back to her in the shape of this boy, and she was so glad. So very, very glad.
Connor stiffened in surprise, then just as awkwardly hugged her back, and when she let him go, she could see the emotion on his face that he was trying to hide.
“I thought you’d be angry I didn’t tell you sooner,” he said in a rush. “And Mom knows and Damon knows, and I think probably Silas knows, but no one else. Mom said it was up to me who I told so I—”
“I’m not angry, Connor,” Morgan interrupted gently, blinking hard, shock and a deep and very real joy flooding through her. Maybe later she’d have a whole lot of questions and she had a feeling she might be annoyed with Caleb, but she couldn’t be annoyed with his kid.
Her nephew. She had a nephew.
Connor was gazing at her a bit warily, shifting on his chair, displaying all the usual signs of a teenage boy deeply uncomfortable at this open display of feelings.
“Would you like to come and see me tomorrow?” Morgan asked thickly, deciding to give them both a way out and some time to process this new bit of information. “We can have a chat about it. Nothing too heavy.”
Slowly Connor nodded. “Yeah, I’d like that.”
“Good. Well, you’d better go off and keep celebrating with the others.”
Connor pushed himself quickly up off the seat, obviously ready to go now his mission was accomplished. “Thanks, Officer West—I mean…uh…Aunt?”
Morgan smiled. “Just Morgan is fine.”
He gave a little nod and a bright grin and then turned, moving over to the porch steps. Then he stopped and turned to look back at her, the expression on his face gone serious again. “You looked sad before. Is that about Zeke leaving?”
Morgan felt another little shock go through her. “Oh, well, I guess it’s—”
“You are though, right? Everyone knows you’re together.”
This was awkward. She opened her mouth to change the subject, but then Connor went on, “You should tell him to stay. We need him in case the oil company comes back.”
Beneath the joy of her finding out she had nephew, a raw pain throbbed.
“Sure,” she said, forcing out the words. “I’ll tell him.”
Connor gave another nod, then turned back and went off up the path that led to the Deep River township as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
Morgan let out a shaky breath, wishing she felt the same. Wishing she hadn’t had to lie. Because she had told Zeke to stay. She’d even told him she loved him, and he’d still said no.
She didn’t know what more she could do.
The clouds had gone now, the evening brightening up, long fingers of gold and orange and red and pink streaking across the sky.
It was a beautiful sunset.
Then she became aware that someone was standing at the top of the path to the library. Someone very tall and very broad. Built muscular and powerful, and standing there just looking at her.
Her breath caught hard.
Zeke started down the path, striding with purpose, his dark eyes gleaming with intent.
Morgan’s heart began to hammer, and she shoved herself up and out of the chair because she had a few words to say and she’d be damned if she wasn’t going to say them to him. She wasn’t going to be nice like she had been before, giving him some time and some space. Because if he was here for another of those awful goodbyes, he could damn well think again.
She stood at the top of the porch stairs, breathing fast and hard, while he came to a stop at the bottom. He was so tall she barely had to look down.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded before he could speak, her voice quivering slightly. “I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t even want to see you. You said you were leaving, so leave.”
He did his Zeke thing of staring at her, something bright and fierce burning in his eyes. Then he said in his deep, dark voice, “I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to leave after all.”
Morgan’s hands closed into fists. “Zeke, if you’re—”
“I was wrong, Morgan,” he interrupted, staring at her so intently her throat closed up. “And you were right. You were right when you said that I feel love like everyone else. I do. But the problem was that I didn’t think I could love you back.”
She swallowed hard, a lump rising in her throat. “So what changed?”
“I did.”
“But I though you said you couldn’t change.”
“I know. I thought I couldn’t too. I thought the problem was other people, not me. And I thought I was fine with the way I was.” He shook his head. “But I’m not fine, Morgan. That’s the reason I left Houston. The reason I came to Alaska, isolating myself from everyone. It’s not that I don’t like people, that I’m more comfortable in the wilderness. It’s that I don’t like me. I’m not comfortable with myself.”
Shock hit her. “Zeke…”
“I’ve never been what people want me to be. I’ve only ever disappointed them and I hate that about myself. I hate that I can’t change it. I always have. But someone told me tonight that it’s not about changing myself, it’s about changing my attitude and…well…” He paused and took a deep breath, his powerful chest expanding. “You told me you thought I was interesting and complicated. That I was caring and kind. You told me that I made you feel good and made you feel safe and made you feel protected. You told me that you loved me.” Zeke took a step onto the bottom stair, still staring fiercely at her. “So maybe it’s time to accept that I can be all those things. And if I accept all those things, then I have to accept that I can be a man who can love you the way you deserve to be loved.”
The tears that had threatened to fall with Connor filled Morgan’s eyes all of a sudden and all her anger melted away. Her throat closed up, her heart a painful ball in her chest. But not a bad pain, not this time. It was something sweeter—deeper.
She swallowed, trying to get her voice to work. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that I want to stay, Morgan. I want to stay with you and for good.” He took another step. “You showed me how to love you and now that’s all I want to do.”
No matter how hard she tried to blink them away, a couple of tears escaped and ran down the side of her nose. “Oh,” she said thickly, stupidly. “Oh.”
Zeke’s frown became ferocious and he went quickly up a couple of steps, so close now. “Don’t cry, sunshine girl. I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
Morgan shook her head, staring into his beautiful face, her heart feeling so full she didn’t know what to do with herself. “It’s okay. I’m crying because I’m happy.”
“That’s stupid.” He lifted a hand, gently brushing her tears away. “Who cries when they’re happy?”
She shivered when he touched her, smiling. “I do.”
He looked at her for a long moment. “Turn around.”
“What? Why?”
“It’s a surprise.”
She didn’t want to turn around. She wanted to throw herself into his arms, wanted to hold him, tell him she loved him. “Zeke—”
He reached out, took her gently by the shoulders, and turned her before she could finish. Then she felt him nudge her ponytail out of the way before something cool circled her neck. And when she looked down, she saw a necklace with the most beautiful blue stone had been draped around her throat.
More tears slid down her cheeks.
She turned back around and looked up at him, into the hard, granite beauty of his face.
He wasn’t smiling, still staring at her like she was the only thing worth looking at in the entire world.
She loved it.
“What’s this for?” she asked croakily.
“It’s for you.” His voice had roughened. “I bought it for you at the farmers’ market and found it in the grass at my camp. It must have fallen out of my pocket. The stone is a zircon. It’s the same color as your eyes.”
And Morgan couldn’t hold back any longer.
He was standing on the step below her, and so it was a simple thing to throw her arms around his neck and hold him like she never wanted to let him go. He was so warm and solid, so familiar. “Oh, bear,” she whispered. “It’s beautiful. I love it. I love you.”
His hands settled on her hips and he pulled her even closer, and when she lifted her head, his mouth found hers, hot and soft—the only soft thing about him.
She kissed him back hungrily, pressing herself against him, unable to get enough of him, kissing him until they were both gasping.
Then he lifted his head and said in a gravelly voice, “I’m going to tell everyone that I’m staying. And that you’re mine. Okay?”
A very feminine, very primitive part of her was thrilled because she couldn’t think of anything she wanted more than to be Zeke Montgomery’s.
“Yes,” she said decisively. “Let’s go do that right now.”
So Zeke took her hand in his and together they left the library, walking back into the Deep River township and along the boardwalk.
There were a fair few people around outside the Moose, and as Morgan and Zeke approached, they turned to look. And then stare.
“Hmmm,” April said, eyeing their joined hands. “Not sure how I feel about that.”
Morgan opened her mouth, but Zeke let go of her hand and put his arm around her, drawing her firmly against him. “You can go and get your rifle, Mrs. Jones,” he said, the deep, possessive note in his voice thrilling Morgan still further. “But Morgan West is mine.”
Then he went on, his voice rock steady and sure as the current flowing out to sea. “Also, I’ve decided to stay in Deep River. And if Morgan will have me, I’ll be staying with her. Any objections?”
“About damn time,” Phil said crossly from behind Zeke. “I gave you fifteen minutes to change your mind, and you took twenty.”
“I don’t do anything to anyone’s schedule but mine,” Zeke said, glaring.
“Bah.” Phil walked past them, grinning like a loon. Then he stopped and surveyed the assembled crowd. “Well?” he demanded. “The boy’s got my blessing, which makes him one of us now.”
There was a lot of murmurings and whisperings and frowns and furtive glances.
Then the door of the Moose opened and out came a few more people, obviously drawn by the commotion outside. Silas and Hope. Astrid, Damon, and Connor. Mike and Mal. And right at the back, Isabella Montgomery.
Morgan cleared her throat. But she didn’t move, leaning against Zeke’s heat and his strength, the big, powerful bear at her back. Making it very clear whose side he was on.
“And if anyone does have any objections,” she said clearly, “then they can take it up with me.”
A long silence followed, Zeke silent, his hands warm and strong, holding her, supporting her. Facing his last test.
Then Silas said, “Oh for God’s sake. What are we waiting for? Let’s give Zeke Montgomery a real Deep River welcome.”
And she and Zeke were suddenly surrounded by people, by hugs and laughter, hand shaking and back slapping. And absolute, total acceptance.
Then hand in hand, she walked with Zeke into the Moose.
And into their future together.