by T. S. Joyce
Janet was cookin’ tonight, and asked everyone how they wanted their steaks prepared. That part was also funny because the bulk of them were bull shifters, but Janet didn’t know a frog shifter from a human through those coke-bottle glasses of hers. She just kept commenting on how their daddies must’ve been giants. She even squeezed Train Wreck’s shoulder at one point. Had Luna ever laughed so much in a big, intimidating group like this? She couldn’t recall a time. She just tried to keep up reading their lips so she wouldn’t miss the funny stuff.
All mounted and ready, Stephanie led the way on her mule, Rocky. She aimed them toward the long trail. When they’d all fallen in line but Tuff, Luna gestured to him. “You want to ride by me?”
“Hell yeah, I do.” Easily, he guided his big ol’ barrel-chested bay to her, and side-by-side they followed the others.
Tuff kept watching her. He wasn’t talking, just watching. She understood because she was doing the same thing. He looked so handsome out here in the snowy woods she was so familiar with. The sun was shining through the tree limbs, and blobs of the white stuff was raining around the trail.
“Are you happy?” he asked.
Luna reached across and squeezed his hand. “I have never been so happy.” She let the truth ring through her words.
She let him see the honesty in her eyes.
He’d sure changed her life, and her heart, for the better.
Her story had started in that lab all those years ago, but look where she had ended up.
Happy wasn’t even a big enough word.
Epilogue
“Where are we?” she asked in confusion.
“You’ll see,” Tuff signed. He’d learned sign language over the last few months for her. He put his hands back on the wheel and hit the gas.
They were on a break between tour stops, and he’d told her before dawn even broke this morning that he had a special day planned. He’d driven her a couple hours out to this big, flat field planted with rows of tulips in every color imaginable. Just acres and acres of the beautiful flowers.
Her breath was caught in her throat as he drove slowly down a dirt road right through the middle of the fields. She couldn’t take her eyes off the colors that drifted by the window. The truck slowed. Tuff put it in park, turned it off, and signed, “You ready?”
“Ready for what?” She signed when she talked now because he liked the practice of reading her hands.
“Ready to put them dreams to rest?”
She sat there shaking her head in confusion as he got out. Her dreams? The bad dreams that plagued her at nights?
He opened her door for her and slid his hands to her waist. He helped her out of the truck and settled her feet on the soft ground. His hand was strong around hers as Tuff led her to a bench in the middle of the fields. The colors of the tulips stretched out like spokes from this central point. There was a plaque on the bench, and as she read it, Tuff drew her hand to his lips.
In memory of all the souls that were hurt or lost here.
Couldn’t be.
Luna’s mouth fell open and she jerked her gaze to Tuff.
His eyes were full of emotion, and he nodded.
“Oh my God,” she said as she spun in a slow circle, looking at the flowers that stretched out from her.
When she faced Tuff again, he told her, “Train Wreck and Amber bought this place fifteen years ago. They tore down that lab and burned every piece of it. Every year, a crew comes out here and tends to these tulips so the Hagans and others who were hurt here can be remembered.” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard and dropped down on his knee. “You don’t have to dream about this place anymore. It doesn’t exist the way your dreams remember it. There are no more ghosts here, Luna. And now…if you’ll say yes, I want to change the power of this place for you because it’s special. If you hadn’t been here all those years ago, we would’ve never met.” Tuff pulled a ring box out of his back pocket.
Tears spilled out of Luna’s eyes as she clapped her hands over her mouth to hold in a sob.
Tuff opened the box and held up a single diamond on a gold band. “This isn’t where you were made anymore, Luna. This is where we are made now. If you’ll have me.”
Her shoulders were shaking as she nodded her head ‘yes.’ She signed it just so he double-knew she was all in.
Tuff slipped the ring on her finger smoothly, stood in a rush, picked her up, and hugged all her flyaway pieces back together. The tears ran like rivers down her face as she hugged his neck tight and looked out at the tulips.
He’d banished all the ghosts here. He’d done that for her.
Tuff was right. The lab didn’t exist anymore. Only in her dreams, and she knew down to her bones that from this day forward, her dreams wouldn’t hold onto it either.
Let her dreams be filled with tulips.
She could finally, finally breathe.
Tuff had given her air.
This is where we are made.
Luna squeezed her eyes closed and hugged him up even tighter.
It sure was.
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For More from this Author
Check out her The Official Reading List of T. S. Joyce
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About the Author
T.S. Joyce is devoted to bringing hot shifter romances to readers. Hungry alpha males are her calling card, and the wilder the men, the more she'll make them pour their hearts out. She lives in a tiny town, outside of a tiny city, and d
evotes her life to writing big stories. Foodie, bear whisperer, ninja, thief of tiny bottles of awesome smelling hotel shampoo, nap connoisseur, movie fanatic, and zombie slayer, and most of this bio is true.
Bear Shifters? Check
Smoldering Alpha Hotness? Double Check
Sexy Scenes? Fasten up your girdles, ladies and gents, it’s gonna to be a wild ride.
For more information about T. S. Joyce and her work, visit her website here.