Page 110 of The Hitman’s Final Job

“Me moving to Pine Ridge. Us. All of it. Are you sure?”

His eyes are full of love and certainty.

“I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life,” he says. “And even if there was no us, I’d move you in to finally put an end to Tess’s visits.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“She comes over. She brings bread. She asks about you. She rearranges my fridge. She asks about you again. She leaves.” He shrugs. “I have more bread than any one person can reasonably consume. If she keeps coming, I’m going to need to open a bakery.”

I lie down on my side and run my fingers over the hairs on his chest. Vaughn is so objectively hot I can’t even thing straight. But one thought gets through.

“What about Rowan?”

“What about him?”

I grasp a handful of Vaughn’s silvery chest hairs and tug gently. “I don’t want to lose him,” I say. “But I also don’t want to give you up.”

“You don’t have to give anything up anymore,” Vaughn says, his voice gentle but firm. “You can have your boyfriend and your best friend. Both. At the same time.”

“How do you know?”

He points to the space around us. “I’m in Atlanta. The city you live in. With the excuse that there’s an unmissable weaponry exhibition.” He chuckles. “Rowan has never once in his life expressed any interest in weapons—historical or otherwise—beyond maintaining his service weapon. The man who arranged for us to be in the same place in public so we couldn’t just run off and then walked out and went back to the hotel”—he rolls over to face me—“I think he’s happy about this.”

“Okay, but if he’s not,” I say, with my heart in my throat, “you know I’m going to choose him, right?”

Vaughn smiles and traces a finger down my forehead, over my nose, and onto my lips. “I know, baby. It’s one of the many reasons I love you.”

I kiss his fingertip.

“I love you too, Vaughn.”

He reaches down to take my hand and hold it. “Now, tell me how soon I can get you back home where you belong.”

THIRTY-FOUR

VAUGHN

Silas is crouched at the far end of the root vegetable bed, digging out weeds and adding straw. His lips are moving, so I bet he’s talking to them.

And what am I doing? I’m standing at the kitchen counter with my coffee, watching him. Because some days I still can’t believe he’s here and he’s mine.

Fall has settled in.

You can feel it in the mornings, that particular chill that comes down from the mountains overnight and hasn’t fully left by the time we’re up, and the light of the setting sun going golden earlier.

The vegetable patch is winding down. Everything that was growing through the summer has been harvested or finished, and what’s left is the autumn planting that Silas put in three weeks ago.

There isn’t much for him to do now that the weather is cold more often than warm.

Which is why the greenhouse is arriving next week.

It’s currently sitting in a warehouse outside Denver, flat-packed and waiting. It’s a good one, with glass panels, solid framing, large enough to grow a variety of vegetables, and with a heating system that will keep it warm through the Colorado winter. Silas is going to be able to grow year-round.

I can’t wait to see his face.

I worried, when he first said yes to Pine Ridge, it would be too quiet for him.

Silas spent ten years traveling the world, living in the spaces between things, doing the jobs no one else could do. And now he’s on a farm in a small Colorado town, not entirely divested of its drama, but still tame when compared with killing bad guys.