Page 30 of Stealing the Runaway Bride

"Cag, you don't have to⁠—"

"I do." I push the door open.

The smell hits us first. Fresh wood. Beeswax. A faint trace of lavender trapped in the old floorboards. Even light fills the room through the tall north window, revealing every surface without throwing harsh shadows.

Juliette gasps. She takes a step inside, her hand flying to her mouth.

Her eyes roam over the pressing table, the heavy iron base solid and permanent. They drift to the rows of antique sewing machines, their black enamel shining. They land on the cutting table I built from reclaimed oak, the surface smooth as glass. And then she sees the dress forms. Four of them, standing like silent sentinels in the corner, waiting to be draped.

"It’s a workshop," she whispers. She walks forward, her hand reaching out to touch the oak table. Her fingers tremble. "A real couture workshop."

“I restored it,” I say, standing in the doorway. I don’t move. I can’t. Seeing her in this room is like watching the final piece of something settle into place. “Every beam. Every window. I rebuilt my grandmother’s machines and brought her pressing table over from the old workshop. I’ve spent two years bringing all of it back.”

She turns back to me, tears shimmering in her eyes. "Why?"

"Because a man is what he finishes," I say, the words raw. "I started this because I thought I was building a life. When that life fell apart, I kept building because I didn't want to be the man who left things half-done. I didn't know who it was for. I just knew I had to finish it."

I walk toward her, my boots heavy on the floorboards. I stop inches away, my shadow falling over her. "And then you climbed into my truck. A woman who tore her own dress to find her freedom. A designer who lost her craft because her father turned it into a cage."

I catch a tear with my thumb before it can fall. “This isn’t a cage, Juliette. It’s a place where no one gets to tell you what to create.”

I cross to the cutting table and open its shallow top drawer. A folded deed and a small brass key wait inside. Her name is typed across the ownership line: Juliette Marchand.

For one hard second, I stare at the name. Her father used it to mark her as his property. I want her to see it attached to something no one can take from her.

“The land stays with Pine Ridge,” I tell her, returning to her. “But this building and everything inside it belong to you. You want to make gowns, you make them here. You want to burn the fashion world down, you do it from this ridge.”

I place the deed and key in her palm and close her fingers around them. “It’s yours.”

She looks around again, her breath coming in short, jagged hitches. She notices the rolls of silk in the corner, the ones I’ve been keeping covered in plastic. She walks over and peels back the edge of a deep, emerald green velvet.

"You even have the fabric," she says, her voice breaking.

"I have everything you need," I say. I step up behind her, my chest pressing against her back. I wrap my arms around her, my chin resting on her shoulder. "Your father thinks he can take the water. He thinks he can take your future. But he doesn’t own this room or what you create inside it. Neither do I anymore. You do."

She leans back into me, her head resting against my collarbone. For the first time since I met her, I feel her body truly relax. The tension that’s been humming in her muscles since the chapel is gone, replaced by a soft, yielding warmth.

"I’ve never had anything that was just mine," she whispers. "Everything—my clothes, my education, my career—it was all an investment for him. A way to increase the value of the Marchand name."

"Not here," I growl into her ear. My teeth graze her skin, a claim I can't help but make. "In this room, you aren't a Marchand. You’re Juliette. My woman. The woman who's going to make something beautiful while I hold the line at the gate."

I turn her in my arms, my hands framing her face. I need her to see the truth in my eyes. I need her to understand the depth of the obsession that’s taken root in my soul. I’m not just a cowboy who rescued a girl. I’m a man who’s found his purpose.

"I’m going to see this through, Juliette," I say. "The war with your father. The water. All of it, so you can stay here. So you never have to look over your shoulder again."

"He's powerful, Cag. He has lawyers and money and⁠—"

"I don't give a fuck what he has," I snap. My thumbs press into her cheeks, forcing her to focus only on me. "He has paper. I have my brothers. I have this land. And I have you. He’s already lost. He just doesn't know it yet because he’s never met a man who has everything to lose."

She looks at me, and I see the shift. The fear is still there, but it’s buried under something stronger. Determination. A reflection of the fire I’ve been carrying for three years. She reaches up, covering my hands with hers.

"Then we do it together," she says.

Standing together isn't just a plan anymore. It’s the promise beneath every decision we make next.

I pull her to me, my mouth finding hers in a kiss built on promise instead of urgency. Her magnolia scent surrounds me as she kisses me back, slow and certain.

We stand there for a long time in the cooling light of the workshop. Outside, the upstream flow is still restricted and Black Aspen’s filing is still in force. But inside these pine walls, there’s a new world being born.