Then everyone started talking at once, the way the birds did in the morning, happy to be alive for another sunrise and chitter-chattering to tell the whole forest about it. Or like . . . well, that was good enough for now. He couldn’t second-guess every thought in his head. Civilized thoughts would come naturally to him someday . . . probably.
Harper met Jak’s eyes and they gentled. She smiled and his brain went empty the way it did each time she looked at him that way. I love you, she mouthed. He mouthed it back. He loved her. He worshipped her. He cherished her. He would forever. And that was all.
That was all.
EPILOGUE
The fire crackled, shadows dancing on the library walls. Jak smiled, brought from his daze, as the scent of the woman he loved met his nose. “Hello, wife.”
Harper laughed softly, coming around the chair and taking a seat on his lap. “Will I ever be able to sneak up on you?” she asked, wrapping her arms around his neck and rubbing her cheek against his stubbly jaw.
He smiled on an exhaled breath, nuzzling into her touch. “Maybe.” He expected that his sense of smell would become . . . less once he’d been living in civilization for long enough, and now that he didn’t depend on his senses for his survival.
“Hmm,” she hummed, kissing him softly. He ran his hand over the small swell of her stomach, their child cradled within the safety of her body. For the next five months anyway. Then it would be his job to protect them both. To make sure they were fed and warm and that their hearts were full. He never took that third part for granted after a lifetime of only being able to address physical needs. And often, not even those. A shiver of gratitude moved through him. My family. The two words still made his breath catch with happiness.
Awe.
He and Harper married six months after they’d survived their jump from Amity Falls. No one had been able to convince him th
ere was any reason to wait, though Agent—Mark—Gallagher had sat him down and given him a “man-to-man” talk about the “prudence of patience,” and the “wisdom of waiting.” He respected Mark, but he wanted a ring on Harper’s finger. His ring, and that was all. He wanted everyone to know that she was his and he was hers. As soon as he’d learned that’s what people did when they were in love and wanted the world to know, he’d asked Harper immediately. And she’d said yes. He was overjoyed that she didn’t agree that it was prudent or wise to wait. They were married in the Gallagher’s backyard under a summer sunset, surrounded by their new and old friends. Jak thought of them as their pack and he didn’t deny himself the thought. The feeling. The way it made him feel connected. Maybe his senses would grow less, maybe not, but a part of him would always be wild—the boy who’d grown up alongside a wolf who he’d loved like a brother—and to deny that, would be to deny Pup. To deny all that had brought him to the life he now lived. The life he loved with all his heart.
The baby had been unexpected, but since they’d both become used to the idea, they couldn’t stop smiling about it. They’d lie in bed at night just talking for hours about what he or she was going to be like, the things they wanted to teach their son or their daughter, the miracle of the life they’d created after they’d both cheated death more than once. And that tiny miracle made Jak want to learn everything he could about how to be a good father. A good pack leader. Mark and Laurie would help them. They’d already asked if they would act as grandparents to their baby and Laurie had cried, and Mark had pretended that he had something in his eye.
Jak had reached out to Almina Kavazovic—who he couldn’t help still thinking of as Baka—just a few months earlier and though Jak wasn’t sure what the future held as far as their relationship, he had needed to tell her he forgave her, and that she had been with him during so many times of struggle and loneliness. She had been his strength, and the reminder of his own. He had felt Harper’s mother—his priest, his Abbé Busoni—smiling down on him as he told her so.
Jak stared into the fire as Harper snuggled. The fireplace where he’d burned the bow and arrow set that he’d found in a corner of the attic after his grandfather had passed away, never recovering from his heart attack. The bow and arrow set that had been missing one arrow—the one used to kill Isaac Driscoll. But only he and Harper knew that.
His grandfather had given Jak a name. In return, he’d made sure his grandfather would keep his good one. If he hadn’t killed Driscoll, the program would have. With that assumption, the police had closed the case.
His grandfather had left almost everything to Jak in his will, providing a small settlement to his step-grandmother, who had flown into a rage in the lawyer’s office, screeching like one of her caged birds.
Jak had had those cages taken apart and moved them out of Thornland the same day he’d had all the cameras removed. He’d kept Nigel on. He was still oily, but Jak had come to appreciate him much more since he could sneak up on him and make him jump and squeak. Since Jak had inherited Thornland and Loni, Gabi, and Brett had moved out, he’d even caught Nigel almost smiling a time or two. Even oily creatures had their good points.
Mark had helped Jak hire an acting CEO for Fairbanks Lumber. Jak trusted the older man’s instincts about people, and the company was doing great under the new management. Jak was taking his time learning the business and found it surprisingly interesting. Maybe someday he’d participate more actively in running it. Someday when there weren’t so many other things to learn as well.
He and Harper had remained at the family estate that was close to Harper’s school, though they’d also bought a few acres of wilderness of their own and built a small cabin. They planned to spend summers there when Harper wasn’t taking classes, and as many weekends as possible. Summers . . . when the rivers were bursting with fish, the berries were ripe and sweet, and the sun opened the flowers and warmed the earth. But . . . Jak had a feeling they’d also need the massive estate to offer sanctuary, if necessary, to those lost children, many who were now adults, that the police were still searching for.
That dark feeling rose up inside when he thought of Dr. Swift and what might be happening in some godforsaken wilderness somewhere. He moved his hand slowly over the swell of his wife’s stomach, his breath evening, calm descending. Life. Miracles. Hope.
Harper stretched her arm, picking up the book on the table next to them. “Again?” she asked, her voice filled with gentle amusement.
Jak smiled as she placed his beloved copy of The Count of Monte Cristo back down. He’d just finished it for the sixth time. It was dog-eared and wrinkled. Cherished. Well loved. “Each time I read it I find something new inside. Some different lesson.” And a new favorite word, or three.
She smiled, resting her head on his shoulder, stifling a yawn. “What lesson did you learn this time?”
He thought of one of the quotes in the book that had spoken to him the loudest during this reading. All human wisdom is contained in these two words—wait and hope.
“That if we can hang on—survive—through the hard times in life, there is something better waiting for us. There’s a purpose we can’t always see. There’s an . . . order.” He’d felt it—that whisper, that unseen something that flowed through him, into and around all living things and back again. There were no words he’d found that fully captured it. God, maybe. Fate? Miracles? The souls who had passed before them? All he knew was that it was loving and good, and it sought to make things right. Just.
Those were new thoughts. Things he’d realized, taken in, applied. He felt proud. Changed. Better. “Yes,” she murmured, kissing his jaw, lacing her fingers with his own. “Yes.” She yawned again.
He brought her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckle. “Go up to bed. I’ll be there in a minute.”
She nodded, standing and giving him a small, sleepy smile before turning and heading upstairs. After a minute Jak stood too, leaving the library and making his way to the massive stone patio that ran the length of the house and overlooked the woods beyond.
The trees swayed, dancing to the sound of the wind, speaking an ancient language beneath the earth. He looked into the darkness, his mind picturing places far beyond what his eyes could see. Somewhere out there, the rest of his pack—his family connected by shared experiences few others would ever understand—lived and breathed, fought and struggled. He felt the whispers pick up inside. A song of unity and brotherhood. “Wait and hope,” he whispered to those unknown souls. “Wait and hope.”