by Cora Seton
This time she wanted to savor their lovemaking and enjoyed his caresses, moving with him slowly, softly, until he rose above her, his strong arms framing her, his thighs flexing against hers.
Avery opened to him, content to let him take control. She closed her eyes and sent her awareness through her body as he entered her, becoming pure sensation until his every stroke had her tingling to her fingertips.
Walker was magnificent, and each sweep of her fingers down his muscular back increased the tension building inside her. Could she ever get enough of this?
She didn’t think so.
As he increased the pace of his thrusts, her body hummed with pent-up wanting until Avery knew she was close to losing control.
“Avery,” he murmured. She opened her eyes to meet his gaze, seeing so much love there, she thought she might get lost in it. With a final thrust he undid her, and she arched back, waves of release rippling through her over and over again until she didn’t know if she could go on. Walker bucked against her, his muscles a thing of beauty as they tensed and released. She clung to him, riding the wave of his body, then cried out with a second release of her own.
When she finally came to herself again, Walker had spilled over to rest beside her, one leg still flung over hers. His arms held her against him, and he was pressing kisses to her neck and collarbone.
“How will we ever stop?” she asked him.
He gathered her closer. “I don’t know.” He was already coming back to life, already caressing her again.
“I love you,” she told him. “Always will.”
“Love you, too.”
“It was all worth it, wasn’t it?”
He turned over and pulled her on top of him again, pushing up to his elbow to take one of her nipples into his mouth. “I would do it all over again if it meant getting to be with you,” he confirmed.
And then she was lost in him again.
Epilogue
‡
One year later
It’s going to be a busy day,” Riley said to Boone as they snuggled together in bed. He liked this time of day best of all, waking well before sunrise naturally from years of habit. Riley woke early, too. Usually their son, Jason Jericho Rudman, JJ for short, was the first one up, but today he was still sleeping. Boone couldn’t believe that he was over eight months old already. JJ was alert, interested in everything—and fast. Boone was amazed at how much trouble a baby could get into if you turned your back on him.
He was happiest crawling around the floor of their tiny house and already attempting the ladder to the loft. Curtis had come up with an attachment designed to foil the baby from making it up the rungs. Just in time, too—Boone had caught Jason three feet off the ground the other day before they installed Curtis’s safety device.
“I’m not sure if I’m ready for all the people coming today.” It was still blissful to wake up most mornings and know the day was his own. No nosy cameramen looking over his shoulder while he planned improvements to the greenhouses or community. No one lurking around when he and Riley stole a moment alone.
“It’s for only a few hours,” Riley reminded him. “I wonder how many people will show up for the open house?”
“Renata thinks it will be a lot. That’s why Fulsom is filming it.” Boone had thought the man would disappear from their lives as soon as they’d played out their parts on his television show, but to his surprise he had more contact now with the billionaire than he did when they were being filmed for the weekly show.
“I needed to keep my distance to keep things fair,” Fulsom had told him once when he’d spent a weekend at Base Camp after the show ended. “Now I can keep in touch more. Get to know you all better. Base Camp is like a living laboratory. You can tell me what’s working and what isn’t, and I can put my innovation divisions to work to find solutions and enhancements.”
Fulsom was already working to design better midrange wind turbines big enough to power small communities like theirs but not so big that they require more resources to maintain than a small community might have. Boone hoped he’d take on some other projects as well.
“I’d better look my best, then, especially since there will be cameras around. Base Camp, One Year Later,” she intoned dramatically. “We wouldn’t want to disappoint the viewing public.” She edged out of his arms, ready to get up, but Boone pulled her back again.
“One more minute.”
“You always say one more minute and then it’s an hour.”
He smiled, pressing a kiss to her neck. “I can’t help that I’m irresistible.”
“You really are,” she agreed, melting in his arms, but when Jason let out a soft cry from his crib on the main floor, she sighed. They both knew there was no putting off their son. He might start slowly, but those cries would ramp up fast. “Be right back.”
In a moment, Riley had slipped from their bed and stepped down the ladder, reappearing some minutes later with a freshly diapered baby in her arms. They’d installed a railing and baby gate across the edge of the loft so Jason could hang out with them up here safely while they got ready for the day. Handing him to Boone, she crawled back under the covers.
“Thought you were getting up.” He smiled at her.
“One more minute,” she said. “I want to spend some time with my two favorite men.” When she was comfortable, she added, “I wonder how Byron will frame this show.” It was to be a two-hour special. Film production capabilities had grown rapidly at Base Camp. Renata and Eve had taken the first few documentaries they’d worked on and run with it, and Byron kept working for Fulsom even after the show was over. As the community had expanded, Fulsom had hired him for other one-time shows featuring new members of the community and their experiences, and Boone knew Byron was developing a new television show in partnership with him.
“I suppose he’ll compare how things were two years ago when we first arrived to how they are today.”
“I can’t believe we have sixty people living here now.”
“I can’t believe we survived the show.”
“It’s been a year!” Riley reminded him.
“Every day I wake up, look around and think, ‘Fulsom can’t take Base Camp away,’ and I’m just as relieved as I was the day Fulsom gave you the deed.”
“I guess I’ve settled in more than you,” Riley said. “This is my home. It was always meant to be, and now here we are. This is the only possible ending I could stand.” She bent down to drop a kiss on Jason’s little forehead. He was struggling to pull himself up to a standing position, gripping fistfuls of his father’s skin, pinching Boone.
Boone detached him and let his son hold on to his fingers instead. “Look at you. Soon enough you’ll be riding a horse!”
“He is not riding Behemoth,” Riley said automatically. It was a topic they’d covered many times before.
“Not to begin with,” Boone agreed. “Maybe something smaller,” he told Jason.
Riley leaned her head against his shoulder. “I’m happy,” she told him. “I have everything I want.”
“Then I’m happy, too.”
It really was time to get up, but Riley still hesitated. She loved these quiet times with her husband and baby son. All too soon they’d join the others for chores and breakfast, and their busy day would start, but Boone’s words had reminded her of all she had to be grateful for.
Just over two years ago, she’d received word that the adoption she’d counted on wouldn’t go through. The grief she’d felt that day had faded, replaced by the wonder and joy of holding her son in her arms. She hadn’t just wanted a baby back then; she’d wanted a partner to go through life with. A man to love, who would love her back. A family.
Now she had both.
She wasn’t lonely anymore, the way she’d been in those days. All her best friends—old and new—lived with her, worked with her and celebrated their mutual accomplishments with her. Every day there was a new challenge to face together. She couldn’t b
elieve how different her life had become.
As she slipped out of bed to get dressed for the day, she wondered how many other people would choose to band together as she and her friends had. It was true Base Camp was growing, but one of the innovations they’d put into place was the concept of micro-communities, groups of ten to fifteen families that lived near each other, turned primarily to each other for mutual aid and voted for a representative among them to meet with other representatives to sort out larger issues that affected them all.
Base Camp could hold only so many people, but Boone was very involved with a group who were drafting resources for others who might want to form similar communities. Riley knew how important it was to him to pass on any help he could to those just starting out. Fulsom was making grants available to those needing to purchase land. She had no doubt in the next few years other groups would replicate what Base Camp had done.
She liked to focus on more local, intimate things. Boone shared the responsibility of watching Jason, of course, and there were always plenty of hands around to help out in a pinch. Everyone had drawn up a roster of child-care hours. With twenty-two of them, including Byron and Leslie, who weren’t pregnant yet but were determined to do their share, it was easy to divvy up two-hour shifts. With two people watching the kids at any given time, that meant each of them pulled one shift about every other day, leaving them with plenty of time to get to their other chores.
“I’ll be quick in the shower and get coffee on while you take your turn,” she told Boone. Downstairs, she hesitated as she passed the large canvas on an easel in one corner of their living room area. Fitting in time to paint wasn’t always easy, but she’d amassed enough work to secure her first public showing in town. Her audience would be local. While she was far from gaining fame from her paintings, she’d come a long way from the days when she didn’t pick up a brush for months at a time.
She had more to inspire her these days, as well. As she worked in the greenhouses, or explored the ranch with Jason and Boone, ideas percolated in her mind. She found herself tuning her palette to the colors she saw outside, and the energy of the land and workers around her funneled through her onto the canvases she painted.
She checked to be sure she’d laid out the outfit she wanted to wear. These days, they saved their Regency gowns for Sunday dinners, special occasions and when they worked at the bed-and-breakfast. Sometimes she missed the crazy, early days of her time at Base Camp, but it was a relief not to have to do all the hard work in a fancy dress. It made the times they wore them more special. The best of both worlds.
She had everything she wanted, she thought as she stepped in the shower.
And every day brought some new experience to treasure.
“One year down, four to go,” Dell said.
Clay grabbed a plate off the stack set on the table in the bunkhouse and advanced in line to get his breakfast. Ahead of him, Nora was chatting with Savannah about the day’s plans. He switched his daughter to his left arm, hoping he could manage without spilling his food when the time came. Constance was just over thirteen months old now, a sweet brunette with a bow-shaped mouth and the determination to take on the whole world. For now, she was watching the gathered breakfast crowd.
Plotting her next attack.
“That’s right.” Sometimes Clay burned to be further along in his studies, but he was pleased he and his father had both made it through the first year of their architectural program. They were enrolled in a five-year professional course. He’d thought they might take much longer to accomplish their goals, only attending school part-time, but his family had gotten together and worked out how to make it possible for them to attend full-time.
Nora took his child-care shifts and still worked with the building crew, as did he and his father in their spare time, the two of them getting as much work done as Clay would have if he hadn’t been attending school. His mother, Lizette, had taken on more shifts to cover expenses at home, and the rest of Clay’s siblings were doing what they could to pitch in with maintenance, shopping and other chores at their parents’ house to make things easier while Dell was in school.
Someday both of them would be licensed architects. Meanwhile, they planned to spend the summer working with Nora, Curtis and the rest of the building crew. They had three tiny house projects lined up off Base Camp, along with helping with all the new construction on the ranch itself and consulting with Montague on his latest development.
“Nice to have a day off,” Dell said.
Lizette, who’d just joined them, laughed. “You hate days off.”
“Not when they aim to be busier than a regular workday.”
Clay knew what he meant. Today was Base Camp’s first annual open house, during which the public could come and tour the ranch, see the original tiny houses, the gardens and the new groups of homes going up in several areas of the property. They could learn about renewable energy and the way Base Camp’s inhabitants were getting things done. A cross between a party and a symposium, it was bound to be an all-hands-on-deck type of day.
In other words, right up Dell’s alley, which was why he’d opted to arrive before breakfast.
“I’m sure you’ll have fun.” Lizette patted Dell’s shoulder affectionately. “I’ve been drafted to lead tours of the manor. Let me take Constance,” she added when the little girl began to wiggle. “I’ll get my food when you two are settled in.”
Clay handed her over gratefully. “Be good for Grandma,” he told Constance.
“You’re always good for Grandma, aren’t you?” Lizette kissed Constance’s nose and elicited a giggle.
“You’ve got a lot to be proud of here,” Dell said.
Clay nodded. He was proud. Sometimes he thought back to his time in Yemen, Hendrik Fergusen on the other end of the satellite phone, talking about being content in the middle of a disaster. Like Hendrik, he felt fulfilled. He was doing work he loved, studying to be an architect. He had found mutual respect with his father and grown closer to his mother.
He spent his days with his friends, men and women he trusted to have his back.
And then there was Nora.
He still couldn’t believe he’d won her hand in marriage, and he was happy to see that as time went on, the worried frown that had often creased her brow when he met her smoothed. Smiles lit up her face far more often these days, and love shone in her eyes—for Constance and for him.
She’d rallied over the last year, overcoming the trauma of her stalker’s attack and healing her wounds, physical and mental. These days she jogged every morning, worked hard with the building crew and spent the remainder of her workday split between home and the Crow reservation, developing textbooks and curriculum with Sue. They’d launched their flagship textbook to quite a bit of praise and were working hard to expand the curriculum. Clay had no doubt someday the two of them would head an educational publishing empire.
“Clay? I said you have a lot to be proud of,” his dad repeated.
“Thanks.” He gripped Dell’s shoulder for a minute, then released him. “So do you.”
Nora checked to make sure Constance was secured in her backpack carrier as she waited with Clay, Dell and Curtis for the open house to begin and the public to arrive. She was one of several people tasked with walking people through a tiny house to give them a better perspective on living quarters at Base Camp and answer their questions. Clay and Dell were manning a booth with pamphlets and information about their construction business, while Curtis would be answering questions about his finish work. Daisy had found herself a patch of shade to rest in.
Nora looked forward to the day and was pleased to find almost no traces of the fear that had dogged her in her early time at Base Camp. As the months passed from Andrew Pennsley’s death, she became more secure that her ordeal was truly over. She was safe here at Base Camp, surrounded by friends who loved her rather than teaching colleagues who bore a grudge.
Clay made her feel safe and loved
every day. He made time every evening to sit with her under the stars, if the weather was good, or snuggle up on their couch inside if it wasn’t, to talk through their days, patient with the petty worries and issues she was sure would bore a man.
In turn, she tried to be patient with his frustrations as he navigated school and work. Sometimes she knew it galled him he was getting to his education this late in the game, especially when his classmates acted their youthful age, but most of the time he was able to see the humor in it and was grateful he’d gotten the chance at all. “At least I’m not my dad’s age,” he often said.
“Here they come,” Dell said.
“Ready?” Clay asked her.
“I’m ready.” Nora’s heart expanded when he reached over to kiss first her and then Constance, who was bouncing up and down in her backpack with excitement at the people streaming toward them. Constance loved everyone, and Nora had no doubt she’d make friends today. Lizette had promised to take her when she got tired of being carried around.
As the first people arrived at their station, couples young and old clustered around the booth to talk to the men about the construction process, while others came straight to where Nora and the other “tiny house tour guides” were waiting to show them the actual houses. Nora’s first customers were three twentysomething women who oohed and aahed over every inch of her home.
“We’re looking at a piece of land near Billings,” one of them said. “We think we can afford it if we pool our money. Then we’ll need to build something.”
“We all just graduated,” another said. “We don’t want to pay rent; we want to try to own something.”
“Are all three of you going to live in one tiny house?” Nora loved her friends, but she wasn’t sure how that would have worked out.
“We thought we’d build one, move in together to save money, build the next one and so on. They’re about the size of the dorm room we shared.”
“You’d better check the building code,” Nora warned them, and they were off on a conversation that kept going until she turned them over to the men outside. She saw them loading up on brochures and pigeonholing Dell soon after. If they approached the whole project with this kind of enthusiasm, she was sure they’d get it done.
