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And so it has been written, that once a man has conquered the wild in a creature, it is his forever.
Epilogue
Two years later
Summer had come to Colorado.
Even this high up on the mountain, the heavy snows of winter were finally gone.
Charlie was standing at the kitchen window of their two-story log home, watching Jade puttering about on the sunny side of the porch, picking herbs from the pots in which they were growing.
His heart was full. His life as perfect as it had ever been. If he’d known being retired would be this amazing, he wouldn’t have dreaded growing old. He’d had no idea this beautiful dragon was already his life, just waiting for him to wake up and claim her.
He took delight in watching her pick the leaves from the herbs, lifting each one close to her face to savor the scents. First of rosemary and mint, and then the basil and sage.
He had a sudden urge to join her, and set his empty coffee cup down beside the book he’d given her for Christmas their first year here.
It was The Velveteen Rabbit, and he’d signed it.
To Jade, with love... Charlie.
When she’d said she’d never heard of the story after they’d found it in Sonny Burch’s apartment, he couldn’t believe it. And he’d seen the way she’d touched the words written inside Sonny Burch’s copy, right before they found the map—the map that ultimately led Sonny to life in a federal prison.
Charlie also knew she had nothing left from her time with her mother, and that UT had stolen her childhood. In his heart every child should have heard this story. And as far as he was concerned, it was never too late to rectify a wrong.
She’d cried when she’d opened the gift, and then cried again when she read it. After that she read it at least once a week. He didn’t know exactly what corner of her broken life it had filled, but it made him happy to know he’d been the one to fill it.
A squirrel was scolding her from a nearby tree, and she was laughing now. He couldn’t resist that sound and left the cabin to join her.
Jade heard him before she saw him, and when he came up from behind her and put his arms around her, she leaned back against him and closed her eyes, savoring the size of him, and the strength of him and feeling every heartbeat of his love for her.
“Good morning, pretty girl,” Charlie said. “What magic are you about today?”
She turned around and kissed his cheek.
“Whatever you and life hand me,” she said.
Charlie grinned and then slid an arm across her shoulders as they stood gazing out across the forest around them.
The cabin had been a find, and with a little remodeling, it became the perfect spot for a dragon’s lair. Charlie said he knew how to get lost, and he hadn’t lied.
They were miles away from the nearest town at the foot of the mountain, and two thousand feet higher in altitude. The little town had a population of less than three thousand people, and without the makeup and clothes from before, Jade easily passed for just another woman who had survived breast cancer.
There was no more Wyrick. Just Jade, who was Charlie Dodge’s wife. Except for the shiny black chopper in a hangar at the edge of the forest, and the little runway from it to the helipad behind the cabin, and, of course, the radio tower shooting a thousand feet up into the sky, they were just another couple who’d opted for a simpler life.
Charlie fished when he wanted to in the stream below the cabin, and kept the grounds mowed and firewood cut for the fireplace in the great room.
They had a basement below the house with little grow lights for the hothouse tomatoes—grown from the seeds of Merlin’s tomatoes that she still loved to eat. She still created games and invented and filed for patents on things that would one day run a world that had yet to come into existence.
Her wealth had grown into an excessive and embarrassing amount, and so every now and then when she saw an opportunity or read about a tragedy or a disaster, a huge and anonymous donation would come to those in need.
The world had mostly forgotten about Wyrick.
Some thought she had died.
Others thought the alien world from which she’d come had just taken her home.
Only a few knew that they’d run for their lives, and out of love for the both of them, never spoke their names again.
Jade lived without a demand on her life, and without fear for it, as well.
She spent every night in Charlie’s arms, loving and knowing she was loved.
Charlie Dodge had been the missing piece to her broken life—the omega man she didn’t know existed until fate put him in her path.
It was the perfect end to a tragic-filled story—living happily ever after.