“I was thinking.” I turn to him and rest my head on the headrest. “We should spend Januarys in Key Largo.”

He squeezes my leg.

“Deal.”

Epilogue

Two years later…

I marry the hell out of Ethan; it’s as simple as that.

When he got down on both knees and proposed to me in the middle of the first Bethel farmers market of the season, I dropped down on my knees right along with him and kissed him through tears until he knew I was saying yes.

We got married on his property in July, one year after we met, with the Androscoggin River as the backdrop. Just us and our families.

Both Finn and Marin walked me down the grassy aisle as I carried a bouquet of Maine wildflowers—from the market—and wore a simple white dress.

My dad didn’t mind, he understood. This time around was different.

Hand in hand with my mom, he smiled proudly in an obnoxious shirt covered in moose and pine trees as my mom cried.

When the kids walked me to Ethan, they hugged me tightly, whispered I love you, then gently pushed me toward him. He was, as usual, handsome in his suit and smirk.

I barely made it through the simple vows before I jumped in his arms, wrapped my legs around his waist, and crushed my mouth to his.

Our reception happened right on his back porch. We ate burgers that Derek grilled and drank daiquiris I made… with Ethan.

Everyone smiled that day, but the one I noticed most was Finn’s.

It was broad and breathtaking. He was happy. We both were.

When he graduated high school, he went to work with Gabe on the boat and started earning his captain’s license. He’ll never leave the island. He might look like me, but he is still his father’s son. The Keys are just part of who he is. The saltwater there runs in his veins as thick as blood.

“One day,” he says, “I’ll have my own business and fleet of boats.”

I believe him.

Marin somehow graduated a year early, which was just so Marin of her. She traveled with me back and forth to Bangor while we got Ethan’s new restaurant running. One day, she told me she was never going back to Florida.

My spunky girl had met a boy in a band and was head over heels. So, she stayed. She’s now in cosmetology school and spends her days being unapologetically her while stealing glances at a boy with a guitar. She reminds me of me when I was a young bartender with hearts in my eyes for a baby-faced pilot.

I still see Travis from time to time. When a plane flies low overhead or when someone wears a ridiculous t-shirt, his face flashes in my mind quickly, like a happy dream, before it’s gone. There’s no painful longing, just admiration for the man I was lucky enough to love and be loved by. For the man who carved me into who I was meant to be without me ever noticing.

And me and Ethan?

We figured out how to make the miles less far.

The first year of my business had some growing pains. I took on too many clients and burned out fast. Eventually, I scaled back. Now, I take only a couple of consultations a month and never stray too far from home.

Or, more accurately, homes.

We now split our time between Key Largo and Maine. I can’t imagine I’ll ever spend another summer not breathing that northeastern air as much as Ethan would say he never wants to see another skin-slicing winter there.

Sometimes, I work behind the bar at his restaurant, and I think of who I was the first time I walked in. How I had no clue my life was about to be flipped upside down by that simple decision to sit at a bar next to a woman wearing entirely too much perfume.

Women still notice Ethan—I suspect they always will—but I’m not jealous anymore. How can I be when he always looks right past them to me with a fire in his eyes and a smile on his lips?

I make our coffee every morning, and he crawls into bed with me every night.

That summer we spent out on the road, I left Key Largo one person and came back another. Every stunning place and not nearly long enough moment with my kids, pieced me together just differently enough for a new map to unfold within me—one that led to a kind of happy life I didn’t know could exist without Travis.

Every beautiful mile led me to Ethan—the unexpected destination I didn’t know to look for but can’t imagine life without.

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