“Can’t I just call you if I feel infected?” he asked.

“One night,” Cameron insisted. “We don’t know where those bear claws have been.”

“Someplace nasty—she had a terrible smell about her, like she’d been feeding in the dump. I was going to take Katie to Montana on Friday.”

“That might have to wait a week or so. I can write a letter so you get transfer credit on your tickets. You want to walk to the Humvee and lay on the gurney on your stomach?” he asked.

“After I have just a minute alone with Katie,” he said.

“You two kiss good-night, then let’s get going,” Cameron suggested. “We can give your grandmother a call from the hospital and tell her about all your excitement and that you’re fine.”

“Boys, come with me,” Conner said.

“Dylan?” Andy asked. “Are we gonna ride the horse?”

“Maybe next week,” Dylan said. “As soon as my scratch feels better.”

And slowly the cabin emptied of people. The sound of trucks and SUVs departing began to fill the night.

Dylan sat backward on a kitchen chair, straddling the chair so as not to disturb the antiseptic wash on his wounds. Katie stood in front of him. “This is not what I planned,” he said.

“This isn’t what anyone planned, Dylan. You saved Andy’s life, I’m sure of it. I don’t know how I’ll ever thank you.”

“That’s not what I meant, but you don’t have to worry about thanking me. See, I was holding a little something back because I had this grandiose plan for Montana. I was going to show you the place, the ranch, the airport, and you guys were going to have such a good time. I’d see you fall in love with it like I did. I’d get to watch the boys experience new things and get all excited. And then at night, when they were tucked in and asleep, I’d take you out on the back patio. I was going to show you that big, black sky at night—you can’t believe how many stars there are. And then I was going to tell you—I can’t live without you, Katie. I just can’t.”

“Dylan,” she whispered.

“I love you, Katie. I’ve never loved anyone before, not like this. I can’t be away from you for a day without thinking about how much I want to get home. And I don’t really care where home is—you can pick the moon for all I care. But, Katie, please, pick me. Marry me. Because you’re my life.”

She ran a hand along his cheek. Tears came to her eyes. “I thought you were more hit and run.”

“Yeah, what do I know,” he said with a laugh. “You amaze me every day, Katie. I want you in my life forever, through everything. I swear, I’ll make you happy or die trying.”

“No dying,” she said, shaking her head. “Been there, done that.”

“Marry me,” he said. “Let me take care of you and the boys and whoever you have in there. Love me. Choose me. Let me be your one.”

“Dylan, you are The One. You sure you want me? I don’t travel light.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” he said, pulling her mouth down to his for a kiss. “I’ve been wanting you since I found you in that wet T-shirt on the side of the road. You make my mouth water and my brain freeze—you are almost too much for my heart. I love you so much. I want you and your twins and your brother and Charlie’s medals. I want all of you. I want everything that’s part of you—your past, your present and your future. And I want you to be mine.”

She smiled despite the tear that rolled down her cheek. “I love you right back. Love you too much to even say how much, it’s that big. It’s bigger than you can imagine. And once I say yes, you’re totally stuck. I’ll tell everyone I know, including Conner, and there is absolutely no way out.”

He grinned at her. “I don’t want out, baby. I want in.”

Epilogue

It took three weeks for Dylan’s back to heal enough for him to fly with Katie and the boys to Montana and by then it was already well into August. They were picked up at the airport by Sue Ann Langston, or Mrs. Lang as Dylan liked to refer to her. She called him “D.” Sometimes she called him Big D because her two-year-old son was Little D. “Sorry to have appropriated the name, Katie,” she said. “I didn’t think Big D would ever get around to it!”

Katie found Sue Ann to be a complete delight—happy, friendly and very, very talkative in her excitement at meeting Katie and the boys. She told Katie everything she could think of about Payne on the ride from the Butte airport, including, “The weather has been awesome, the kids have been swimming at the lake whenever they can talk me into taking them and Lang is already working on a couple of charter bids out of L.A., trying to figure out what type of equipment is most cost-effective to put there.”

“Already?” Dylan asked.

“And nothing from your friend Jay, yet. Two of the industry people from your list jumped right on the opportunity. Dylan, this might just work out.”

Katie thought she was prepared for the beauty of the landscape since Dylan had described it so thoroughly and given her many comparisons to Virgin River. But she was stunned by the magnificence that was Montana and overwhelmed by the majesty of the mountain peaks and rich, green valleys. The drive to the valley that was Payne over the mountains gave views that caused her to gasp every time they came around another curve.

“And you look at this every day?” she asked Dylan.

“When I’m in town. Flying in here is awesome,” he said. “Sue Ann, pull over at the next lookout.”

A few minutes later Sue Ann brought the car to a stop at a wide space on a mountain road that overlooked a broad expanse of valley dotted with ranches. A stone wall bordered the lookout to keep people like crazy five-year-old boys from diving down the side of the mountain. Dylan jumped out and held the door for Katie, then the boys.

She stood at the wall and looked down. “My God,” she whispered reverently. “It looks like a postcard.”

He came up behind her, slipping his arms around her waist. Sue Ann joined them.

“See that small house at the far end of the valley?” Dylan asked her, pointing. “Just a small house, a barn, a couple of storage sheds you can barely see, a corral…that’s my place. And way down there on the other side of the pasture, way past the house, you can see the runway, hangars and a few planes.”

“All that is yours?”

“Kind of,” he said. “It’s mine and Adele’s. I borrowed from her to build the airport though I paid her back for that. She still owns the house and land, and put my name on the deed along with hers. You know her, she won’t take rent. I tried to buy it from her and she said if I argue any more, she’ll take her name off the deed altogether. She wants me to be here because I built the business here—she wanted to do something for me. It’s the only thing I’ve ever gone along with.”

She turned around to face him. “Why have you been so stubborn?” Katie asked.

“I had a lot to prove,” he said. “I wanted to show Adele that I grew up, that I could be responsible. I didn’t want her fixing things for me.” He kissed her.

One of the boys made a gagging sound and Sue Ann laughed.

“They never stop doing that,” Mitch said.

Andy looked up at Sue Ann. “He’s gonna be like our dad. Not our real dad, who died and went to live in heaven, but like our dad.”

“You okay with that?” Sue Ann asked with a smile.

“Yeah,” the boys said in unison. “We like him,” Mitch said. “He’s fun when he’s not kissing all the time.”

Dylan looked at Sue Ann over Katie’s head. “It’s a tough audience.”

Katie had turned back to the view. “Dylan, do you have a lot of cars?”

“Just a truck and a Harley,” he said. “It looks like an invasion down there.”

Sue Ann cleared her throat. “Yeah, there was really no keeping people away, once they figured out you were going to be in town. I could apologize, but there was nothing I could do, so I asked Lang and Ham to just get out the grill.”

“Who are they?” Katie asked.

“Oh, you know,” Sue Ann said. “The town.”

When they finally arrived at Dylan’s house it was almost dinnertime and there seemed to be a huge community there to greet them—employees from the airport, neighbors, friends. Katie was introduced to a couple of teachers from the town elementary school, two pilots who worked for Dylan, their families, a rancher who used Dylan’s pasture for grazing along with his wife and kids, and many others. Ham, a grizzled old guy with fingers bent from arthritis, merely nodded and gave a grunt when introduced and Dylan said, “He does speak, but not overly.” But apparently he knew child-speak because her boys wandered off not ten minutes later and she found them in the corral, each on his own horse with Ham managing the lead. There were a lot of other kids sitting on the rail, cheering and shouting instructions.

Most of the welcoming party was gathered outside because the weather was beautiful—seventy-five degrees with a pleasant breeze. The grill was lit, burgers and hot dogs cooked away, lots of side dishes were put out and there was plenty of lemonade and tea to drink, brought in huge thermoses. There were a few women in the kitchen, making sure things were cleaned up and tidy, and Katie slipped past them to take a look at the rest of the house.

Dylan had been honest, it wasn’t fancy, but she was charmed by it just the same. He had collected the kind of rustic furniture that would be at home in a log cabin, including a plush leather sectional in the living room. He had a big TV—he must like either movies or sports. His bedroom held an ordinary double-size bed—nothing of the hit and run bachelor here—no king-size bed or mirrored ceiling. This house had what people called a mother-in-law plan—another master bedroom on the other side of the house. This was probably a requirement for the old days when Adele and her grandson shared the house and Katie bet that Adele took the master with the bath. There were two bathrooms—one small master bath with a shower, and a hallway bath with a tub. And although there was a large kitchen table and breakfast bar, the dining room was void of furniture. Apparently Dylan didn’t entertain much.

Still, she liked the house. She liked the big, clear, beautiful land it sat on and the mountains that rose to the west. When she went back outside, her boys came shrieking and shouting toward her, barking dogs following them. “We rode horses,” they were yelling.

She crouched. “Did Ham talk to you?” she asked.

They both nodded. “He told us everything we had to do,” Andy said.

“He made us brush them after,” Mitch added. “And stay away from their feet.”

She laughed. Bribery, she thought. Clever.

The two things most of the town wanted to see were the claw marks on Dylan’s back and Katie’s ring. Since they’d had time before they could travel, Dylan took her to Eureka to shop for a ring—he couldn’t get her locked in fast enough. It wasn’t a real big ring, but it was a ring she picked for herself and she thought it beautiful. And the claw marks on his back had healed into a mean-looking, slightly raised red welt and won the admiration of the men here just as it had in Virgin River.

“Awesome,” someone said.

“Very cool,” said another.

“You’re going to get a lot of mileage out of that.”

The sun began to sink over the mountains in the west and suddenly, without warning, the party was over. Everyone packed up, wiped countertops, swept off the patio, closed up the grill, put outdoor chairs back where they belonged. They said quick, unfussy goodbyes. Like a parade, trucks and SUVs drove away from the property.