Page 138 of Archer

A little undignified, whiny sound escaped me and I leaned carefully back against the pillows.

“Oh!”

“Fine.” I croaked.

She set down her mug and closed the space between us, wrapping me gently in her arms.

I relaxed slowly backward, and she came with me, careful to avoid my injuries and bandages.

She laughed softly as she kissed my cheek and jawline, little puffs of giggles pressing rhythmically against my ribs. “Care if I hover like this for a bit?”

I wrapped my arms gingerly around her and held her close.

“I love you,” I said. “I love this little life we’re making, and I love everything about our future already.”

Harper pulled back to look into my eyes, emotion welling there, her smile warm and bright. “I love you, too,” she said. “And I am all yours. Forever.”

Epilogue

Harper

The Ryman had a way of making me feel small and enormous at the same time.

I stood in the wings, listening to the crowd fill the auditorium. Four thousand seats. Historic pews instead of chairs. Walls that had absorbed the voices of Patsy and Hank and Dolly. The air felt weighted by old wood and older ghosts.

Six months ago, I’d stood backstage at a different venue as an opening act, counting the minutes until I could get back to my hotel room and deadbolt the door.

Tonight, the stage was mine.

“Two minutes.” My tour manager, Bren, materialized at my elbow with a headset around her neck and a clipboard that hadn’t left her hand in three days. She looked at me hard. “You good?”

“Better than good.”

She searched my face for doubt. When she didn’t find any, she exhaled. “Okay. Good. Because those people out there—” she tilted her head toward the stage “—they already love you. All you have to do is show up.”

She squeezed my arm and disappeared back into the controlled chaos of crew, cables, and last-minute adjustments.

I rolled my shoulders and thought about the album. Carolina Bay. Twelve tracks about the year that had broken me open and rebuilt me into something truer. The album Alexis negotiated into existence through six weeks of brutal contract negotiations with a label that finally understood what an independent partnership could look like.

An album that debuted at number four on the charts four days ago and was still climbing.

I pressed my palm flat against my sternum and breathed. In through the nose. Out through the mouth.

Alexis had called this morning from New York. You’re trending, she’d said, as if that settled it. I’d laughed so hard I cried.

The lights in the auditorium dimmed, and the crowd’s murmur pitched higher. Anticipatory, electric.

I stepped to the edge of the wings and looked out.

Front row, center.

Archer.

He was already watching for me, eyes fixed on the stage. At his size, he stood out even seated, broad-shouldered in a dark button-down he’d ironed himself that morning while I watched from bed, too happy to move. He’d caught me smiling at him and gone back to work without a word. Just a small, private curve of his mouth.

That was Archer. Whole sentences in a single expression.

Nash sat on his left, arms crossed, jaw set in the deliberate calm he wore behind his badge — which probably meant he was nervous and covering it. Maggie sat beside him, practically vibrating, in the sequined top she’d texted me three photos of before buying. On Archer’s right, Knox sat straight-backed and still. Sloane’s hand rested on his knee. Colton had managed to score a bandana with my initials on it somewhere between the hotel and their seats, and he wore it proudly at the end of their row.