She put on her overalls and painted her own logo on the doors. Because it was hers now.

And then she worked for nine more hours, managing to text Asa here and there about what had happened. PJ was still stunned from watching her mother tell her father she was going on a trip for six weeks and that she planned to have her things moved into storage until her return, when she’d set up her own home.

But as she got into her car, she knew the other end of her journey was a place she could call home because of the man inside it. He made her safe.

Her brawling, ink-covered, motorcycle-riding, race-car-driving badass, who protected just as fiercely as he fought. Through all the turmoil and drama, he’d been there. Letting her work it all through. Helping when he could, listening. Always her number one fan.

That was something good to hold on to.

He heard the garage door open and went downstairs to meet her.

“I stopped by my apartment and brought some stuff. I mean, like I said, I can’t move in for good until my lease is up. But it’ll be nice to have more stuff here in the meantime.”

“Come here.” He took the suitcase, set it aside, and pulled her close. “Hi. Have a glass of wine while I get dinner made. Tell me about it at whatever pace you want to.”

Epilogue

“So really, I’m saying that when it comes to King, I like to see the movie adaptations as sort of a tribute to the work rather than an outright copy of the book. Scary stuff is internal. It’s hard to make something so personal appeal universally, you know?”

He moved her leg to get at the bowl of chips. “I don’t know. How can you read The Shining and then think Kubrick did it justice?”

“You’re going to hell for that blasphemy, Asa.”

She crawled from their very large hotel bed in their very swanky borrowed digs overlooking the beauty that was Vancouver’s huge skyline. “I need more water. Want some?”

“I want more champagne.”

She brought the bucket and glasses over and got back into bed. “Kubrick’s version is fantastic. It’s his take on King’s material. An homage. Like I was just saying. Don’t expect it to be what it can’t be. You’ll be happier.”

“King wasn’t happy.”

“If you wrote the book, you get to be pissed it’s not what you expected.”

“You have a very detailed set of rules about life, Penelope Jean. I don’t know how you remember them all.”

“Basically, it’s be nice to people, don’t show your butt in public, and don’t complain your sack of gold is too heavy. Everything in the rules is based on that.”

He laughed, putting the chips aside again and getting her under him. “You should start your own calendar series. PJ’s Rules for Life. I’d buy it.”

He slid into her pussy easily, like he was meant to be there. Which he believed he was. And because they’d already had sex multiple times, so she was slick and hot.

A year ago he’d had no idea she existed; now he was sure he couldn’t live without her. Funny how the world worked.

His PJ was unexpected. Loud. Funny. A pain in his ass. Uppity. Resourceful. Sexy. So much stronger than she gave herself credit for.

“There is nothing more beautiful than you,” he said, kissing her as he began a slow thrust. He’d seen the youth and the beauty and had overlooked the person inside at first. It scared him sometimes, the idea that he could have missed her and made different choices and he’d be alone, or with some random person he didn’t want to breathe in.

But she got in his face and made him see. Made him understand. Changed him to his very bones. He could race and fight and get grease under his nails and she didn’t care. If he was happy, she was happy. Which seemed so deceptively simple, when really it was that she worked really hard to love him.

She wrapped her legs around him, arching up into each press he made into her body.

“Except being seen as beautiful by you.”

“Damn, we’re sickening.”

She laughed. “So Duke says all the time. I think we’re awesome.”

“Okay then. We’ll go with that.”

He made her come again before he joined her and they napped, still wrapped around each other.

Two days and they’d go back to Seattle. They’d break ground on the new building that would house the Twisted Steel showroom and expand the shop space into the old showroom area. They’d signed the papers to buy the land the week before.

They’d go back and he’d open his eyes to see her next to him every morning. Come home to her every night. In just a year, everything had changed. She’d blown into his life and held on, and he’d been surprised and then oh-so-fucking-grateful for her.