Colter’s second home he purchased himself, a 200-square foot Airstream, sleek and modern, simple and contained. He’d bought it after the search for Gina Pickett had run cold. As much as he’d cared about Camille, maybe even loved her, he’d felt shackled to her by the loss of Gina—and his inability to bring her home—the ghost of her sister haunting them until he couldn’t stand it any longer. He’d needed to move, to feel various terrains beneath his feet, to find the solitude he’d experienced growing up isolated and lonely, his spirit more wild than anything a concrete jungle and a tormented romance could offer him.

It suited him perfectly since he didn’t have or need much, and it gave him the mobility and freedom he craved, unrestrained by people and emotions that could scar him. Those he did know—and those were few—teased him about it, but he preferred his home without a foundation. It meant no one could strip it away from him. And if by some strange chance that happened, he could easily replace it and move on, no devastation, no attachment.

It also held happy memories, though a much more solitary kind. His trekking to all forty-eight of the contiguous states and most of the national parks, not something people could do with their home—and it housed his collection of mugs he’d acquired as souvenirs from those locales. In this home, he’d settled into adulthood, found a purpose for his life and the harsher things he’d endured growing up, and met his people: Bobby, Reenie, Teddi, Velma, Keaton. And he didn’t just shower and sleep there; he felt carefree, contained in tin but with the whole world open to him. A silver bullet that shot him around the country and granted him unfettered access to whatever his heart desired.

In the end, Colter’s heart desired the last home he knew he’d ever claim, a fixture so permanent he returned to it again and again when the storms of life beat against his body and ravaged his mind, when his weary soul couldn’t take the flint of the world and needed a soft place to land. This one, a brick house, smaller than the other two but formidable, stronger, and sturdier, gave him a solid foundation he hadn’t known since childhood. The comfort it supplied put him at ease in ways he couldn’t have dreamed of.

When the job loomed heavy before him, he longed to get back, to be enveloped in it again. It smelled sweet, a fragrance he carried with him in memory while on the road. And when he returned, when he settled into it and it surrounded him with its warmth, he knew he’d never find a more loving place to lay his head.

He’d doubted, at first, whether he was right for it, whether it would ever belong to him. He’d dedicated time to building the scaffolding and securing the emotional supports, and once he did, when he knew it’d forever be his, he fell into it completely, mind, body, and soul. It’d become the bedrock of his life, the one place he cherished above all others, solid ground on which to create memories for the rest of his life. Those memories looked different here than in his previous homes, offering him safety he hadn’t realized he lacked and meaning more to him than any of his paltry words could express.

Here, he was no longer alone. This home had its own heartbeat. It held his heart and had a voice that calmed his recklessness, hands that made him believe he was someone precious and valuable, that held him so carefully, so close, he felt fragile. And there, in Reenie’s arms, he was. Soft, breakable, defenseless—but not like glass, like a bomb.

They’d built their memories brick by perfect brick. When she’d come to him after landing her first client following the opening of her own firm, full of attitude and teasing before melting into vulnerability and unsurety as they toasted to new things together. Her “I like that you talk to me” admission over his story of pancakes. The way she’d looked wearing that fitted, flowy sundress and straw hat at that winery so many years ago, all cute and sensual and so far out of her halls of justice attire he could barely take his eyes off of her. God, he’d been smitten.

The way she’d drifted her fingers through his hair and kissed his forehead, whispering to him as he lay in a hospital bed, she worried sick, he coming back to consciousness but barely awake enough to force words out. The night he’d decided to try with her again, terrified she’d reject him but unable to live with the uncertainty another day. He’d stepped closer, enough to show intention but not enough to invade her space. She’d stared up at him, eyes wide with surprise and hunger, and she’d closed the space between them, her hands lifting to rest on his chest, searing his skin as he leaned to kiss her. Her lips were fire, burning her memory onto his mouth, her tongue sweeping flames through him as it danced with his, her moaning sighs burrowing into his heart as his arms snaked around her.

And every moment since then. Every time he came home to her. Every smile she beamed up at him. With every cooked meal and bouquet of flowers. Each heartache and secret shared. Every pancake made. Every quiet night. Every cuddle on the couch. Every disagreement and declaration of love and moment of ecstasy.

It had caught him by surprise, learning that a home didn’t need walls and a roof. She’d awakened a life inside of him he could feel again, taking him places he’d never been or imagined. He rested with her, returned to her, the only place in the world he truly belonged: in her arms. It didn’t matter anymore where he laid his head or where he got called to. He could lose everything he owned all over again in the span of a breath, and he wouldn’t give a damn this time. Because he felt home in Reenie’s arms, in her heart. In her love. Comfort and security, safety and devotion, a haven solid as an anchor against the onslaught of the world hidden inside a petite form he’d return to with every beat of his heart. The only home he wanted for the rest of his life.

No, Colter hadn’t know that a home didn’t have to have walls and a roof, hadn’t known that home could be a person. But he learned the minute he fell in love with and was loved completely by Reenie Greene, the moment she held him in her arms.