The Unexpected Expected Ending

Cassie returns with Alex back to L.A. in the hopes that now that she has a child, he will be more careful to care and to love and that will outweigh the abuse. Once they step off the plane, their image to the public is renewed, and they are seen as a helplessly in love couple protecting their newborn child. Everything begins to fall in place. Cassie stays home to take care of Connor and Alex offers to go to therapy. It's everything Cassie ever wanted in life. For her husband to admit that he abuses her and try to stop.
Therapy begins well. Cassie finds a great therapist who is willing to keep their names a secret. The two of them go to different group therapy sessions with wives who are abused and with husbands who are trying to stop. Cassie soon realizes that all of these women have the same story that she has. It's called 'battered woman syndrome' and Cassie is like a textbook case. She was never fully supported by her family, though she supported them and never received any thanks from them. She has gone through life quietly and controlled, caring for people but never really being cared for. When she found her husband he gave her all she could ever dream of having. Love. But because he wasn't raised right, she found herself taking care of him, showing him the love that he had never received. And then came the beatings. Everything was perfect until one thing went wrong. And that one thing flipped a switch in him that made him turn on her. It was usually something she couldn't control but that he saw as her being taken away from him. He was incapable of sharing her. He didn't let he have friends of her own because he was jealous for her. And if that ever came up, if he ever felt neglected, he would react by beating her.
She realized he was acting like this with Connor. She realized he only saw his son as someone to compete with for attention rather than someone to love. He would never love their son the way that Cassie loved him. And that almost sealed the deal for her, but she was doing well in therapy. She thought she was making some strides and hopefully Alex was too.
Cassie was feeling supported in therapy. She was hearing these women's stories and they were hearing hers with sympathy and love. But then when her therapist pulled her aside one week and told her to check on Alex and his therapy sessions, she realized she was in trouble. Alex had skipped out for two weeks with the excuse of work. He wasn't really willing to work on it. He wasn't really willing to go to therapy. So she came home. And realized he was not getting the help he needed.
She came home upset, ready to ask him about therapy, but she walked in on him with whiskey in hand and her baby playing on the floor. She was furious at him for drinking around her son. And then he lashed out at her for his image in the papers. Because she left him 10 months earlier, he became the punching bag for the press. They tore him apart and weren't willing to let his career survive without some investigation into his wife's pregnancy. And that's when she realized he would never forgive her. His image would always be at fault because of her.
He flew into a rage and beat her, with Connor crying on the floor. After Alex was finished, Cassie picked Connor up to sooth him. It was the beginning of the end.
That night, Cassie realized that she could never disappear. If she wanted to leave, she would have to publicly leave him. She wanted her freedom, not just her safety. She realized that the only way he would let her go was if he no longer loved her. So she was going to make him hate her.
The next morning she filed for a divorce and scheduled a press conference. At the press conference, she announced her divorced based on 'extreme cruelty' citing that Alex had abused her and she had the proof of the bruises on her body. The press threw a fit. But she didn't care. She was free. And as she looked into the crowd, she saw a lone man in the corner. Alex. He understood. Or at least she thought he did. He looked at her with a somber glance and he was gone. She would never know, because she would never speak to him again, but she believed that he finally let her go.
She'd find a place to stay. Will had moved to Tacoma, and she had planned on meeting him there. But that didn't matter. It didn't matter where she went or what she did. She was free. And her son was safe.

A New Life and A New Marriage (Hopefully)

Cassie carries her baby to full-term, and gives birth on the reservation to a beautiful baby boy she names Connor. Originally, she hadn't thought past giving birth to the little life that she was trying to protect from Alex, so she's not really sure what her plan is from here on out.
Through the pregnancy, Will and his family took amazing care of her, and welcomed her on to the reservation. Although she was first seen as strange because of her race, people have grown to love her, because she's Cassie and she doesn't try to fit it. She just assimilates due to her character. She's formed a little home in the desert, and isn't quite ready to leave. For weeks, when she's just approaching 9 months, she has an anxiety that she can't seem to shake. Fear of the future has begun to grip her, and she can't forsee how she will react when she holds her son in her arms.
Of course, being Cassie, she is naturally protective, and decides that the tiny life that she holds so dear may need a few more months before meeting his father. Connor is so fragile that Cassie is incredibly scared of the pain he may encounter when he meets his father. But, nonetheless, she ends up calling Alex when she hears that his cover has been blown.
Meanwhile, Alex is drinking himself into a stupor, distraught over where his one true love could have gone, and why she would have left him in the first place. He promises himself that if she calls he'll tell her he'll do anything to get her back,  even go to therapy, or sleep in a separate room, to try to prevent his abuse of her.
So when she calls, he's striving to see her so deeply that he breaks his promise to her to leave her alone for another month. She tells him where she is and he is there in at least two weeks, two weeks before he promised.
But their reunion is nothing I expected, or wanted. She is perpetually forgiving, and holds him in her arms with all the love in the world, and shows him his son. Although he's afraid he will break Connor if he even touches him, she lets him hold Connor and sees how good a father he could become. Cassie and Alex are back together. Despite what Will has ever wanted.
Will, of course goes off into a rage once Cassie leaves with Alex. Because he can no longer protect the woman he loves, he is lost. And wanders around the reservation with no purpose in mind, other than redemption for her.
Cassie flies back to L.A. to her life as Alex's wife and Connor's mother. Will she be protected because of Connor? Will Connor be protected? Or will Alex fall back into the same pattern that his father taught him growing up?

A Twist in the Story

As Cassie continues to describe her back story with Alex, we learn more and more about how abusive, emotionally and physically their relationship is. She believes that she is his redeemer, that she is the only one who can make him feel wanted and supported. It's understandable that he needs someone to support him, given the way he grew up with parents who were never there for him. But, the way that she is viewing marriage is much more dependent on her side and not as codependent. It's not balanced and she's expecting herself to be his all, when she'll never be able to fill that gap, and shouldn't be expected to.
Finally, after the entire back story has been told, we return to the present with a determined Cassie devising a plan to leave Alex until her baby is born. His baby. Because that matters greatly to her. He's never wanted children because of his parents track record, and even though she wasn't trying to get pregnant, it happened, and she is much less than willing to abort it for his sake. She realizes that a life other than hers is in her hands, and she acts responsibly by running to somewhere safe.
She runs to Will Flying Horse, the man we met at the beginning of the novel, who found her in the graveyard. Strangely he was expecting her. Not in a weird way, but in a comforting way, like he knew she was coming even before she did. As he lets her into his house and gently touches the places were she is bruised, she can't help but feel safe. And as he takes her into his embrace he tells her that he believes her. Because she's afraid that no one will believe her, that her husband, the golden boy America is in love with, is abusive of the wife he so clearly loves. But Will believes her, and she has found her safe haven for the time being.
Obviously she can't stay in L.A. So he takes her back to his reservation, on the Sioux territory, somewhere even the government has forgotten about.
But as they return, he can't help but feel frustrated that everything in his life keeps dragging him back to this place that he had once known and had always hated. He'd always wanted to escape it, and here he is returning to it as a safe haven.
He introduces Cassie to his grandparents, who reluctantly welcome her for the time being. She only plans to stay for about 9 months, but soon enough, they've fallen in love with her, just like Will has. He has this strange attraction to her, something that she has draws him in, and he can't imagine letting her back into Alex's abusive arms. He's become protective, and jealous, and he's known her less than a few months.