Then he just stood there a moment, eyes on hers, fingers lightly rubbing her skin.
“Riding’s out.” He vaulted over the fence. “But we can take a walk.”
“I haven’t even gone in to say hello to your mother.”
“Couple of minutes.”
With her hand in his, the sun warm on her face, she walked with him.
She heard a cow lowing off in a field, and a chittering she knew came from some busy squirrel. And through an open kitchen window came laughter.
“You’ve put pansies in.” She paused a moment, looking at the pots on the back porch steps. “My grandmother always put pansies in early, in the window box outside the kitchen window. She said they made her smile while she did dishes. Made her happy spring was coming around again.”
“I didn’t think you’d stay through the winter.”
Genuinely surprised, she stared up at him. “Why?”
“I figure now it was my problem more than yours.” He drew her around the front side of the house, and to the bench between the ginkgo trees. “I thought, just look at her, she’ll run back to New York after her first Montana blizzard. But you didn’t.”
“You really saw me as that…” What was the word he’d used for Alice? Spine. “That spineless?”
“No. That was mostly me, and it wasn’t my spine I was worried about. Can we sit a minute? I feel like I’ve got to finish this out.”
“Yeah, maybe you should.”
“Jessica. I’d say I saw you as this exotic bird. So pretty it hurt my eyes, and just out of my reach. Apt to fly off.”
“Exotic bird, my butt. I’ve worked all my life, and worked hard. I—”
“More about me than you,” he reminded her. “The first time I saw you, you were wearing a red suit, and your hair was coiled up, and you smelled like something mysterious blooming in a hothouse. You shook my hand, and said: ‘Jessica Baazov, it’s nice to meet you.’ I could barely get my tongue to work. And all I could think was I hope like hell Bo doesn’t hire this one.”
“Well. That’s nice to know.”
He just put a hand heavy on her shoulder when she started to get up. “I told her it was a mistake when she did, and I’ve come around to seeing that was a lot more about me than you.”
In a defensive gesture, she folded her arms under her breasts. “If you’d taken such an instant dislike to me, I’m surprised you didn’t put a lot more pressure on Bodine.”
“It wasn’t dislike, and pressuring Bodine when her mind’s made up’s a waste of time. Taking your time’s not wasting it.”
And he took his time now.
“I thought it was a mistake, believed it was because I didn’t see you staying. So pretty, so polished, I didn’t see how you’d fit in. And since I was damn near struck deaf, dumb, and blind the first time I saw you in that red suit, it didn’t bode well for me. I figured to keep my distance until Bo came home and said how I was right and you were leaving.”
“Apparently you’ve been disappointed there.”
“No, just wrong. I kept my distance as best I could because every time I saw you I wanted to touch you. And I knew if I touched you I’d want more. I knew when you left—even keeping my distance—I’d think of you. I wasn’t going to cross that line. Then, well, I did.”
She audibly sniffed, but softened. “I yanked you across that line.”
“I was working my way across. It would’ve taken me longer, but I was working my way across. Then I knew, if you left I wouldn’t just think of you. I’d never get over you. Any woman who came along after, I would put up against you—and she’d never measure up. She wouldn’t have your face, or be as smart as you, have your grit under all that polish. There’d be nobody else.”
He tugged her hand into his, studied it. “And I want a woman, and a family, a life we can grow into. I don’t mind waiting for it, but without you, I’d wait forever.”
“I … I watched Tombstone. I can ride a horse. I have a Stetson.”
His lips curved as he pressed them to her fist. “I love you. I think I loved you before any of those things were true if love can hit that fast. I love knowing they’re true now. I feel settled knowing you’re happy here.”
“I am happy here. There’s nothing for me back in New York. I’ve built my life here. Friends, work, a life. I lost my family, Chase, when I lost my grandparents. And I’ve made a family here when I never thought to have one again. I’ve never had a friend like Bodine, and now Chelsea. And … everyone.”
“I’m asking if you’d think about building onto that with me. If you could come to love me enough for that. For making a life and a family with me.”
Marriage, good God, he was talking about marriage. The fast leap from a slow-moving man left her dumbfounded.
Sitting very still, barely breathing, she thought of her parents on one side. Selfish, careless, cold, abandoning her without a second thought. Then her grandparents. Kind, loving, giving, enfolding her into their lives without a second thought.
Then she thought of him.
“I don’t know how I could love somebody so stupid he can’t see I already love him more than enough already. But apparently I do.”
Now he held her hand to his cheek, just held it there, before turning his head, pressing his lips into her palm. “Is that a fancy way of saying yes?”
“It wasn’t fancy.”
“It was a lot of words. How about I put it another way? Will you marry me sometime?”
“‘Sometime’ is pretty open-ended.”
“You say yes. You say when.”
“Give me a second.” She looked out, over the land, to the mountains, to the sky that spread blue over everything. She felt him waiting, so steady and strong in his silence. She trusted him to wait until her head caught up with her heart.
“I say yes. I say October. After my first summer, before my next winter.” Again, she laid a hand on his cheek. “And saying yes, Chase, just saying yes, fills up little spaces in me I didn’t know needed to be filled. You did that. You helped fill those little empty spaces.”
He kissed her, sweet as a promise, held her close.
“You still got that red suit?”
“I’m not getting married in that red suit.”
“I was thinking more of the honeymoon.”
She laughed. Steady and strong, she thought again. And often surprising. “I’ve still got it.”
*
While at the Bodine Ranch Sunday dinner turned into a celebration, the man known as Sir bumped his truck along the narrow road where winter had carved pits and shallow ditches. Every jolt rammed through his body.
He stopped, climbed out to unlock the gate posted with No Trespassing signs. The old metal shrieked as he shoved it open. He climbed back into the truck, drove through across the old cattle gate, got out again, dragged the gate closed, locked it, chained it.