He cut the engine and faced Ginger, who looked at him with surprise.
“It’s your birthday,” he said, gesturing to the barn with his chin. “Don’t you want to jump?”
She laughed. “I think I’m a little old for that, don’t you?”
“Don’t trust me to catch you, huh?” He got out of the car, his hands sweating as he neared the barn, where he waited for her to join him.
A moment later he heard her door open and her feet hit the ground. “You’re not serious, are you? I’m liable to break more than my arm.”
“Suit yourself,” he said, turning back, uncertain if the wave of emotion he felt was relief or disappointment.
“Aw, wait!” she said, grinning at him. “But if you don’t catch me, you’re in big trouble!” she yelled, sprinting into the barn and up the ladder to the loft.
His heart started racing and his mouth went dry.
Oh, fuck. This is happening.
He reached into his back pocket for the small black velvet box that held a simple platinum ring capped with a 1.25-karat diamond. Princess-cut, of course.
Taking a deep breath, he dropped to one knee, his eyes fixed on the hayloft door, remembering all the times he’d caught her, remembering their first kiss, remembering Woodman and birthdays and happy times and Ginger’s smile. And then . . .
She was there.
“Are you ready? Now, don’t you drop— Cain!”
Her mouth opened, and she covered it with her hands, her eyes filling with tears.
“I got a question to ask you, princess,” he said, grinning up at her, holding up the open box.
“Oh my God!” she cried, the words muffled under her hands.
“You want to come back down here, or you want me to come up there?”
“I can’t move,” she said, blinking her eyes furiously.
“Then I’m comin’ up.” He snapped the box shut, jumped up, and ran into the barn. Up the ladder, into the loft, he didn’t stop until he was about a foot from her. “Different kind of jump this year,” he said, bending down on one knee and opening up the box again.
She took a step toward him, and he could see she was crying, tears streaming down her face, her hands still covering her mouth.
“Come here, princess.”
“Cain,” she whimpered.
“Come on, now,” he said, smiling up at her.
She took a step toward him, then another, sobbing once before dropping her hands. And she was smiling. Crying, yes. But smiling. And any worry left in his heart quickly lifted as he stared up into the eyes of the woman he’d loved since he was fifteen years old.
“Give me your hand,” he said, reaching out with his.
Her fingers trembled as she placed them in his.
“I love you,” he said. “You’re my childhood friend and my best friend and my girlfriend and my lover. And I’m thrilled that you’re movin’ in with me today, but it’s just not enough. Because I want to make love to you every day for the rest of my life. I want your name to be Virginia Laire McHuid Wolfram. I want my kids to have your blonde hair and my blue eyes. I want you to be my wife.” She raked her teeth over her bottom lip and reached up with her free hand to wipe her tears. “Will you marry me, princess?” Cain asked.
He’d seen Ginger McHuid smile a million times.
But this one was new. And it belonged to him.
“Cain!” she cried, her shoulders trembling with sobs, her smile blinding. “Oh my God, yes! Yes!”
He pulled the ring from its soft velvet bed and slipped it over her third finger, then he stood up, pulled her into his arms, and kissed his fiancée as they agreed to hold hands and jump together into forever.
***
Four years later
“Remember, it’s Momma’s birthday today,” said Cain, ruffling the blond hair of his two and a half-year-old son, Josiah.
“Momma,” he answered, his moss-green eyes the spitting image of the uncle he’d been named for. “She get baba for Keyee-anne.”
“That’s right, little man, because Miz Kelleyanne here sure does get mad if she wakes up without a bottle, doesn’t she?”
Josiah and Kelleyanne.
The two people who had been the guiding lights on the path that led Cain to Ginger and Ginger to Cain. Two strong spirits who would always, God willing, be with them.
He looked down at the sleeping baby girl in his arms—at the jet-black fuzz that covered her two-month-old head—and felt his heart swell, as it always did, with so much joy, he didn’t know how his chest contained it all.
“Uh-huh,” said Josiah, staring at his baby sister with a sour expression. “Mad Keyee-anne.”
Cain chuckled. “You remember the song we’re gonna sing to Momma, right?”
“The happy birfday song.”
“That’s right.”
“We all sing. Oma and Opa. Grampa Jim. Gramp and Gramma,” said Josiah. “And Auntie.”