Robbie raced inside. Her son’s smile widened, revealing the tooth he’d lost in her absence. A smaller version of a Stetson covered his mussed hair. “Ma! I gotta show you something. It’s outside.”
“Excuse me, Father.” Annie followed her son into the hall. Robbie hopped up and down, eyes beaming with excitement. “What is this all about?” She laughed. “Did you get one of the ranch hands to help you build a tree house?”
Robbie grinned, opening the door and pulling her outside. “You’ll see.”
In the next moment, her gaze collided with Travis’s. He stood beside his buckboard, looking finer than she’d ever seen him. A charcoal-colored suit coat encased his wide shoulders, his usually tousled hair slicked back.
Her breath faltered. With shaking hands, she smoothed her simple gray dress.
Mercy, he looked fine. A flush heated her cheeks, one not caused by the Texas summertime.
“I gotta go help with the horses.” Robbie bounded away.
Travis stepped forward, offering her his arm. She let him lead her across the front lawn.
“Feeling all right?” Concern filled his eyes. “Any dizzy spells? Nausea? You looked incredibly pale when I left yesterday.”
She smiled. “I’ve never felt better, Dr. Hart. Why are you so dressed up? Going somewhere?”
He faced her, taking both of her hands between his. “Maybe.” That mesmerizing dimple flashed as he smiled, his eyes crinkling around the edges.
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean … we might be going somewhere, but first, there’s something I’m going to say.”
Her heart skipped a beat.
And increased to double time as he knelt on one knee, both of her hands still clasped in his. Maybe he’d better ask about her health again. Because right now she felt dizzy. With anticipation.
She drew in a jagged breath. Was he going to … propose? Stuart had never done so. Their parents had arranged everything.
A proposal. It was the moment every girl dreams of, the moment when the man she adored dropped to one knee, looking up at her as if his heart belonged to her and only her. As if, were she to refuse, the very fibers of his being would crumble and turn to ashes.
And it was a moment meant to be cherished.
“Annie Parker-Lawrence.” Though this man had performed operations requiring skill and complete steadiness of hands, his shook slightly as they held hers. She smiled at it. Brave, calm Dr. Hart, nervous. Over her.
“Yes?”
“There’s just one question…” He cleared his throat.
“Yes?”
“You may think this sounds a little crazy.”
“Yes.”
“I’ve already asked Robbie, and he’s in complete agreement.”
She laughed. “Just say what you want to say, Travis.”
He chuckled. “All right, then.” His eyes darkened, so much hope, so much love in their depths, it stole her breath. “Marry me, Annie. You don’t know how often and for how long I’ve wanted to say this. You are truly the most precious woman I’ve ever known, and I would consider it the greatest of honors to walk through the rest of my life with you at my side.”
Tears spilled down her cheeks, not the girlish ones of sorrow and desperation sobbed into her pillow late at night, but tears of joy. Giddy. Overwhelming. She nodded.
Perfect. Joy.
He handed her a handkerchief, and she gave an embarrassed laugh as she dried her eyes.
“If you keep crying like that, you won’t be able to see the ring.” He slipped it on her finger.
“Oh…” A simple gold band, a small but flawless diamond at the center. Beautiful.
Yet at that moment, Travis could have given her a rusty horseshoe to put around her finger and she still would’ve wept with happiness.
“Do you like it?” He stood, hesitation in his gaze. “I picked it out myself. If you don’t, we could always—”
“Oh, Travis,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around him. “It’s perfect. And this … is even better.” She pressed her lips against his, giving him her answer in her kiss, needing to show how much she loved, wanted him. He tasted of peppermint, of the future ahead of them.
She stepped back, breathless. A knot formed in her throat. “I don’t want to wait another minute to be your wife. There’ve been so many years lost. They’re gone, Travis. Gone. We didn’t get to share them.”
“None of that matters now.” He leaned her head against his chest, holding her close. Overhead, in the sky of grand old Texas, the sun shone, warm and bright. As if to offer with its beaming rays a picture of the life they would now lead. “All that matters is tomorrow.”
“Our tomorrows. I like the sound of that.” She smiled, loving the way he held her. As if protecting her, leading her, cherishing her. And she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that as long as Travis Hart drew breath, he always would.
“Me, too.” He kissed her again. “Ours. Always ours.”