Chapter Eleven #2
You’ve always had to do everything the hard way, boy, Zeke had said while he worked. You might be the most stubborn Carey that ever was, and that’s saying something.
You say that like you haven’t met all the other Careys, Knox retorted.
Your brothers gave you a hard time, so you give yourself a harder time.
Zeke hadn’t even looked up. He was too busy with the ring.
In my day, I would never have let a beautiful woman like that doctor cry over me.
That’s the kind of woman you keep laughing, Knox.
You keep her happy. Because she could do better than you with a snap of her fingers and why would you give her any reason to do that? I’m telling you, it’s the only way.
Knox shouldn’t have been surprised that his father seemed to know everything about his life. Zeke had always been that way. He’d always known things he shouldn’t.
He claimed he was simply observant, and maybe his children should try it on for size sometime.
The only way to what? Knox had asked.
The only way to you, Zeke had replied at once.
He’d handed over the ring, still warm from his hands. Knox closed his fingers around it, but he couldn’t seem to take his eyes away from his father’s.
To you, Zeke had said again. Because you’ve been so busy proving yourself to everyone and everything that I think you lost track of you somewhere. As far as I can tell, the only time you seem to find yourself again is when you’re with that Ramona.
This is exactly the kind of advice that might have been useful months ago, Knox had retorted.
Would it? the old man shot right back at him. Remind me when, exactly, in these past few months you were in a receptive mood to be told… anything?
Dad, Knox had said quietly. You’ve always made family look so easy.
Because it is, Zeke had replied gruffly. You just love them as loud and as hard as you can. And I promise you, the rest of it works itself out. One way or another.
And that had fueled Knox as he finally headed off the ranch and down through the little tangle of unmarked roads until he could climb his way up the hill to the Lodge.
What fueled him now was that look of shock and something like wonder on Ramona’s face.
He hadn’t really believed that he would ever see that again.
“I love you,” he said again now. “I’ve spent most of my life doing my best to be completely invulnerable.
I never thought I had a choice. If I told my brothers this, they would hate themselves, but I did what I thought I had to do to defend against them and then it became who I am.
” He shook his head. “And then you turned up and made it clear that I had no defenses against you whatsoever.”
“That’s not how I remember it,” she whispered.
He wanted to pull her into his arms, but he hadn’t earned it. And he might not earn it tonight. Still, he was going to say what should have been said a long time ago.
“You taught me how to feel, and I pretended I couldn’t. You showed me how to fall head over heels in love, and I pretended it was just physical. And for reasons that I will never understand, you kept forgiving me. You kept coming back. You kept letting me do it over and over again.”
She looked as if she was about to speak then, but he shook his head.
“I’m sure you want to say something self-deprecating, but Ramona, every time you came back, you showed me exactly what vulnerability looks like when it’s actually strength.
You showed me that there was no shame in leading with your feelings.
Hell, your apartment is decorated like a feeling and it’s the most comfortable place I’ve ever been in my life. ”
He leaned a little closer and when he couldn’t hold back anymore, he put his free hand on one of her knees.
And his heart kicked into double time when she put her own hands on top of it, and held it there.
Knox kept going. “I didn’t realize it soon enough, but I realize now.
This whole time you’ve been giving me a crash course in what actual strength looks like.
Not being foolishly stubborn for no good reason, letting yourself feel and hope even when that hope is dashed, and finding a way to stand up again.
I’ve never seen anything like it. And I would have told you that I’m the kind of man who would never believe in miracles, but I do. ”
He moved his hand from beneath hers so he could pick up the one on top, her left.
“You are the greatest miracle that has ever happened in my life,” he told her, his voice raw.
“There’s no possible way that I would ever have let myself love that baby the way I think we both know I do, and did from first sight, if you hadn’t shown me how it was done. ”
Her eyes were filled with emotion again, and Knox wouldn’t have been surprised if his were too.
“I love you,” he said again. “And I don’t intend to make you doubt that another moment for as long as we live.
There is not one thing in my life that isn’t better with you next to me, Ramona, and whether we travel to every single nook and cranny in this world as a family or we stay right here in Cowboy Point and grow roots together, it doesn’t matter to me. The only thing that does is you.”
But he didn’t want her to think he didn’t understand that she had every reason to tell him she was done, despite all the things he was saying. He kind of assumed she might.
He said them anyway. “I don’t deserve another chance from you. I don’t deserve for you to even listen to me say these things. But if you give me one last chance, I swear on my life and on the life I want to show Hailey, and hopefully her mother, too, that I will never not choose you again.”
She pulled in a ragged breath, and he slid that ring on her finger. It fit her like it was made for her. It gleamed. It was unique and strange and it suited her perfectly.
“I want to see you every day for the rest of our lives,” he told her.
“I want my mausoleum of a house to be our house, and I want you to teach me how to make it bright with all of these feelings. I want you to feel claimed by me, needed by me, worshiped by me, every hour of every day you draw breath.”
It was almost like he couldn’t tell where she began and he ended.
That was how intense this was. That was how real this was.
He kept going. “You are the love of my life, and I cannot believe it took me so long to accept the truth that I’m pretty sure hit me like a sledgehammer that very first night. ”
“Well,” she said after a minute, and her smile was a little damp but it was the brightest one he’d ever seen, “I think that I’ll forgive you.”
“Will you?” he asked.
He felt like he was caught in a held breath.
Everything depended on what she did next.
Ramona’s gaze was brilliant now. She looked down at the ring on her finger, then she lifted that same hand and slid it to hold the side of his face.
“I’m pretty sure I will,” she told him, though her eyes were gleaming. “There’s just one catch.”
“Anything,” Knox told her, and it was a hoarse, heartfelt vow.
“It’s going to take a long time,” she told him solemnly. “There might have to be legal ramifications. In the form of binding ceremonies, if you know what I mean. A long, long time, Knox. I’m thinking… forever, if that works for you?”
And he knew that later, he would think back and understand that this was the day that he’d become the man he’d always wanted to be. The man he always should have been.
All because she trusted him one more time.
“Forever sounds like a perfect amount of time for me to try to make it up to you,” he told her, and he dared to smile. “Let’s start right now.”
Down below, the community of Cowboy Point started counting down to the new year in the half-finished Lodge, but up in this little nook with the lights of their little valley gleaming in on them from afar, Knox and Ramona made a promise.
One that they would spend the rest of their lives living up to, with every scrap of joy that they could find.
But first, as the clock struck midnight, they sealed it with a kiss.