Chapter 11 Eliza
eliza
I pull out my phone and fire off a series of text messages to Danner.
I left the ranch, and I won’t be back. I’m not ready to do this.
I hope you come home at some point, but I understand why you’d want to stay.
I’ll call you tomorrow once I’m home.
Love you.
My phone vibrates with a response, but I don’t bother pulling it out. I can’t right now. I don’t have the brain space—I’m barely holding it together. I need to get off this ranch before I fall apart completely.
I walk as quickly as I can, only everything looks different without the snow falling.
It takes me twenty minutes of dragging my suitcase across the grounds to get back where I started.
I feel one hundred sets of eyes on me as I parade my suitcase across the gravel roads in the world’s longest walk of shame.
It takes all my resolve to keep my feet moving back toward reality. If I were sitting across from myself in my law office, I’d discount every emotion and look only at the facts. But there’s no amount of rationalizing that makes this hurt any less.
In the end, I make it to my rental car before the first tear slips behind my oversized black sunglasses.
Not the airport. Not even the main road.
Just the gravel parking lot where I left my SUV two days ago—back when I thought I was here to rescue my brother and nothing more.
I don’t even recognize that version of me anymore.
My hand is on the door handle when I see them.
The Christmas lights.
Walker’s Christmas lights—the ones Lucy was so proud to show me—are glowing in the weak morning sun. They’re wrapped around the eaves of the Velvet Spur and outlining the big double doors. The crooked star on the lobby tree is visible through the window, tilting like it’s had a long year.
Perfect is boring, Lucy said. Maybe flawed is just another word for interesting.
My chest cracks open, and now my tears won’t stop.
I think about Walker standing in his bedroom this morning, telling me he was choosing me. Telling me he wasn’t going anywhere. Asking me to be brave enough to choose him back. I think about the way it melted my heart.
And then I ran. Just like I always have.
Walker stayed when Lucy’s mother left. Walker built a life out of being left behind.
Walker hung Christmas lights in the freezing cold because it made his daughter’s face light up.
He cooked chili for a stranger because she was stranded in a storm.
He looked at me like I was something precious, even when I was doing everything in my power to push him away.
And I’m about to become another person who leaves him. My stomach bubbles, and the thought makes me sick. I yank the handle, but the door doesn’t open.
“Ugh, what kind of car requires a key these days? The fob is in here. Open up, dammit.”
I pull again, and when nothing happens, I dig into my massive bag in search of the key. So much for a quick getaway. My tears are coming hot and fast now, my vision blurring.
No wonder Danner is unrecognizable. I’ve only been here two days, and look what this place is doing to me. I’m a mess.
“Fuck you, stupid Texas rental car from the past.”
When I can’t take any more, I press my forehead against the cold metal of the door and finally let myself break.
I stand there like an idiot and let myself feel everything I’ve been running from.
The loneliness, the fear, the desperate aching want for something I convinced myself I could never have.
“Eliza?”
I spin around and swipe at my eyes.
Lucy is standing ten feet away. She’s still in her pajamas, a coat thrown hastily over her shoulders. She’s staring at me wide-eyed. Her sparkly green nails catch the light. Her hair is a wild tangle. And her face is full of so much hope it stops my heart.
“You didn’t leave yet,” she breathes. “I saw you from the window at Patty June’s house. This is her jacket, not mine. I was worried you were leaving, so I came down to see you.” She takes a shaky breath. “Please don’t go. We’re going to do so many fun Christmas things. You won’t want to miss them.”
“Lucy—”
“I know you like my dad. He likes you, too, I can tell. It’s weird because I’ve never seen him like anyone in my whole life.
My mom left before I can remember. I always kind of dreaded it because I wasn’t sure how it would be to have him love another person.
But then you came here, and you’re so cool.
It’s so easy to like you and he… he’s so happy. ”
I can’t speak. I can barely breathe.
She scuffs her boot in the gravel. “But sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have one. A mom, I mean.” Her eyes meet mine, bright and earnest. “I think you’d be a really good one because you’re tough, you know—and smart.”
The words hit me like a physical blow.
I’ve tried so hard all my life to make people believe I am tough and smart. I’ve always wanted to be chosen. And now, in my weakest moment, here they are… my people. They aren’t asking me to wait or to prove myself. Walker and Lucy are choosing me.
I want to be brave enough to choose them back.
I inhale and blow out a shaky breath.
“Lucy.” My voice cracks. “Can you do something for me?”
She nods so hard her whole body moves.
“Can you go get your dad?”
Her face splits into a grin so wide it rivals the sunrise. She’s already running toward the cabin before I finish the sentence, boots slapping against the gravel and yelling, “DAD, COME OUTSIDE!” at the top of her lungs.
I wipe my face with the back of my hand and let out a shaky chuckle.
If the whole ranch didn’t see me marching around with my suitcase earlier, they sure as hell will see me now.
My mascara is probably a disaster. My hair is a mess.
I’m still wearing Walker’s flannel under my coat, wrinkled from sleeping in it.
But I’ve never felt more like myself.
A few moments later, Walker appears—shirtless, jeans hastily pulled on, looking like he just rolled out of bed. His eyes find Lucy, running toward him. Then they find me.
He goes completely still.
I leave my suitcase by the car. I leave my old life behind, and I walk toward him. He meets me halfway.
“I didn’t leave,” I say, then laugh because it sounds ridiculous.
I never even made it into my rental. “I didn’t leave.
I couldn’t. I couldn’t find my keys—thank God.
Then I saw the Christmas lights, and I thought about Lucy, and I thought about you, and I just—” My voice breaks.
“I couldn’t leave. I don’t want to leave. ”
“Eliza.” He says my name like a prayer. Like a promise.
He closes the distance in two strides. His hands cup my face, calloused palms warm against my cold cheeks. He looks at me with those steady brown eyes—the ones that saw through me from the very first moment.
“I’m scared,” I tell him. “I’m so scared, Walker. I’ve never done this before. I don’t know how to let someone love me. But I want to learn. I want—” I take a shaky breath. “I want to stay. If you’ll still have me.”
“If I’ll still have you?” His voice is rough. “Sweetheart, I’ve been yours since you stepped out of that car. I was just waiting for you to catch up.”
Then he kisses me.
It’s not like our first kiss, all fire and desperation. This one is slow. It’s a homecoming and a promise all wrapped into one. I melt into him, my fingers fisting in his shirt, a sob breaking against his lips.
“I love you,” I gasp between kisses. “I love you, and it terrifies me, and I don’t care anymore. I’m done running. I just want to be yours.”
“You are mine.” He pulls back just enough to look at me, eyes wet. “You’ve always been mine. You just didn’t know it yet.”
From somewhere behind us, Lucy whoops loud enough to scare the chickens.
“Does this mean you’re staying for Christmas?” she calls. “Can we make cookies? Can you paint my nails again? Are you going to marry my dad?”
Walker laughs against my mouth. “One thing at a time, sweetheart.”
But he’s looking at me when he says it—and the promise in his eyes tells me everything I need to know.
This isn’t a fairy tale. It’s not perfect. The star on the tree is crooked, and the hero has calloused hands, and the heroine spent thirty-one years convinced love was a lie.
But maybe that’s what makes it real.
There are so many unknowns, but I choose Walker right now. And I’ll make that same choice every day for the rest of my life.