Epilogue Continued…
Trace’s show had been incredible, as usual. Every eye had been glued to her as she sang her stripped-down songs. She’d finally taken ownership of her life and was doing this for herself, not anyone else. Proud didn’t begin to cover my feelings as I watched her on stage. She was my entire world.
Now, two days later, we’d made the journey out to Colorado to stay at the cabin for a week. It was a lot of travel as we figured out this phase in our lives, but we were making it work. I’d get on a flight every other day if it meant just an hour of additional time with her.
“I can’t wait to be back,” she said. “Do you think Jaylon and Barrett are still up?”
“Uh, maybe,” I said, knowing full well my friends wouldn’t be there.
I was hyper aware of the lump in my shirt pocket that I hoped she didn’t notice.
It only took us thirty minutes to drive out to the cabin. Trace and I had been here countless times since getting back together. She’d come to love it just as much as I did, and we tended to spend all our free time here when she wasn’t working and we weren’t at our house in California.
I’d offered to move to Tennessee, but she wouldn’t hear of it. We’d sold her townhome, and she’d insisted on moving out to California with me. She wanted to be close to my mom. My heart nearly burst with love for her just thinking about it.
When I’d asked my mother to go ring shopping with me a while back, it was the most excited I’d seen her in years.
She lit up with Trace around. It was like we were rebuilding our family.
Trace got her out of the house more. And hell, no one was more shocked than me when Mom agreed to come to her show in Nashville.
Now, I pulled into the cabin’s long driveway, hoping she wouldn’t notice that there were no other cars parked out front.
“Here we are,” I said.
She shot me a funny look. Shit, why had I announced it like that? I sounded like a fucking dweeb. She was onto me.
I raced around the car to let her out of the passenger side.
While me opening doors for her wasn’t anything new, she could definitely sense my nervous energy. Her eyebrows were up near her hairline, but she didn’t say anything.
Shit. I was a wreck.
When we reached the side door, I dropped my keys on the ground as I fumbled to unlock it. “Shit,” I muttered, bending over to pick them up.
“You okay?” she asked.
“I’m great,” I said. Fuck, did my voice just shake?
“You’re acting a little strange,” she said.
Because I’m nervous as hell, I wanted to say, but I kept quiet. We were so close.
I sucked in a breath, collecting myself, and swung open the door.
Her eyes shifted from my face to inside. She gasped and threw a hand over her mouth when she saw the set up.
About a hundred candles lined a path to the back window—the fake kind, not the ones with a real flame. Jaylon and Barrett had helped me with the surprise, setting everything up before leaving so it would be ready when we got here.
“Danny, what is this?” She looked up at me, tears already pooling in her eyes.
“Come here,” I said, tugging her further into the cabin.
She covered her face, tears now flowing from her eyes. “Oh my God. I can’t believe this.”
She knew. She already knew what I was going to ask her. Because I’d picked out the ring months ago, and I was terrible at keeping secrets from her.
I brushed my palms against my thighs. I’d spent the summer summiting some of the most difficult terrain out there, and here I was, the most anxious I’d ever been. I’d always thought guys were exaggerating about this moment being nerve wracking, but it turned out they weren’t.
When we were in the center of the living room, in front of the fireplace, I took her hands in mine.
“Trace,” I said, dropping to my knee.
She tucked one hand beneath her chin, her eyes glossy as they drifted down to me, warm and loving, quietly waiting for the question I’d been dying to ask.
“You’re the love of my life. You’ve changed my life.
Our life together—what we’ve built—” I had to stop for a moment, already getting choked up.
“I love you so much. I told you once that I’d stay forever, well, this is me making good on that promise.
” I smiled, pulled out the ring box, and opened it.
“Please, will you make me the luckiest guy in the fucking world and marry me?”
She was in my arms before I even got the question out, barely glancing at the ring I knew she’d love.
“Yes! Yes, yes, yes!” She said, peppering my face with kisses.
The moment was perfect. Just us.
I looked down at her, the woman I was so in love with that it sometimes made it hard to breathe. It was unfathomable to me that I’d ever walked away from her. She’d faced more of my darkest struggles than she ever should have had to.
I had vowed to myself a long time ago, and continued to promise each and every day, that I’d only bring joy into her life.
As I slid the ring on her finger, I knew it signified one thing more than anything else. That I truly was hers.
And I’d stay. Always.
The End