Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
She had spent the night at her place on Saturday night, and now she was just waiting for Zane to come and pick her up at the prescribed time that he had sent to her via text.
Her hair was in loose waves, and she had bright pink lipstick on to match the dress. She had painted her nails a matching fuchsia, also, and she realized that she had never done this before. She had never dressed up and anticipated somebody coming to pick her up.
This was… a date. She hadn’t even been on one of those with Zane, not really.
She tried to tamp down the rising tide of anxiety that came along with that realization. She really felt like she couldn’t get too… Ahead of herself. Couldn’t get too used to this relationship. She had to remember everything that she had established here in Mustang River.
Juniper and Sage, her friendship with Lila, and how much she loved the town. Her life had meaning. It was never going to be small again.
That strange, fearful thought bubbled up inside of her, and she examined it for a moment.
Small.
She remembered what it felt like to feel like her life was small.
Like it was mainly the four walls of the house that she lived in, and then trips to the doctor, the grocery store, the pharmacy.
No. She didn’t have that anymore. Her life was big. Expansive.
And it was only going to keep on expanding.
She didn’t have limits. She could do whatever she wanted. She could be whoever she wanted.
Right now, she wanted to be a woman going on a date with a very handsome cowboy.
She looked in the mirror, and took a breath, then smoothed her dress down, and jumped when the doorbell rang.
She lifted up the front of her dress and scurried down the hall, toward the front door.
When she opened the door, her heart stopped.
He was wearing a black suit. He had a black hat on his head, and he looked… Perfect.
So, so perfect.
She had never seen a more gorgeous man than Zane Barton in that moment.
His hands were behind his back, and his expression was so grave it was almost comedic.
“Can I come in?”
“Of course,” she said.
He did, and closed the door behind him, and then he moved his hand out from behind his back, and produced a box.
With a clear lid and blossoms underneath.
“What…”
Then he slipped the blossoms out of the box and held them out.
“Your wrist,” he said.
“A corsage?”
She had never seen one in person. She didn’t even know they made them outside of 80s teen movies.
“Yes,” he said. “Now, I don’t know the proper etiquette these days. But this seemed like the right move to me. Because I… I wanted to ask you… If you’d go to prom with me?”
“Prom? Really?”
“Yep. Because we didn’t get to do it. And it’s not too late, Cara, it is never too late. To do… Anything. Small things, big things, dreams, and things that couldn’t even rise up to the level of dreams. We’re alive, goddamnit. So let’s go to prom.” He held his hand out, and breathless, she took it.
He opened up the door again and guided them both out of the house and to his truck.
It was surreal; she felt like she was floating on air.
It was getting dark outside, and there were gray storm clouds gathering above – they did attract a thunderstorm –, but she was going to prom. Apparently. So really nothing else mattered.
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
They traversed the familiar drive back to the ranch, and he passed by the road they could take to his place and the road to the bakery.
And instead, took them to one of the venue barns.
She could see light gleaming through the splits in the boards, and she was desperate to know what was inside.
He parked, took her hand, and led her to the front door.
Her breath rushed out of her body.
It was beautiful. Perfect. There was no one else there, but he had decorated this whole place in gold.
“Did you…”
“I confess that ranch staff helped with this.”
“Really?”
“Oh, I paid for it. But it gave Walker a business idea, so I think it’s all good.”
“I just can’t…”
He had done more for her in the last month than she could ever recall anyone doing. Hell, the last few months. Even putting up those shelves.
He had taught her survival, he had rescued her from the rubble, he had gotten her to ride a horse, had taken her virginity, and now he was giving her a prom.
It felt like too much.
Like something she would never be able to repay, and for a moment, she felt like she was going to suffocate underneath the weight of that reality.
There was a heaviness that invaded her lungs, and she kind of hated herself for that. For letting that intrude here, but it followed her.
Whether she wanted it to or not.
“Now I have to figure out how this is all set up…” He looked like he was following remembered instructions as he took his phone out and began to tap on the screen.
Then, music filled the room.
She smiled, looking up and around, completely unable to believe this was real. That it was happening.
Zane held his hand out toward her. “Dance with me,” he said.
She had never been asked to dance before, not once in her life, and she was going to enjoy this. For all it was worth. She was going to let the heaviness fade into the background.
She took his hand and let him draw her close, resting her head on his shoulder as the slow, melodic beat pounded through them.
This was their bubble. This was her prom.
She looked up, her eyes meeting his. What would it have been like if they could’ve met each other under different circumstances?
Maybe that wasn’t a question that was even worth asking.
If things had been different, maybe they never would’ve met. But maybe they could’ve been… Something. Maybe they could’ve been something easier, lighter, more functional. Maybe there would’ve been a future that was easier for both of them to imagine.
He twirled her, and she laughed, letting that laughter clear out the heaviness inside of her.
Letting herself get caught up in him.
One song bled into the next, some were fast, and some slow, and she felt like they had created an entirely separate world there, just the two of them.
They danced until the playlist ended, until her feet ached.
“And because this is prom,” he whispered in her ear. “I have to tell you that I reserved us a room.”
Illicit excitement shot through her. They were going to have sex in the hotel. That was just… naughty. Because Marlowe managed it, it felt spectacularly wrong.
Even though it shouldn’t.
She felt almost reluctant to leave the prom behind, but it was time to go.
He took her hand, and they walked out of the barn and into a rainstorm.
She looked up and laughed. She couldn’t escape the rain. The rain was dogging her, and there was nothing she could do about it. The rain seemed to have it in for her. Sliding her down a hill, but it had also led to her first kiss.
So maybe she couldn’t be so resentful of the rain.
She turned toward him, and he dipped her back, kissing her deep and long, as the water pounded down over them.
He kissed her like they weren’t standing there in a storm, like there was nowhere left to be.
And she supposed that was the beauty of being wet already. The beauty of being in the rain.
There was nothing to be afraid of. No reason to run.
Because it had all already happened.
Alarm bells went off in the back of her mind, and she couldn’t quite say why. But she just let him keep on kissing her, and she ignored them, because she didn’t really want to do anything with them, not right now.
“You know,” he said, pulling her back up, his hand still coming down the back of her head, “my grandma used to quote that scripture about the rain falling on the just and the unjust.”
“Yeah, I remember you saying that,” she said, raindrops rolling down her face.
“And she used to say it, and I believed it, like it meant that bad things could happen to everybody. But I realize just now… the rain is good. The rain is a gift. I mean, I’m a rancher, I ought to know that.
Farmers sure know it. Definitely back then, when they wrote the Bible, they would’ve known it.
The rain is a good thing. It’s a gift. I wonder…
I wonder if what that really means, when it comes right down to it, is that blessings come to everybody.
Whether they deserve them or not. Just a little perspective shift. But it kind of changes everything.”
His words resonated inside of her, echoing down deep within her soul.
“Zane…”
“You’re the rain for me, Cara. The rain that I desperately needed, because God, I have been in a drought. I’ve been lost. Lost in the goddamn wilderness, and I know how to survive in the wilderness, but I haven’t known how to find my way home.
I haven’t even known how to get close. Like I said, it’s a lot easier to get lost than it is to get found, but you…
You’re out here with me. Maybe that’s not the same as the two of us knowing exactly where we are, but we are together, in the rain, and I’ve never been more certain in my life that that rain is a blessing.
That it’s a gift. Because you are. You are. ”
“I…” She reached up and touched his face.
“I love you, Cara,” he said.
Her heart stopped, her breathing stopped.
“You… You love me?”
“Yes,” he said. “I have never been more certain of anything in my life. I am… Overwhelmed by the gift of it. I am overwhelmed by the blessing of it. Just to be able to love you, after spending so many years with my heart in a deep freeze. Do you have any idea… It’s like I’ve been by myself, for all this time, like I’ve been alone.
And now there’s you. There’s you, Cara, and I feel so goddamned happy.
Happy, for the first time in so many years. I can see a future, finally. With you.”
Her heart was pounding so hard she thought she was going to pass out. And she was… Terrified.
She could feel a heavy boulder crushing her. Making it impossible for her to breathe.