Chapter 25 Shiloh
Twenty-Five
Shiloh
The sun was still high in the sky at four o’clock on prom night when Ronan knocked on our door. Bibi answered while I gave myself a last once-over in the bathroom mirror.
My dress was an off-the-shoulder in muted yellow, covered in outlines of flowers in black—like sketches—every few colored in bursts of white or red.
The loose layers flowed to my shins in the front, my ankles in the back, and gathered at the waist. I’d tied half of my braids away from my face, the rest flowing between my shoulder blades.
I slipped a few silver rings on my fingers and bangles on my arms, but Ronan had told me not to get too fancy.
Maybe because he wasn’t exactly rolling in cash.
Not that I cared. We could eat at McDonald’s and then go bowling, so long as I was with him.
You are so gone, girl.
My heart skipped a beat as I heard Ronan’s low voice and Bibi’s higher one as she crowed over him. I blew air through puffed cheeks and headed out. I got as far as the dining table and stopped.
Oh. My. God.
Ronan was in all black. Black T-shirt, black jeans, black boots, and a black bomber jacket that I’d never seen before.
His hair was darker too, slicked back from his face from a shower, and his eyes were as silver as the necklace around his neck.
He wore it against his shirt now instead of tucked under.
His injuries had healed, returning his face to its usual beautiful perfection—sharp angles and full lips. High cheekbones and thick brows.
“And he’s mine…” I murmured, the words falling out of my mouth before I could stop them.
“There she is,” Bibi said, her throat thick. “Oh my, aren’t you the most beautiful girl and most handsome man in all of Santa Cruz?”
“You have to say that because you’re my great-grandma,” I said, crossing to them.
I smoothed the lapels on Ronan’s jacket.
He smelled like shower soap and the burned wood from a bonfire at the shack, as if he carried the fire with him.
“There should be a law that requires you to wear all black, every day, for the rest of your life.”
Ronan didn’t seem to have heard. “You look… I mean… Holy shit.” He shook his head. “Sorry, Bibi.”
She chuckled. “That’s okay, honey. I like that reaction just fine.”
So did I.
Ronan held a small bouquet of wildflowers. They looked delicate and feminine in his large hands.
“Are those for me?”
He handed them over, adorably awkward and self-conscious.
I plucked a few yellow flowers and tucked them into my hair where the braids were tied back. “How’s that?”
“Good,” he said, then scowled at himself.
Bibi took a few pictures, though Ronan looked about as uncomfortable as he could get.
“That’s plenty,” I said. “We need to arrive at…wherever Ronan’s taking me while the sun is still up. Don’t we?”
“Yeah. Better head out.”
“Just one more,” Bibi said. “I need photographic evidence for the gals that my great-granddaughter is participating in a mushy and romantic rite of passage, or they won’t believe me.”
I rolled my eyes, laughing. “We’re taking the beast, right?”
Ronan nodded. “Open the garage, and I’ll meet you.”
He went outside, and I kissed Bibi’s cheek. “Don’t wait up.”
She chuckled. “I wasn’t planning on it.”
I opened the garage door and popped the Buick’s trunk so Ronan could stow a cooler, a blanket, and his backpack that looked bulky and heavy.
“What’s all this?” I asked. “You still haven’t told me—”
He slammed the trunk shut and hauled me to him, kissing me hard. Deep. His tongue was deliciously rough and sharp-tasting from harsh mouthwash, the only alcohol I could ever taste. But I didn’t need booze; Ronan’s kiss left me delirious.
“I’ve been wanting to do that since the second I saw you,” he said gruffly.
“Me too,” I said. “If you say we’re spending prom in a hotel room, I’d be okay with that.”
“Don’t tempt me. You look incredible.”
I traced the line of his lower lip. “So do you. Look incredible.” The thought that this man was mine came over me again like a pleasant chill.
“Keys,” he said, holding out his hand.
“So bossy.”
I loved it when he was bossy. Commanding. I’d prided myself on being the kind of girl who didn’t fall for that stuff, but God. Ronan was on another level of masculine virility.
I don’t stand a chance.
Ronan drove us eastward, the coast glistening gold as the sun started to descend toward the ocean. We passed a sign for the Natural Bridges State Beach Visitor Center and pulled into the lot.
“Crazy enough, I’ve actually never been to this beach,” I said.
“We’re not going to the beach,” Ronan said, his eyes on the road. He maneuvered the car into a parking space in the empty lot, which was odd since the day was perfect and warm. “You good to walk in those?” he asked with a nod at my sandals as he unpacked the trunk.
“Yep. I remember your instructions. Are we hiking?”
“Not exactly.”
We walked up to the visitor center where a sign plastered to the darkened window explained why we were the only ones there.
“That fucker,” Ronan muttered under his breath, then laughed a little, shaking his head.
Natural Bridges Monarch Trail is CLOSED due to a private event. Welcome, Shiloh and Ronan!
I stared. “Did you do this?”
“I wish I could take credit. I told Holden my plan to make sure it wasn’t totally stupid or…not good enough for you.” He jerked his chin at the sign. “So he bought the damn place out.”
“To make sure we’re alone,” I said, smiling up at him. “He’s a good friend.”
Ronan didn’t say anything, but I could tell he was touched.
“What’s the Monarch Trail?” I asked as we started up the wooden plank path around the visitor center. “And how have I never heard of it?”
“You’ll see.”
He led us up to the trail entrance where a park ranger checked that we were Ronan and Shiloh, then welcomed us in.
Ronan carried the backpack on his shoulder, the cooler in one hand.
I carried the blanket. We crossed a long wooden bridge into a forest of pine and eucalyptus trees.
The planked path continued for another few minutes and ended on a wooden platform in the midst of a grove of just eucalyptus.
Sunlight poured in, giving it an ethereal quality.
The kind I tried to capture in my jewelry.
“What is this place?”
Ronan set down the cooler and backpack and pointed toward a tree.
I looked up and drew in a little intake of breath.
A bough of green eucalyptus leaves was positively dripping with orange-and-black monarch butterflies.
So many that it appeared the tree’s leaves were made of them.
Their wings opened and closed slowly, like breathing.
I turned and there was another. And another.
Thousands of them, clinging to the leaves or flitting here and there.
“Ronan…” I gripped his arm, staring.
“Is it okay?”
“Okay?” I moved to the wooden railing, to the closest cluster of butterflies hanging a few feet above me. “I never knew this was here. Never seen anything like it.” A handful of butterflies took flight and then settled again. “This is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
Ronan stood with his hands in his pockets, a strange, soft smile on his lips. His eyes were full of me. “I know what you mean.”
God, this man.
I admired the butterflies, delighted when one of them landed on my wrist for a few seconds and then rejoined its family.
Ronan unpacked the cooler while I laid out the blanket. “I don’t cook. I hope this is okay.”
The spread was from a gourmet restaurant downtown.
He opened containers of grilled lemon chicken, pasta salad, mashed potatoes, and little mason jars of yogurt berry parfait—all foods that were obviously chosen with me in mind.
For drinks, he had two bottles of beer and two bottles of sparkling water.
He popped a water and handed it to me. “Okay?”
“You keep asking me that, as if it could be any more perfect.”
“I’ve never done something like this before.”
“You’re slaying this boyfriend stuff.” I leaned over the picnic blanket and kissed him. I tasted his potent fire, stirring places deep inside me that were hungry, and not for food.
We ate as the sun began to sink in a blood-orange sunset. Ronan opened his backpack and pulled out eight small metal torch-looking devices with stands, each no more than a foot tall.
“There’s more?” I asked.
“That was dinner,” he said. “This is prom.”
He ringed the wooden viewing platform’s railing with the little torches and turned on their flickering orange LED lights. They glowed from within metal cups, each cut with flame-like designs to give the appearance that real fire burned within.
When they were set up, the entire space glowed, the orange light illuminating the orange wings of the butterflies that looked as if they’d gone to sleep.
“I figured—hoped—this place wouldn’t be busy at night,” Ronan said as the last torch was lit. “But thanks to Parish…”
“You would have done this anyway? With an audience?”
He pulled me to my feet and held me close. “Only for you.”
We hovered in that moment, our lips inches apart, his eyes boring into me, smoky and hot. He leaned in, brushing that mouth of his against mine, sending sparks dancing down my neck.
But he didn’t kiss me. Instead, he pulled his iPhone from the back pocket of his jeans. “Music.”
My eyes widened. “Are we dancing?”
He made a noncommittal sound and showed me the phone. “I made a playlist of stuff I thought you might like.”
My heart…
He pressed the first song, and Dua Lipa’s “Physical” played over his phone at a medium volume. “Don’t want to disturb them,” he said with a nod at the butterflies.
For a second, all I could do was stare at this man who was miles deeper than anyone knew. Considerate and kind beneath his hard stare and black ink.