Chapter 43
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
DELANEY
I walked into the kitchen and went straight to the sink to wash my hands. I really needed to put in some better washroom facilities out in the barn that we were using for the cider mill, especially because we were already getting to the point of having to think about bringing on some employees to help out.
I quickly pulled out my phone and added it to the never-ending to-do list I seemed to have created over the last two days.
Summer was already closing in, and I really wanted to get far enough ahead that we could get enough batches prepared to start taking it to competitions next year. I might be getting ahead of myself. Hell, I didn’t even have a bottle and label design yet. Let alone a confirmed steady supply of fruit. But I knew I could make this business a success, and it felt like I was reclaiming a part of my childhood.
So many memories seemed tainted now that I knew what my father had done. His intentions might have been good, or at least the ones where he thought he was doing what was best for me. But I didn’t know if I could ever forgive him for the outcome.
He took Cade’s father away from him, and then, in his guilt, he’d deprived him of a grandfather as well.
I’d spoken with my therapist yesterday for the first time in a long time, and we had scheduled regular Zoom sessions now that I’d moved away from the city. She said it was a positive step that I’d finally returned to this place that I’d avoided for so long. I hated admitting that she’d been right about facing the reality of the people who lived here. In my mind, I’d turned them into something they never were. It had always just been my fear pushing me away, and now I was trying to deal with the terrible realization that if I’d just done it when she’d first suggested, Trace and I would have discovered what had been done to us so much sooner.
My head was a mess, but I was working through it, and I knew Trace was too. Just being here with us had changed him. He was completely devoted to his son, and he’d fallen into family life as if he’d been with us all along.
For now, we were concentrating on making new memories together rather than looking at all the ones we’d missed out on. It was bittersweet, but I was looking at this as an opportunity to build the life we’d always wanted. It was a second chance we wouldn’t have had if I’d stayed away. We were both older, more mature, and stronger after all the things we’d been through. Maybe we wouldn’t have been ready for this family dynamic when we were teenagers. Now we were coming into it as fully formed adults, and the relationship we were building together made us stronger than ever.
“Mom!” Cade shouted, skidding into the kitchen on his socks. “You’re back!”
“Erm, yeah. I was only out in the barn, you know?”
He waved his hand in front of him. “Yeah, yeah, I know, but I’ve been waiting for you to get back.”
“Okay. Any reason why?”
I leaned back on the sink to watch my son. He was clearly excited about something. I smiled. Trace and I weren’t the only ones who’d changed. Cade was flourishing in Willowbrook. He’d only been at school for a week, and he had a solid friendship group already, an invitation to join the baseball team next year, and he was possibly the happiest I’d ever seen him. This was saying a lot, considering that Cade was generally always a happy kid.
“Dad promised we could have a picnic down by the pond for dinner tonight.” Cade’s eyes darted to the kitchen window as he shoved his hands in his pockets. “I wanted to head over. I’m starving.”
I looked at my watch. It was coming up to dinner time, so there was no reason why we shouldn’t. It might be a little early, but he could always have a snack later if he wanted.
“Sure, let me just change my clothes and we can head over. Or if you want to go, I can catch up with you.”
Cade took a step toward the door and then shook his head. “No, Dad said I needed to bring you.”
I squinted at him in suspicion. He was up to something. I could read this kid like a book, and when he drifted over to the fridge to stare inside and hide behind the open door, I knew he was on to me as well.
I shrugged. I’m sure it would be harmless. Cade didn’t really have it in him to do anything I’d be worried about. He was a good kid. Moving to Willowbrook may have given him a freedom he hadn’t had before, but I wasn’t worried that he was going to take too much of an advantage of that. He was also only nine. Hopefully, we still had a couple of years before he realized just how easy it was to climb out his bedroom window.
After changing into some jeans and one of my favorite tops, I threw on my boots, and Cade and I headed down to the pond. It wasn’t a long walk, and it was one I must have done hundreds of times in the past. But it was better to do it with Cade at my side. It was like the beginning of a new era, one where I got to share with him all the stuff I’d loved at his age.
Willowbrook really was the only place I wanted to raise my family. We should have done this a long time ago.
Cade shuffled nervously at my side. Every so often, he’d dash forward a few steps and then seem to catch himself and slow down so I could catch up with him.
“You can run on ahead if you want. I can meet you there.”
“No, no. Dad says you escort a lady.”
“Oh, did he now? And when did he tell you this?”
“This morning, we were talking about…how to woo a lady.”
Okay, something was going on here. Did Cade have his first crush on someone at school? While that was all kinds of adorable, it stung a little that he went to Trace about it and not me.
“Ah, right. And here was me thinking that Trace had just got some of those cupcakes from the bakery that you like.”
“No, we went to the bakery, and it was closed.” Cade was running around in circles at this point, not realizing how what he was saying was basically impossible. Marie only closed the bakery on a Wednesday, and it had taken years for people to convince her to do that much.
“That’s strange.” I couldn’t remember the last time the bakery had been closed on a Friday. “Maybe I should check in with her later. Just to make sure everything is all right.”
Cade hummed in agreement and then grabbed my hand as he looked up at me. “I like it here,” he suddenly said.
“I know you do, monkey. I like it here too.”
“So…we’re going to stay. We’re not going back to the city?”
“It would be kinda hard to considering that I called our landlord yesterday and told him that we were moving out.”
He looked at me with wide eyes full of surprise, and then fist-pumped the air in celebration.
We walked in silence for the next couple of minutes as we climbed the slight hill toward the pond. The evening breeze lifted my hair and blew it around my face. Summer was right around the corner. Soon, the few tourists we got would start to trickle into town, trying to escape the city and enjoy a slice of small-town life instead. The guilt of not selling the land and ruining the hotel deal twinged in my stomach. But Blake was right, Willowbrook didn’t need a fancy hotel and golf course. We needed to show those tourists a small town that they wanted to come back to every year. Maybe if I could build the brand of the cider mill high enough, we could offer a tour and tasting experience.
I pulled out my phone and started adding a few ideas to my Notes app, including a tasting kitchen. We could theme the menu to seasonal produce and display what could be done with our cider in a culinary setting. Maybe go for a farm-to-table type setup. Those were always popular in the city. It would mean setting up a big enough garden to supply the restaurant, but that could be something else to add to a tour as well. All the details were starting to come together into one cohesive business plan in my mind, expanding over the next five years.
I looked up, thinking about the layout of the farm and where the best place would be to set up some gardens, but instead of the green pastures that surrounded us, my eyes fixed on something that hadn’t been there before.
I gasped in surprise and nearly dropped my phone on the ground. Cade giggled beside me and started to tug on my hand to make me walk faster. I followed, too shocked to really think about anything else that was happening.
Trace stood in front of our willow tree, which had been decorated with twinkling lights. They ran down the branches, reaching nearly to the water and making it look like stars hung from the tree. He had a blanket set up with a proper picnic basket and a silver champagne bucket. Flowers completely blanketed the rest of the ground, and candles floated in the pond.
“What is this?” I asked in surprise, tears coming to my eyes as I was overwhelmed with the emotions inside me.
Cade dropped my hand and sprinted forward to stand beside his father, the biggest grin on his face. Even though Trace smiled softly, I could see how nervous he was.
I stopped a few steps away from him, not sure what I was supposed to do.
“You did all this for me?” I asked, one of those tears finally breaking free of my lashes.
“I’d capture the stars and fill the pond with them if you wanted me to,” Trace told me softly.
And then he slowly lowered down to one knee.
My hands came up to cover my mouth, and I could feel them trembling against my lips.
“Delaney, I have loved you since you pulled me out of the mud in the fourth grade and told me that dirt was good for my skin. It took me years to work up the courage to ask you to be my girlfriend, and I never intend to make that same mistake again. We had it all. We were young and stupid and so much in love. It will always be my biggest regret that I didn’t fight for you. That I let them steal you both away from me for so long. But I’m done wasting time. I’m done not saying the things that I want to say. I know things have changed, and we’re both different people, but you’re still the same beautiful, shining girl I remember from school. You’re still filled with a kind heart and so much goodness that all I want to do is prove to you that I can be the man you deserve. I don’t want to lose a single day with you. I want to wake up every morning with you in my arms, and I want to fall asleep every night with you being the last thing I see. I loved you so much in that life we left behind, but it’s nothing compared to how much I love you now. So, will you build a new life with me, one that no one can ever take away from us? Will you be my wife?”
Cade darted forward, holding up a small red velvet box in his hand with the biggest grin on his face. When he opened it, the sob I was holding inside burst out of me. I couldn’t even see the ring through the tears in my eyes as I cried out, “Yes!”
The word had barely left my lips as Trace surged to his feet, scooping up Cade with a laugh and then wrapping his arms around me, our son in the middle.
“I love you, Lanes. I love you both,” he whispered tightly, holding onto us.
“I love you too.”
“I love you, Dad.”
Trace cleared his throat, and I knew I wasn’t the only one crying at that moment as he buried his face against Cade’s back for a moment.
It might have taken us years to get to this place, lonely years where we’d had to face the world without each other. Yet, there was a part of me that wouldn’t change what had happened. Because it had brought us here, to this place, as fully formed adults with a love for our family that was so strong no one could get in between us.
“Put it on, Mom!” Cade cheered, pulling away to hold out the ring box to me.
I smiled as Trace took the ring from the box and slipped it onto my finger. It really was beautiful. A gold band with a shining emerald in the middle, surrounded by diamonds. This had been his grandmother’s ring, and knowing that he thought I was worthy enough to wear it meant the absolute world to me.
Now we had our chance. Our chance to build the life we wanted, to build the home where our children would thrive, and we could grow old together watching them find a love like our own.
I was finally in a place surrounded by people I loved.
Finally home.
I wasn’t drifting through life anymore. I had a purpose in the business I was building, the home I was making, and the people who I’d love every step of the way. This wasn’t the life I’d left behind. It was a better one.