21. Knox #2
There were two tables tonight, an extra added now that Ivy’s brothers had arrived.
My assigned seat was the same one I’d occupied all month.
Next to Madeleine. Ivy had been forcing the two of us together since the first night.
I’d not minded before now. In fact, I’d been happy to have an excuse to sit next to her.
But this evening, I couldn’t stand the thought of being that close to her for an entire supper.
So I snatched my card up and walked over to the other table.
Ivy’s brothers were already into the Spicy Cowboy Cider and loudly discussing a football game.
I set my card down at the empty spot next to Beau and sat myself down.
“Can I crash the party?” I asked.
“Knox Hartley,” Beau said, sounding delighted, clapping me on the shoulder. “Get in here. I’m about to prove a point to my slightly thick in the head brothers.”
I let them pull me into the conversation. I laughed in the right places and did not look across the room at the table where a woman in a cream-colored sweater was sitting down beside an empty chair.
She wouldn’t care, I told myself. She’d probably be relieved.
Ivy caught my gaze, holding it for a second.
She shook her head slightly, as if I’d disappointed her.
I wanted to tell her not to worry. I wasn’t about to ruin the wedding by making a scene.
However, I was out of here on the twenty-sixth.
Staying the rest of the month was not possible.
I was not strong enough. I’d do the wedding and then I was back to Nashville.
Toasts began after they’d cleared our supper plates and brought giant pieces of apple pie with ice cream.
Rhett stood up first. He was funny and witty, telling a story about Jack from the early days that made the entire room roar with laughter.
But after the room quieted, he shared with us how close he and Jack had been for a very long time.
“We believed in each other even when no else did. And now, Ivy, I’m sorry to say, you have to put up with the whole gang. We’re here for better or worse too.”
Ivy blew him a kiss. We all lifted our glasses.
Carol spoke next. “When my children were small, it was all I could do to keep the lights on. Sometimes I think they raised each other, along with Rhett and Holly. I’ve felt a lot of guilt about their childhoods, even though I did the best I could.
But to see all of this.” She swept her hand around the room.
“It fills me with more joy than I could ever express.” She turned toward Ivy.
“You can’t imagine how hard I prayed for someone wonderful for my son.
Even in my imagination and my requests to Jesus, I couldn’t have imagined a better woman for my precious boy. Welcome to our family.”
More lifting of glasses.
Madeleine stood. Her hand trembled as she reached for her glass.
“I’d planned a speech for tomorrow but it seems I have something to say tonight.
I have to admit, when Ivy told me she’d rented a dude ranch out for an entire month, I questioned her sanity.
What would we do all month? That was my first thought. ”
Everyone laughed.
“Turns out, there are many things to do here at Crescent Moon Ranch. For me, something very specific happened. Somewhere between sleigh rides and trail rides and stargazing, I fell in love.”
The room went still and quiet. I held my breath, wondering what she would say next. Then he came to me during a storm and I sent him out to his death.
“I know, it’s hard to believe. I know what you all think of me.
The Mads Freeze and all that. Don’t deny it.
I know you all say it behind my back. And it was true.
I was cold. Even though it cut me every time I heard one of you say it, I knew it was true.
I’ve very carefully stayed removed from anything or anyone who can hurt me.
However, this month in Montana has reminded me of the girl I used to be.
Mindy Sue Price. That’s my real name.” Her Arkansas accent was evident when she said her name.
“I spent a lot of time and money erasing her from existence. But it turns out that she’s the part of me that remembered how to fall in love.
How to fall in love? She hadn’t remembered, though. She’d pushed me away and let me believe things were true between us. Then she walked right past me when I stood at the window waving at a woman with a frozen heart.
Madeleine continued, the Arkansas accent slipping into every third word or so.
“When I was a kid, we had a lot of storms that would take out our power and leave us in complete darkness, without heat or water, stumbling around to find a candle and matches. My heart would pound so hard—maybe from the dark, maybe the noise of the thunder or wind—that it would make me physically ill. Days and days we’d fight the darkness.
Just my mom, Charlie, and me. We had no one else.
And maybe worst of all, without power, we didn’t have music.
Music always made things seem warmer and better. But even that was taken from us.
“The neighborhood where we lived was always last to get power back, you know. The poorest area of town—no one cares. Everything in the fridge would go bad. Food my mother could barely afford the first time around, let alone replacing it all. One time I remember her on the kitchen floor, crying her eyes out—a jar of mayonnaise in her lap. That’s not something you forget.
And our house was cold. We’d bundle up in layers because there was no heat.
Last night …” She set her drink back on the table, then closed her eyes for a moment.
“Last night, it was so loud. The noise just wouldn’t stop.
And it was like I was suddenly ten years old again.
I shut myself in the bathroom and put my earbuds in to try and escape, but I could still hear it, shaking everything, like the whole cabin might collapse in on itself.
And I was alone. Alone because I’d turned away from …
the one person I shouldn’t have. The person I could have clung to during a storm if I hadn’t been so afraid and confused.
Instead of doing the rational thing, I did what I do best, run.
“But during the storm, I took comfort in the one thing that has never let me down. Music. I put my noise-cancelling earbuds in and played the music I’d grown up with, curled up on the bathroom floor.
Angry at myself for handling everything so poorly and denying the part of me that still knows how to love.
The music did its job, but unfortunately, it meant that I didn’t hear Knox knocking at my door.
” She looked straight at me. “I had no idea you were there or I would have yanked you inside where it was safe.”
She hadn’t heard me. She wouldn’t lie. Not in front of everyone. Not to me. But she’d still walked away after the time we’d spent together. Who does that? Broken people. Broken people who break others.
“Those earbuds cancel all noise,” Ivy said. “You couldn’t have known.”
Madeleine shot her a grateful look. “Thanks, Ivy. As usual, you always believe the best of me.”
She turned back to me. “Knox, when I think what could have happened to you out there. If not for Grant.” She shuddered.
“You might have died, and you would never know how much I love you. Or how you’ve rocked the foundation of the carefully constructed house I built around myself.
These last few weeks with you reminded me of who I used to be.
Not only that, but you seemed to like the real me, under all the careful packaging.
I should never have walked past you. Not after what we’d shared together.
But I …” She covered her face with her hands for a moment, taking in a deep shuddering breath, before looking back at me.
“The truth is, my feelings for you scare me. I don’t want to be hurt or left, especially publicly.
With the cameras everywhere this month, it made it worse. But I have to be braver.
“I’m sorry for not hearing you knock. I know you may not be able to forgive me, but I wanted to say this in front of everyone.
I’m no longer hiding or running. I’m right here, standing in front of everyone I care about telling the absolute truth—I love you.
” She turned away from me to address the room.
“Everyone, I’m in love with Knox Hartley. Trust me, no one’s as surprised as me.”
I glanced around. No one seemed at all surprised. In fact, they all looked slightly smug.
“We’re not surprised,” Jack said. “We’ve all seen you. And not just this month either.”
“That’s right,” Grant said. “No one argues like you two used to unless there’s great passion under the hostility.”
Beck and Rhett nodded.
I realized my cheeks were damp. I dried my face with a napkin, mind reeling and sorting through what she’d said.
She loves me. She said it out loud to everyone.
The last piece of anger I’d clung to drifted away.
I could no longer hide behind it. Everyone seemed to have turned toward me, waiting to see what I would do.
For a moment, I simply sat there, looking at Madeleine, letting it all sink in. She had finally said what I’d longed for. She loved me.
She loved Knox Hartley, scars and all. And, my God, I loved her with every piece of my heart and soul.