22. Madeleine
MADELEINE
By the time I’d finished my speech, I was in tears. Knox’s reaction had been unreadable except for the tears that had seemed to leak from his eyes.
The room remained quiet, all of us waiting to see what Knox would or wouldn’t do. I had spoken from my heart and, if it didn’t move him, I would accept it. If I’d ruined the best thing that would ever happen to me, I’d have to live with that truth the rest of my life.
“Well, Hartley, moon’s full tonight.”
We all turned to Rhett, who was staring out the window. And I knew without him saying anything else that it was Holly he was thinking of.
“Tonight?” Knox asked. “I thought it was tomorrow.”
“Proof’s right there.” Rhett gestured toward the moon that hung full and fat low in the sky, as if to make sure we saw her through the windows.
I realized I was still standing, legs trembling. Should I sit? Would the night just go on as it was before? Speeches and pie and more Spicy Cowboy Cider while my heart broke into a thousand pieces? I stepped backward, as if my feet thought it was time for us to run. That’s what we did.
Not this time. This time I would stay and face whatever came.
Knox rose slowly from his seat. No one else moved. The pulse at my neck fluttered at a speed that was surely detrimental to my health. From the kitchen came the sound of someone dropping a tray, making everyone jump.
Knox went first to the window, peering out at the moon. He turned back around to look at me, then crossed to where I was still standing. “Would you like to see the moon?”
I nodded, swallowing the lump in my throat.
Knox held out his hand and I took it. He led me out to the patio. The frigid air stung my damp eyes but I hardly noticed.
I was vaguely aware that everyone else had followed us outside. When we got to the railing, Knox turned to face me. “Do you agree that it’s full?”
Reluctant to take my gaze from his face, I hesitated for a second before shifting to look upward. It was spectacular, stars scattered across the inky sky and the full moon hovering just above the tree line.
“I’d not argue against it,” I said.
“Definitely full,” Rhett said.
“Kiss the girl,” Beck said so softly that I almost didn’t hear it.
“Kiss her under the full moon,” Grant said. “So she knows it means something.”
Knox pulled me to him, stroking my cheek, pushing back my hair. “You know what it means? Is this what you want?”
“I know. And yes.”
His hands circled my waist. I hooked my arms around his neck. Slowly, tortuously, he came closer and closer until there was no space between our mouths. Finally, he kissed me in front of our friends and family under the light of that full moon.
Everyone cheered.
We kept kissing.
We didn’t stay for pie. Instead, we headed back to Knox’s cabin. Once there, he started a fire and poured some wine, and the two of us sat in the leather chairs.
“I have something to say,” Knox said. “That I haven’t said. To anyone, actually, most of my life. I’ve felt it, you know, for the boys, and my family, but I never say the words. I don’t know why they won’t come out of my mouth.”
“You already said it.”
His brows raised. “That I love you?”
“You were half asleep. It was very romantic,” I said, smiling, feeling like a schoolgirl.
“Oh. Well, then.” He didn’t laugh. He set his wine down and looked at me like he wanted to be sure I heard it while he was awake to mean it. “I’ll say it again. I love you. I’ve loved you for forever, I was just too stubborn to see it.”
“You and me both.” I hesitated, buying time by taking a sip of wine. “I want you to know more about what happened to me yesterday. Why I unraveled.” I set the glass down. If I was going to do this, I wasn’t going to do it with something in my hands to hide behind.
“You introduced yourself as Mindy. And it set you off on a spiral.”
“It was more than that.” I made myself hold his eyes.
“Blake caught it on camera. That’s what triggered me more than anything.
I imagined everyone seeing the movie, watching me fall in love with you and we’d already have broken up by then.
You would have dumped me by the time the movie came out, and the thought of being humiliated and hurt like that, it made me panic.
That morning after I crept out of your cabin and back to mine, I went to see Blake.
I asked her to delete any footage she had of the two of us, which she agreed to do.
But first she asked me to watch some of what they’d caught.
Three weeks of it. So I did. I watched. That’s what did it.
I saw with my own eyes what I was like when I was with you.
” I had to stop for a second to swallow the lump in my throat.
“I watched myself on that screen. Laughing. Singing off-key on the hayride. Looking at you across a room like you hung that big old moon you’re always going on about. I barely recognized myself.”
He didn’t say anything, but his expression was open with compassion.
“I’d already made up my mind to end things with you.
To go back to Nashville and be Madeleine and pretend Montana never happened.
I wasn’t going to fight for you. I was going to disappear, and let you forget anything ever happened between us.
I knew you would, see? Or that’s what my broken mind told myself.
This isn’t real. Everything will go back to the way it was the minute we’re home. So I have to end it first.”
“Makes me sad to hear you say it. But I understand.” Knox looked down at his hands for a moment.
“Do you think it could happen again? That feeling like the only answer is to run from me?” His voice wasn’t angry but certainly careful.
“Because I won’t make it. It might actually kill me.
I’ve never hurt as bad as I did last night when I thought you’d … sent me away.”
I started to cry. How could one person have this many tears? “When I think of you out there, believing I’d betrayed you—it feels like I’m the one dying.”
“But I was wrong,” Knox said. “You were scared and alone.”
“You were mistaken, not wrong. I treated you terribly. I walked right past you, into my own cabin, after you’d been nothing but good to me.
Patient with all my crap.” I wiped my face.
“I can’t promise I’ll never get scared again.
The thought of everyone seeing me this vulnerable frightens me still, but I love you enough to risk it.
That’s not something I ever thought I would say, let alone feel.
” I reached over and took his hand. “The next time it comes—the demons that tell me to run—I’ll knock on your door instead of locking mine.
As long as you’ll have me, I’ll be there. ”
Knox turned my hand over in his and ran his thumb across my knuckles. “I’m not going anywhere. I don’t care who knows it or what opinions they might have, I love you. We belong together. I’ll fight for you the rest of my life if I have to.”
“I won’t make it this hard again,” I said. “But there may be some therapy in my future.”
“I’ll support you. Whatever demons come your way.
And I’ll ask that you do the same for me.
Because I sure have some of my own. For example, why did I immediately believe you’d leave me out in a storm?
I know you. You wouldn’t do that, even if you hated me.
I don’t know what I was thinking, but it wasn’t clearly. ”
“I’m glad you don’t think I could do that,” I said. “Because I’d rather die myself than let anything happen to you.”
“Don’t do that. Not when we’ve finally smartened up,” Knox said.
“And you’re right, you know,” I said. “I am Mindy Sue and she is me. I’ve changed and grown since childhood and in a lot of ways it’s been only good. But I also don’t have to be so very Madeleine all of the time. Maybe I could just be Maddie. Or Mads.”
“Maddie.” He said it slow, smiling. “It suits you.”
“You’re the first person who’s ever called me it.”
“As it should be.” He smiled, reaching out to take my face in his large, talented hands. “As a man who fell for Madeleine and Mindy, I think I’m going to love Maddie.”
“She loves you.”
He got up, drawing me to my feet and looking at me for a long moment, like he still couldn’t quite believe I was standing next to him. He kissed me softly. “Hello, beautiful Maddie. Would you care to stay the rest of your life?”
“Like married?”
“Like married.”
“Is that what you really want?” I asked.
“I didn’t think so, you know. Seeing my parents’ marriage and how miserable they always were, I didn’t think it was for me. I thought the same as you, actually. That no one could love the real me. Only Gramps did that.”
“But you were wrong. The guys love you. I love you. We’re your family now.”
“Do you want to get married on New Year’s Eve?” Knox asked. “Right here?”
I stared at him. “Are you serious?”
“Everyone we love is already here,” Knox said.
“Except my mom and Charlie. And what about your family?”
“We could fly your mom and Charlie in. For New Years. And a surprise wedding?”
“I don’t know. Ivy might not like it. What if she feels like we’re stealing her special month and making it our own?”
“Let’s ask her.”
I smiled back at him. “Maybe after her wedding. For now, she’s the only bride on the ranch.”
“Fair enough.” He stood, drawing me close. “Should we unmake the bed again?”
“Nothing better than a messy bed.”
“Let’s make it real messy,” Knox said.
And so we did.