Epilogue
CHARLIE
I t had only been two weeks since Liv had looked up at me in old Ms. Burl’s kitchen and told me that she believed me. Only half a month since she’d pressed her lips to mine and started a fire in my soul that had taken a couple days to burn itself out.
We never had gotten around to eating that casserole. I didn’t regret it. Last week, when I’d apologized to Ms. Burl for letting it go to waste, she told me that I ought to know her better than that and that she’d taken it to the homeless shelter that very same night.
Apparently, it had even still been hot. She’d winked at me when she’d told me that. Then she’d added, “Just like you two had been. For each other.”
I hadn’t even been embarrassed. It had been completely true.
After Olivia had kissed me that night, I hadn’t been able to get her back to her place fast enough. We’d spent the next two days tangled up each other, making love, hanging out and being lazy together, dancing in our underwear as she blasted Grease from her phone, and we’d even finally gotten to cook some of those recipes from the books that used to belong to her grandmother.
It had been the closest thing to absolute bliss that I’d ever experienced, and despite the fact that I still had to take crap from my brothers about them picking up my slack with chores while I’d been gone, it had been completely worth it. I would take shit about it for the rest of my life if I had to, and it still would’ve been worth it.
In the time since, every damn day had felt more like a gift than ever before. I’d woken up with Liv every morning and I’d fallen asleep next to her every night. Every minute that we weren’t working, we spent together, and thanks to the planning for next quarter’s campaign for the ranch, we got to spend a decent amount of our time together even when we were working.
It had been nothing short of the best two weeks of my life. I had no idea how I’d ever gotten so lucky, but I knew now that Scarlett turning out to be exactly as much of a manipulative liar as she was had been the best thing that ever happened to me. If she hadn’t been using me back in the day, I’d never have ended up with Liv and this?
What Liv and I had? The way I felt about her? It was everything I’d ever wanted. It was more than I ever could’ve earned or deserved.
She glanced at me as we drove onto the ranch after spending the day at the Houston branch of her firm. “What’s that smile for?”
“You,” I said honestly. “I was just thinking about how you’ve made me the happiest guy who has ever walked the face of this earth.”
Olivia laughed, gorgeous greens hidden behind a pair of mirrored sunglasses and her hair whipping around her face in the wind coming in through her open window. I loved seeing her like this, so carefree and joyful that I knew she had no more doubts about me and where I stood on life with her.
She covered my hand with her own and sank her fingers between mine. “Right back atcha, Cowboy.”
“You’re the happiest guy on the planet?” I joked. “Wow. I never would’ve guessed.”
She laughed. “You’re an idiot, but you’re my idiot and I love you.”
“Right back atcha, City,” I repeated her words and slowed as we neared my parents’ house. “It’s a pity your mom and dad already had plans tonight. It would’ve been great if they could’ve joined us.”
She chuckled. “Honestly, the fact that my mother is in Texas is enough for me. I’ll see them again tomorrow. This is going to be fun. I feel like we haven’t seen enough of your family this week.”
“Said no girlfriend to her boyfriend. Ever. Not ever. Not anywhere.”
“I guess that means I’m not just any girlfriend,” she teased, pushing her sunglasses up into her loose, dirty blonde hair as we parked outside my parents’ house. “Is it weird that I kind of feel like telling you how good it is to be home?”
“Nope.”
I got out and didn’t even try beating her to her door. We were compromising, and one of those compromises was that she knew how to open her own car doors from the inside when the handle was right next to her. I didn’t like it, but I would learn to live with it.
I did manage to open the door to my family home for her, though. That was something. She even smiled at me when I did it. “Thank you, Cowboy.”
“You’re welcome, City.”
Her brow furrowed as we walked inside. “Why do you call me City some days and Cowgirl on others?”
I smirked and was very obvious about running my gaze down the length of her sexy body, hugged this evening by a tailored business suit. “It depends on what you’re wearing, baby. Right now, you’re a city girl from your beautiful head to your adorable toes.”
She laughed and glanced down at her outfit, her head shaking until she spotted my mother walking over to join us. As always, my entire family was stoked to see her, with everyone pulling her into hugs and holding her tight. We sat down for a big family dinner and Dad waited until we’d joined hands before he started saying grace. It was exactly the way it always was, except for one small addition.
“Lord, thank you for all my sons, my stunning wife, and my future daughter,” he said and I coughed, surprised that he’d decided to add that into the prayer. When I peeked at Olivia though, she was smiling. “We thank you for this food before us, for the hands that have prepared it, and the company we share. Bless this meal and nourish our bodies. Amen.”
I sent Dad a quick, questioning look after the prayer, but he simply winked at me and carried on. A few of my brothers chuckled at the exchange, but thankfully, Liv was already too busy talking to my mom to notice.
A few things had quickly become routine when Olivia and I had dinner with my family. One of those things was that my brothers poked fun at me and another was that they tried to flirt with Liv. I knew they were doing it to mess with me, but when Wyatt suggested a swim in the creek with him later—with her in a bikini this time—I’d had enough.
“Back. Off,” I growled around the sip of beer I’d just taken.
Naturally, that made all my brothers practically fall to the floor as they laughed and even my mother cracked a smile. I sighed but shook my head and let out a chuckle of my own. Not even these idiots were going to ruin my mood today.
After dinner, when the idiots finally took off to find some more beer, I turned to Liv and held out my hand. “I have a surprise for you.”
Those eyes searched mine, but she gave me her hand and stood up. “What have you got up your sleeve this time, Cowboy?”
“Just a walk,” I said, tucking her fingers into the crook of my elbow and leading her outside without saying goodbye to anyone.
We didn’t need to. If everything went according to plan, we’d be seeing them again real soon.
Liv glanced at me as I led her to the paddocks nearest the creek. On either side of us, two rows of white fencing stretched along the dirt road, the barn standing at the end.
It was beautiful out here at dusk, like it was now, the old barn glowing with the sun behind it and the trees around the creek standing guard like they had been for generations of Andersons living on this ranch. I’d gone back and forth about doing this at the stream like my parents had, and my grandparents before them, but in the end, I’d wanted something Liv and I could call our own.
As we turned onto the road leading to the barn, I grinned. The floor was lined with red rose petals, set up exactly like I’d asked my mom and Liv’s to do earlier this evening.
She gasped when she noticed it, her stride immediately slowing to a stop. Turning to arch an eyebrow at me, she didn’t let go of my elbow as she looked up into my eyes. “What is all this?”
“Your surprise,” I said, gently prying her fingers away from my arm to take her hand in mine. I lowered myself to one knee and swallowed past the sudden surge of nerves shooting from deep within. “I will love you for the rest of my life, Olivia Walker. I will spend all my days until I draw my last breath trying to make you happy and I’ll even go to New York whenever you want me to and for however long you want me to be there. Will you be my wife?”
Tears started streaming down her face as she looked down at me from those intense green eyes that had captured my attention from the word go. “Yes. Yes!”
She gasped and pulled me up, throwing her arms around my neck and pushing up on her toes to kiss me. As our mouths fused together and my hand wound into her hair, my heart hammered louder than it ever had before, but even that couldn’t drown out the cheers from our family and friends, who were all gathered in the trees leading down to the creek.
Our parents and siblings had arranged a little celebration for us there, but as I kissed her, I didn’t give a damn who was watching. All I knew was that she was everything I’d ever dreamed of and nothing like I ever thought would be mine.
I really was the luckiest man alive, and I always would be now that she was officially mine.
***