Epilogue #2
Jenn had choked and excused herself from the table. I found her in the hallway thirty seconds later, where we burst into hysterical laughter. We stayed there until we could compose ourselves, which took considerably longer than either of us would admit.
It wasn’t all good days though. The bad days still came. The confusion, the fear, the heartbreaking effort of watching someone you love fight to hold on when everything kept slipping. I sat with him through all of it and I would keep sitting with him through all of it for as long as I had him.
One of those particularly bad days, Devon had gotten a front-row seat to Daddy breaking down about Mama being gone.
A memory had slipped through. Something about her hands, and the way she used to rest them on his arm when she was listening.
And for one brief, terrible moment there had been absolute clarity in his eyes.
He remembered that she was gone and never coming back.
It had only lasted a few minutes.
But that was more than enough.
Devon had quietly excused himself out to the barn.
After I’d gotten Daddy settled back into the version of the world where Mama was just at the grocery store, I’d gone to find him.
He was standing at the fence line, arms folded on the top rail, eyes aimed out over the field where the horses were moving slow and easy in the late afternoon light. He didn’t turn around when he heard me coming. He just waited.
I hadn’t said anything. I’d just stood beside him, and after a while, his arm had come around me and pulled me into his chest.
We stayed like that for a long time.
Finally, he’d said, “I can’t decide if he’s the luckiest man in existence because he doesn’t have to live with that pain on a daily basis. Or if the fact that he never truly gets to process it and has to keep reliving it over and over again is the most horrifying cruelty imaginable.”
I hadn’t had an answer for that.
I still didn’t.
I’d just pressed closer and held on.
“All of their stalls are wet,” I called out to Devon as Beans trotted out to join his friends in the field. “This is going to take forever to clean.”
Chuckling, Devon walked into the feed room and cut off the water to the barn.
When he returned, he came straight to me and wrapped me in a hug from behind.
“I’m serious about hiring help,” I told him.
“You’re serious about avoiding work.”
“Same thing.”
A white envelope with my name scrawled across the front suddenly appeared in my line of sight.
“What’s that?”
I felt him shrug. “It’s addressed to you, not me.”
I tipped my head back and looked at him. “Where’d it come from?”
“Me.”
I curled my lip. “What’s in it?”
He shrugged again.
“Is it the list of names you hired to dig out these stalls after using your ninja mind powers to predict Salty would do this?”
“Uh, no. And now that I think about it, I probably should have waited because, with expectations like that, I’m afraid you’re gonna be seriously disappointed.”
“Why would I be disappointed?”
He let out a huff. “Would you just open it already?”
I took the envelope from his hand and opened it. “Okay, okay. But just so you know, I’m —”
And that’s where my words died.
In Devon’s neat, precise handwriting were the words.
Will you marry me?
Check yes or no.
I pressed my lips together so hard that it hurt. My eyes were already burning as I spun to face him. “Devon Grant. Is that a proposal?”
“Top of the table.” He winked. “Smack in the center where everyone can see it.”
I laughed even as tears rolled from my eyes.
He bent, resting his forehead on mine. “It has taken everything in my being to wait this long to ask you this question. But I wanted you to finally find an easy chapter in your life. One where you weren’t afraid anymore.
One where you not only found a sense of normal, but you had the time to relax into it.
I wanted you to have the opportunity to discover new colors about yourself before you ever had to share them with me.
I knew this thing between us was real, even while I was still fighting it.
But you deserved a chance to see that for yourself. ”
“Devon,” I whispered, my chest so full it actually ached.
He produced a pen.
Through blurry eyes, I took it from him and aimed it down at the paper.
I would have said yes months earlier. Maybe even after our first kiss.
Because the thing about Devon Grant was that he had never once tried to be my whole world.
He’d just quietly made sure I had the time, space, and safety to build it myself.
He had given me back a sense of normalcy on the farm.
He had given me my father’s good days. He had given me Brooke and Zoey down the south field in a house with a yellow door.
He had given me back to myself.
And then, only then, when I was whole and certain and completely unafraid, he asked if he could have me.
That was the most Devon thing he had ever done.
Actually, no, the most Devon thing he had ever done was…
“You didn’t put a checkbox next to no,” I croaked.
He pretended to look at the paper. “Weird. I guess you have to check yes then.”
I laughed.
And then I checked yes so definitively that the pen went slightly through the paper.
Just as I looked up, I caught him dropping to a knee, a diamond ring pinched between his fingers.
It wasn’t massive or flashy. The kind of ring a man thought he needed to buy for Lofton Beck.
Chosen to impress, or to photograph, or to announce himself to the world.
It was simple and classic and beautiful, a single stone in a clean gold setting.
It was the kind of ring chosen by a man who knew exactly what truly mattered and had no interest in the things that didn’t.
It was pure Devon.
It was pure us.
As he slid it onto my finger, the warm promise of a lifetime of love washed over me.
I moved into him, hooking one arm around his waist, as I admired the ring. “You know what this means, don’t you?”
“You’re stuck with me forever?”
“Yeah, and also you get a new title.”
His whole body turned to stone. “Lofton,” he warned.
But it was too late.
“Devon Grant, First of His Name, Breaker of Professional Boundaries and Bed Slats, Warden of the Beck Family Farm, Master of Stoic Brooding, Protector of the Menacing Lofton Beck, and Rightful Heir to All Her Orgasms, Denier of the Snooze Button.” I paused and tipped my head back, peering into his eyes as I finished, “Husband to Lofton Grant.”
He couldn’t even pretend to be annoyed after that one.
His hand came up, cupping the side of my face, his thumb brushing my cheek. “I love you,” he whispered.
My chest tightened, full in a way that left no room for anything else. “I love you too.”
And then he kissed me.
Slow and steady, as if we had all the time in the world.
And for once, we actually did.
The End