Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
Stephen sat next to Elise at another loud and rambunctious summer supper.
Every week or so while the weather was warm, Hickory Hollow and Bolton Farms got all their people together for good Texas barbecue and to let off steam.
They switched back and forth on the location, but Midge was always in charge of the menu. She never disappointed.
Reaching into his pocket, he felt the small box that held the ring. His heart sped up as he looked at her and what he was about to do. “Walk with me a minute,” he said to Elise, low, near her ear.
He led her out onto the freshly mowed meadow that started just at the edge of the Hickory Hollow meeting room.
Away from the racket, into the soft sunset just on the horizon.
Behind them the supper rolled on without them.
She tipped her head at him, waiting, that little line showing between her brows that she got when she was reading him.
“I’m no hand at speeches,” he said. “You’ve got my number on that better than anybody. So I’ll only say the parts that matter.”
She smiled up at him, and the warmth of it reached him before she said a word.
“I’m done talking about the past,” he said.
“I’ve spent enough nights out at that pond letting it eat me alive.
All I want now is the future.” His voice came steady now, steadier than it had been all night.
This was the part he was sure of. “I want to rebuild that house with you and fill it up with kids. Your white dishes in my grandmother’s cupboards, and the two of us old and gray on the porch someday.
I want to spend the rest of my life with you, Elise.
You’ve helped me see that I’m brave enough to want things out loud. ”
He went down on one knee took the little box out of his pocket. He opened it so she could see the sparkle of the solitaire diamond. “Elise Pollard,” he said, “I love you with all I am and all I have. I’d count myself the luckiest fool in Texas if you’d be my wife.”
“Yes. Definitely yes,” she said, the word breaking and laughing at once.
Stephen got up, and his hands were shaking when he slid the ring onto her finger. Her hand was shaking too, and it all seemed perfect. As sure as he knew they both were, the future was happening now and it was glorious.
A year ago, the thought of two women crowing over a matchmaking scheme would have made Stephen’s neck go hot.
He’d have hated being somebody’s project, but tonight he only felt gratitude.
Let them take the credit, every last dollar of that insultingly small pot.
That project had handed him the rest of his life.
Then Elise had her hands fisted in his shirt and was pulling him down to her, up onto her toes to meet him, and she kissed him there in the porch light with a yard full of hollering witnesses and her brand-new ring cold against the back of his neck.
He kissed her the way a man kisses when he’s done being afraid of the thing he wants most.
When they came up for air she pressed her face into his neck, then pulled back to look at him. “I love you so much.” Then she was laughing and crying at once. He wrapped both arms around her and held her as the treasure she’d been all along.