15. Daniela
FIFTEEN
Daniela
We walked to the house hand-in-hand.
It was my last day in Briar Hill before the shoot started, and Peggy had planned a big dinner to send me off. Everyone was going to be there—Millie, Gage, the kids…Haven and Wyatt, Forrest, Dakota. Adam would be there if he didn't get distracted making something, which was never a guarantee.
Even Stetson, Sawyer’s most elusive cousin, would be there.
It was the perfect time to tell everyone that Sawyer had just agreed to marry me.
I kept reaching up to run my fingers over the St. Christopher’s medal, a stupid grin on my face that I couldn't wipe away. Sawyer looked the same, especially when we caught sight of everyone at the kitchen table in the big house…when we could hear them laughing.
“They're never going to let me live it down,” Sawyer said. “That you had to ask me to marry you…and that I don't even have a ring.”
I snorted. “I did kind of spring it on you.”
He was smiling, looking at the lit windows, the shadows of people moving around inside. "I'm saying I should've done it first."
"Next time."
He looked at me.
"Next time I get engaged," I said, "I'll let you do it first."
"There's not going to be a next time."
"I know." I squeezed his hand. "That's why you'd better make it up to me with a very good ring."
"I was thinking a simple band."
"You were not."
"Something with diamonds."
"There we go."
He laughed, low and easy, and pulled me into his side for a second—arm around my shoulders, mouth to my temple—and I leaned into him and felt the medal warm against my collarbone and thought about how none of this was what I'd planned when I drove out to Holt Creek Ranch in December to see my best friend.
None of it.
All of it better.
"Ready?" he said.
I looked at the house. At the warm windows and the moving shadows and the sound of Dakota's laugh carrying out into the cold night air.
"Millie's going to cry," I said.
"Millie's definitely going to cry."
"Dakota's going to say something terrible."
"I'll handle Dakota."
"Forrest—" I stopped.
Sawyer looked down at me.
"Forrest is going to be happy," he said.
I nodded. Took a breath.
"Okay," I said. "Let's go."
We went up the porch steps and through the screen door and the warmth and noise of the kitchen hit me all at once—Penny scrambling toward us, Bea already shrieking from somewhere in the living room, the smell of whatever Peggy had been making all day wrapping around everything like a second kind of warmth.
Millie turned from the counter and smiled when she saw us.
"There they are," she said. "I was about to send a search party."
"We were at the creek," I said.
"I know you were at the creek." She gave me the look. "You always go to the creek."
Sawyer squeezed my hand once and let go, moving to say something to Gage, and I stood in the doorway of this kitchen that had become as familiar to me as my abuela's and looked around at all of it—Dakota already talking too loud, Haven at the table with Ethan in her lap, Forrest with his coffee at the far end, Adam appearing from the hallway looking like he'd absolutely been distracted making something, Wyatt standing against the counter with that quiet watchful presence he always had.
Peggy at the stove.
Millie watching my face.
I touched the medal at my throat.
Then I said, to the room, at a volume that cut through Dakota mid-sentence: "Sawyer and I are getting married."
Complete silence.
Then everyone talked at once.
"What—" Dakota.
"I knew it—" Millie.
"Congratulations," Forrest, from the end of the table.
"Wait, when did—" Haven.
"Good," Peggy said, without turning from the stove. Like I'd told her dinner was almost ready. Like it was simply the correct state of affairs and she was satisfied it had finally arrived.
Millie crossed the kitchen in four steps and grabbed both my hands.
"When," she said. Her eyes were already filling. "Where. How. Start talking."
"The creek," I said. "This afternoon."
"I knew it was going to be the creek?—"
"I asked him," I said.
Millie blinked.
Then she turned to look at Sawyer with an expression I could only describe as delighted outrage. "She asked you?"
"She did," Sawyer said, entirely unbothered.
"In my defense," I said, "I had good reasons."
"What reasons?—"
"He was taking too long."
Dakota made a sound that got immediately strangled when Sawyer looked at him.
"I wasn't taking too long," Sawyer said.
"You absolutely were."
"I had a plan?—"
"You had intentions," I said. "A plan has steps."
Forrest, from the end of the table, covered his mouth with his coffee mug. His eyes were doing something warm and complicated above the rim.
"He doesn't have a ring," I announced to the room, because I was enjoying this.
"Sawyer," Millie said.
"It was spontaneous," he said. "There weren't a lot of options at the creek."
"He gave me his St. Christopher medal," I said, and touched it, and Millie's expression collapsed entirely into something soft and ruined.
"Sawyer," she said again, completely different this time.
He looked slightly uncomfortable, the way he did when something landed bigger than he intended. "It was what I had."
Millie pressed both hands to her face.
Gage put his arm around her, which was good, because she looked like she needed the structural support.
"I'm getting a real ring," I said. "With diamonds. We've already discussed it."
"Some diamonds," Sawyer said.
"Many diamonds."
"A reasonable number of?—"
"Sawyer."
"Yes," he said. "Many diamonds."
Adam appeared fully from the hallway, assessed the room in one sweep, and walked directly to Sawyer to shake his hand. "Well," he said, "it's about time."
"That's what Peggy said," I told him.
"Smart woman." He came to me next and took both my hands in his, and looked at me with those warm easy eyes that had never once made me feel like a guest at this table. "Welcome to the family, sweetheart. Officially."
My throat did something inconvenient.
"Thank you," I managed.
Wyatt shook Sawyer's hand without making a production of it.
Haven hugged me, warm and genuine, Ethan squashed cheerfully between us.
Dakota hovered until Sawyer gave him a look that clearly communicated *behave* and then he hugged me too, surprisingly carefully, and said quietly near my ear: "He's been gone on you since New Mexico. Just so you know."
"I know," I said.
"Good." He stepped back. Returned to his normal volume. "Someone should've told him sooner but he's stubborn as hell?—"
"Dakota…" Sawyer said.
"I'm just saying?—"
"I will put you on the ground in front of your entire family."
"You won't, your fiancée is watching?—"
"She'd help."
Dakota looked at me.
"I would," I confirmed.
He grinned. Sat back down. Picked up his fork like nothing had happened.
Forrest was the last one. He stood when I came to him, which I hadn't expected, and he looked at me for a moment with that careful face—and then he said, quietly, so only I could hear: "He's been waiting for you his whole life. He just didn't know it yet."
I pressed my lips together.
"Don't make me cry at this dinner," I said. "I'm serious."
The corner of his mouth moved. "No promises."
He sat back down. I composed myself. Peggy announced dinner was ready in a tone that brooked no argument and didn't acknowledge that anyone had been crying, which was the most dignified possible response.
We sat down. All of us, around that long table—loud and warm and overlapping, the kids and the dog and the food and the wine—and I sat between Sawyer and Millie, Sawyer's hand finding my knee under the table, the medal warm at my throat, and I looked around at all of it and thought about a craft services table in New Mexico and a wool duster in ninety-degree heat and the specific moment I'd turned around and seen someone I recognized.
Someone who knew Daniela and not Daphne.
I reached under the table and covered Sawyer's hand with mine.
He turned his palm up and laced his fingers through mine and didn't look at me, just kept talking to Gage, but his thumb moved once across my knuckles.
I've got you.
I knew.