Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Zane walked back into his cabin, his heart thundering against his ribs, feeling like a bag of broken glass. Sharp and shattered and bloody.
He didn’t know what he had expected, telling her that he loved her, and what he had wanted.
What he had really wanted was to be completely all right with whatever her answer was.
What he wanted was for it to be enough that he loved her, that he could feel that, and he wanted to be able to selflessly just marinate in that, and want nothing in return.
But suddenly, he wanted it all. After a life of not having anything, he wanted everything.
Because if there could be prom, if there could be love, why couldn’t there be marriage, and children, and forever?
God, he hadn’t believed in forever since he was a little boy.
He knew that it wasn’t guaranteed, not even now, but blessings would come, the rain would come, whether they deserved it or not, he just knew it. He was full to bursting with this new feeling, with this deep, crystal-clear belief, and she had said no.
And he loved her so damned much that he was going to respect that. He wasn’t even going to chase her down, not tonight, because he respected her so much, but it hurt. It really, really hurt, and he didn’t know that he could hurt like this.
Maybe that was a gift too.
To know that he could still care so much that he could still feel this pain.
He was alive.
Right now, this moment, walking into his empty cabin, missing her like this, it reminded him of that day. The day that he had walked in, and found out his whole family was gone. But it wasn’t that day. Because his heart, bloody and broken as it was, was still beating.
And so was hers.
That meant that there was still hope. There was nothing he could do to fight against the loss of his family. They had just been gone. Just been lost to him, and there was no fixing that, no taking it back.
With this? He could figure out what he might be able to do. He could ask her what she wanted. He could offer her anything.
He would offer her any goddamn thing she wanted, as long as it meant that he could still love her.
He would tell her everything that he had planned for them. The ranch that he would build, the future they could have, and if she didn’t want it, he would respect it.
But he would love her all the same, because as much as it hurt, this love was a gift, and he knew it.
His heart was still beating.
And that was a gift.
But he didn’t want just to survive anymore. He didn’t want to live to be the old man on that lonely porch that the kids whispered about. He wanted to sit on that porch with Cara.
He wanted to watch their own grandkids play in that yard.
Watch the leaves turn gold.
Gold might not stay in the same place forever, but it always came back. Year after year. It was in the sunrise, the trees, the decorations at a prom for two.
Because even if the people you loved were gone, the love remained.
It felt so clear now. So real. He carried the love for his family with him through everything. Through war and the rodeo and now this, too.
It would always be what kept him going.
Now he could see what his life was for. Now he could see a future, not just surviving.
Living.
With her.
And while there was still breath in his body, that was the thing that he was going to fight for.