Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
Zane sat up with a snort as he heard a crash. The lights were on in his room, so he could see immediately there was no one in there with him.
He rolled out of bed, and flung the door open, walking quickly down the hall only to see Cara, underneath the living room window, in a heap, having clearly pushed it open and launched herself inside.
“Cara?”
“That was the only window that wasn’t locked,” she said, sitting up, pushing her hair out of her face.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
“I’m groveling,” she said, staying down on her hands and knees and crawling a couple of feet toward him before taking a deep breath and sitting.
“I have to tell you that I’m sorry. I have to tell you that I was wrong.
I have to tell you that I was afraid, and everything that I thought at first that I was afraid of is not what I was afraid of.
I thought that I was scared of the heaviness.
I thought that I was scared of having to take care of another person again, or my life revolving around another person, but that’s not it.
I’m just plain old scared of having love only to lose it again.
I’m scared of the dread that I might live with, knowing that I have something I want so badly and that it could be taken from me.
But you… You’re brave enough to do this.
And if you’re brave enough to do this, Zane, how can I not be? ”
Zane couldn’t wait anymore. He got down on his knees, still wearing the same pants he’d had on in the rainstorm, and pulled her toward him.
“You ridiculous girl,” he said. “Of course, you’re not too late. As long as our hearts are beating, it’s never too late.” He brushed his thumb over her cheek. “This is gold, Cara. It’s the rain. It’s the thing that makes me want to do more than just keep breathing.”
She could feel her own heart beating, could feel every beat as a promise.
“You didn’t teach me about this in my survival classes,” she whispered.
“Because I didn’t know anything about it. This isn’t survival, Cara. This is living.”
“This is what I want,” she whispered. “I want to live. I want to live with you, and I think that’s the thing that’s going to make me feel like I’m… That’s the big life. All the everything that I’ve been chasing. It’s here. It’s with you. Oh God, it’s with you.”
He held her close, and he didn’t let go of her. All the while, she was shaking. He held her until she wasn’t. Until he knew that this was it. That she was real. That they were real.
And as he listened to her breathing in his house, he knew something, as certain then as he had ever known anything.
He would never live in a completely silent house ever again.
He would never be alone again.
“What do you say we start a whole horse ranch? You and me. What do you say we start a legacy?”
She nodded, her eyes filling with tears. “Yeah. Let’s do that.”
“Just that simple,” he said.
She laughed, even through her tears.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “For being patient with me while I figured out how to be brave.”
He huffed a laugh. “That’s ridiculous. You were the one who was brave. You were the one who came up here first. If that hadn’t happened, we wouldn’t be here now.”
She looked up at him, her eyes filled with tears. “I don’t think that’s true. I think we would’ve ended up here no matter what. Probably because I baited you.”
“You baited me?”
“The rolls. They were never a payment. But I was slowly earning your trust.”
“Were you now?”
“Yep. Because there are a few things that I’ve learned since I moved here. How to gain a horse’s trust, how to bait you, how to survive in the wilderness, how to have sex, how to use the stars to find my way home, how to ride a horse, how to banish my fears and choose love instead.”
“I like all those things,” he said, picking her up from the floor, holding her against his chest. “But that last one is my favorite.”
She snuggled up against him as he carried her into his bedroom. “Mine too.”
And he smiled as he closed the bedroom door and lay down in bed with her, and fell asleep, in his house that was no longer empty, listening to his heartbeat. His heart that was no longer empty.
“Hold on a second.”
He got back up and went to the door, then he turned the lights off.
There was nothing to be afraid of anymore.