5. Scarlett
— ? —
Scarlett
Two Years Earlier
The old foreman’s house smells like dust and possibility.
Beck brought me here an hour ago, right after the rehearsal dinner, right after his mother spent the whole evening looking at me like I was something she’d found on the bottom of her shoe.
The house has been empty for years, he said.
We’re going to tear it down and build something new. But I wanted you to see it first.
I don’t know why. The walls are bare, the floors are warped, the kitchen cabinets are hanging off their hinges. But there’s a mason jar on the windowsill with bluebonnets in it, and when I saw it, I burst into tears.
“I didn’t mean to make you cry,” Beck says now, pulling me closer on the old couch that’s probably full of mice. “I thought you’d like it.”
“I do like it.” I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand. “I love it. I just… I don’t understand why you brought me here.”
“Because this is where I want to build our house.” He’s looking at me with that intensity that always makes my chest tight. “Not the manor. Not my mother’s place. Something that’s just ours.”
“Beck, the manor is beautiful.”
“The manor is my father’s house. My grandfather’s house. It’s never going to feel like ours, not really.” He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “I want to build you something new. Something you design. Whatever you want.”
I don’t know what to say. I’ve never had anyone give me something like this before. A place for my future. A promise.
“I have a question,” I say instead, because there’s something that’s been bothering me all night. “Your mother’s friend, the one who did the seating chart. She put Camille Wheeler at your table tomorrow.”
Beck’s hand stills on my hair.
“Camille’s card never came back,” I continue. “I’ve been watching the RSVPs for weeks. Everyone else responded. But not her.”
“She’s bad about mail.”
“It’s been two months, Beck.”
He’s quiet for a moment. Then he says, “Camille and I grew up together. Across the road. We were close. Really close.”
“How close?”
“Not like that.” He meets my eyes, and I see something there I can’t quite name. “She was my best friend. We did everything together. Rodeos, school, summers. Then she moved to Wyoming when we…” He shrugs. “She just stopped calling. I tried for a while, but she never called back.”
“Do you know why?”
“No.” He says it simply, honestly. “I never did anything wrong, at least not that I know of. She just… left. And she stayed gone.”
I study his face in the dim light. There’s something he’s not telling me. I can feel it. But I don’t know him well enough yet to know what it is.
“Will it bother you?” I ask. “If she’s not there tomorrow?”
“No.” He pulls me onto his lap, and his hands settle on my hips in that way that always makes me lose my train of thought. “The only person I need there tomorrow is you.”
I want to believe him. I do believe him. But there’s still that card, sitting in the pile of non-responses, and there’s still the way his mother keeps looking at the door like she’s waiting for someone.
“I want to ask you for one thing,” I say. “One promise.”
“Anything.”
“The barns.” I take a breath. “I know your mother has opinions about everything. I know she’s going to want to manage the horses, the breeding program, the sales. But that’s mine. That has to be mine. If I’m going to live here, on your land, in your world, I need something that belongs to me.”
Beck’s hands tighten on my hips. “Done.”
“I mean it, Beck. No managers. No consultants. No one telling me how to run my program.”
“Scarlett.” He tips my face up to his. “The barn is yours. Nobody touches it.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise.” He kisses me, soft and slow. “You’re the only thing I ever wanted that I couldn’t buy. You know that?”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I kiss him back.
We end up on the kitchen table. I don’t know how. He’s just carrying me across the room, setting me down on the old wood and pulling my dress over my head.
“Someone could see,” I say, even though there’s no one out here for miles.
“Let them.” He’s kneeling between my legs, looking up at me with dark eyes. “Let them see how beautiful you are. Let them see that you’re mine.”
Then his mouth is on me, and I stop worrying about who might see. I stop worrying about anything except the pressure of his tongue and the grip of his hands on my thighs and the sound of my own voice echoing off the empty walls.
After, he carries me to the bedroom. The old mattress creaks under our weight, but I don’t care. I’m too busy trying to memorize the way he looks right now, hovering over me in the moonlight, his eyes full of something that might be love.
“You’re going to be my wife tomorrow,” he says.
“I know.”
“Say it.”
“I’m going to be your wife tomorrow.”
He slides into me, slow and deep, and I gasp. “Again.”
“I’m going to be your wife.”
“Mine.” He starts to move, and I wrap my legs around him. “You’re going to be mine, Scarlett. And I’m never going to let you go. I love you, Scarlett.”
I believe him. Lying there in the dark, in this house he’s going to tear down and rebuild for me, with his body moving inside mine and his promises echoing in my ears, I believe every word.
I have no idea that two years from now, our own home remains unbuilt.
I have no idea that this is who he used to be, and that the man who keeps flying to see someone else is who he’s becoming.
I just hold on to him and believe.
That’s my mistake.