24. Jake #2
“Put your hands at the ten and two on the wheel, Xander,” I said.
“You know how to use a clutch, right? The trick here is to start slow. We’ve got five miles.
We’re the only ones on the road. Set in your mind where that stick is, and never take your eyes off the road.
And remember,” I added, giving Daybreak’s dashboard a pat, “she doesn’t take left turns too well. ”
“Yes, Mr. Jake,” he said, all nerves and concentration.
He drove the rest of the way to the ranch like a grandma, which was fine by me. But I could see his confidence growing with each mile. He liked machines, then. Good to know.
By the time we pulled into the loop that ran in front of the bunkhouses, he was almost smiling. He’d taken a right, so we were a stately parade of one all the way around that loop, and then parked.
And there, standing on the little porch of bunkhouse six, was Dalton. He’d been waiting for me. It wasn’t quite lunchtime, but I’d rather dally with him than anyone else.
Xander and I got out, and I helped him put his things on the front porch of bunkhouse four. Then I turned to Dalton, wiping my hands on the back of my jeans.
“I wanted to talk to you,” Dalton said. He seemed a little rattled, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up as I tried to figure out what had happened. “You took Xander to get Daybreak? You let him drive her?”
He was actually pouting. There was a flush across his cheekbones, and I realized, with a cold start, that I’d hurt his feelings.
He’d wanted to go with me. Not that he’d said it. Not that we’d discussed it. But I’d messed up.
I never wanted to turn back time so badly in my life. Not that I had any idea how this would play out. Dalton didn’t seem like he would be quick to anger, but if I’d hurt him at all, I’d turn myself inside out to undo any pain I’d caused him.
“I should have asked you first,” I said, doing my best to get to the heart of the matter. “Before I took him with me.”
“Oh,” he said, looking over my shoulder as Xander took his bags into bunkhouse four.
“You don’t—” He shook his head as if doing his best to figure out what order the words should come.
He could take all the time he needed, as far as I was concerned.
“You never have to ask my permission to care about someone, and I know you like that kid.”
“He’s like me.” I rubbed at my jaw to loosen it. “Walter helped me. I want to help Xander.”
“I get it,” he said. “So.” Another pause as he took a deep breath, making me wonder what the hell was going on. “Do you want to walk with me to the glade? The one beneath those cottonwood trees at the bend of the creek?”
“Sure.” Whatever he wanted, I would do it. But as I followed him across the bridge, and even as he reached back to take my hand and draw me closer, unease gripped me.
When the journalist had broken things off, he’d wanted to talk. He’d taken me to the end of Old Main Street, near the courthouse. And in the building’s shadow, he’d told me he was leaving.
That had been ages ago, but as Dalton and I walked along the path, moving in and out of what little shade there was, it being midday, I felt like I was walking right into the same kind of conversation.
I wanted to pull my hand out of his hand. Wanted to make him stop, to turn and face me and get it over with. Fast punishment, rather than something looming and slow.
In short order we reached the glade and the cool shadows of those spreading branches. The sound of Snow Creek on the gravel a low murmur. The smell of cottonwood leaves, and from upstream the spicy scent of river willows.
I was out of breath by the time we stopped, simply because my heart wouldn’t slow down. He was going to break up with me, and then it would be like he’d never been here at all.
Which was why, when we stopped just near the point where we’d made love, and he turned around and got down on one knee, I simply gawped at him. Confused, like I’d landed inside a one-act play already in progress and had no idea what was supposed to happen next.
From his pocket, he pulled out a small, plain cardboard box. And as he looked up at me, holding that box out with both hands, his eyes were the deepest summer blue, and his sweet pink mouth was curved in a smile.
“Jake Colter,” he said, his nails digging into the box to reveal the contents, “would you do me the honor of marrying me?”
Like some dumb lunkhead, my first thought was that he should never be on his knees in the dirt. My second thought, swift and painful, was that I was not worthy. Not of his offer. Not of his love. Not of that ring.
“Is that a ring?” I asked, more shocked than I cared to admit.
“It’s old,” he said. “An antique. I bought it at Bancroft Antiques in town. I could have gotten something brand-new in Fort Collins, but I didn’t want to wait before making you mine.”
“But what about—?” I wasn’t usually at a loss for words, not that I ever had much to say to the world at large. “Don’t you want someone more like you? In the city? So you can have your job? A career?”
I didn’t reach for the ring, could barely look at it. Instead, I flicked glances at it out of the corner of my eye, as I might an unexpected snake. Which was hardly a kind way to consider the matter, but I was shaken to my core.
“I hated that job, Jake,” he said. “And I’m happier with you than I ever have been in my whole life, so I want to stay with you.”
“You wouldn’t miss the city?” I asked. “What about Nebraska?”
“I haven’t figured out the rest of my life, but I know how I feel about you.”
Then, with a sigh, as though I’d been tormenting him for hours with foolish questions, he stood up. Came over to me and took my hand. Placed the box in it. Cupped my other hand on top. Then he cupped both my hands in his.
“I could never take you away from your foxes and mountain lions and coyotes. Nor your stars or your cottonwoods. There’s no way I’d do that to you.
So maybe we live in your bunkhouse for a while.
Maybe later we figure something else out, like buying land nearby.
Besides.” He smiled at me, as though all my thrashing about wasn’t totally ruining his plans for a romantic moment.
“Lucas says the water rights for that plot in Nebraska could be worth a lot.”
“Jesse says the same.” My lips were numb. I could barely feel anything apart from his touch.
“Are you going to say yes?” Then, even lower, he asked, “Are you going to put it on?”
“Are you going to put it on me?” I asked, like some coquette.
With a nod, he did exactly that, sliding it home on the ring finger of my left hand. The golden ring was heavy and thick, with a silver band on each edge. On the main part of the band, tiny carved foxes raced among acorns and oak leaves.
“They didn’t have two of this design, or I would have gotten both.” Dalton gave a slight shrug, as though he thought I was actually going to say no to him.
“Yes,” I said, my mouth dry.
“It’s too fussy,” Dalton said, as we both looked at the silver-and-gold ring on my finger. “I can get you a different one. We can go into Fort Collins and get a matched set.”
“Oh, no.” I pressed my left hand to my heart and covered it with my right. “This is mine. Mine forever.” I swallowed hard so that I could make myself perfectly clear. “I said yes. You heard me, right?”
A beautiful stillness came over him. Those eyes, clear blue and dancing.
A soft wind stirred his fair hair as I shoved the now-empty ring box in my pocket and pulled him to me, tucked him inside the curve of my body and memorized the moment. Burned it into my heart.
Nobody had ever asked me to marry them before. And now nobody else ever would, because surely they would see that I was already married, and my response, if they asked me to marry them, would be to shout No! very loudly right in their faces.
The sense of power that surged through me in that moment almost knocked me off my feet. But I had Dalton in my arms and needed to remain sure-footed. Forever.
“I love you, Dalton Gayle,” I said as I looked at the curls and whirls of the cottonwood leaves on the water. The ring felt heavy on my finger, the coolness of the metal turning to warmth. “And I always will.”
“And I love you, Jake Colter,” he said, his breath warm across my neck, my skin absorbing the words the second he said them. “Never thought I’d marry a cowboy, but here we are.”
“I’m a ranch hand, not a cowboy,” I said with mock sternness, though I could feel the beginnings of a laugh in my throat. “But I’ll be either, right this minute, if what you want is to ride off into the sunset.”
Dalton did laugh as he pulled back and looked up at me. “I really do need to learn how to ride now, don’t I.”
“You do,” I said. “Because there are so many little places we can ride away to, that you can’t reach by car or on foot.”
“I want to learn it all,” he said. “I hate accounting like you would not believe.”
“I’ll teach you.” I tipped up his chin so that I could kiss him. So he could kiss me back.
“I need a cowboy hat.”
“I’ll buy you one,” I told him.
We were making plans together, he and I. Not just for two weeks but for forever.
I would teach him everything I knew.
I would absorb his soul into mine.
I would know, finally, what happiness was. Pure happiness.
I didn’t deserve any of this, but Dalton would fiercely disagree with me if I said my thoughts out loud, so I simply kissed him again and let those thoughts fade away, drawn from me by the breeze, the sound of the creek, and the rustle of cottonwood leaves overhead.