Chapter 40 #2
She’d left the landscaping for the springtime, so Trap, Sawyer, and Jason had literally raised buildings out of dirt and left the natural foliage and trees alone.
Lila Mae had expected to hire a landscaping company to add grass, flowers, and native bushes around the cat houses, but that hadn’t happened yet.
But here at Cat House Three, a row of five potted plants now lined the front of the building. Lila Mae loved the earthenware pots, and they came in a variety of glazed colors: a mossy green, a bright cerulean blue, a smoky mustard yellow, a soft gray, and a homey crimson.
Young plants poked out of the top, but what Lila Mae’s eyes caught on were the pot sticks. Her heartbeat galloped through her chest now, and it took every ounce of energy and willpower to get herself to walk toward the potted plants.
Each stick had a beautifully carved topper: one of an orange tabby cat walking with his tail held high, one of a black cat curled sleeping in a bed, another of a gray-and-white cat batting a ball of purple yarn with one paw, another feline in a crouched, ready-to-pounce position, and the fifth was a simple heart painted a deep red to match the pot.
It bore her name, and Lila Mae reached out with trembling fingers and plucked it from the soil. Another piece of paper came with it, and this time it said Badger.
She knew this handwriting, as she’d sat in countless meetings with Trap and seen him take notes and make sketches as they went over every detail of Feline Friends together. She spun back toward the UTV, expecting to see him there, but only the silence of the Texas Panhandle greeted her.
With the heart-topped pot stick in her hand, Lila Mae ran to the UTV, jammed it into gear, and headed south.
It hadn’t snowed yet here, but the temperatures had dropped, and Lila Mae wished she had a hat with her for the fifteen-minute ride out to the river.
She’d gotten approval for more fencing along this side of her ranch, and Jason and Trap were working on that right now.
“That’s all this is,” she told herself. “A check-in about the fencing.”
As their initial picnic spot came into view, Lila Mae knew there was no check-in. They’d been back to this river several times, and they’d never seen that mama badger again. Lila Mae wasn’t sorry about that, and she hoped she didn’t see her today.
“I also don’t see Trap’s truck,” she said, glancing left and right as the road came to an end. She parked and got out, her eyes catching on another crimson object on the edge of the trees. She moved that way, realizing it was a carnation.
She bent and picked it up, already looking for her next breadcrumb.
She found it: an orange tiger lily several feet away.
She hurried to it, her feet crunching over the dry branches and leaves.
Then she picked up a yellow daisy, a white rose, a purple hydrangea, and several more flowers.
Before she knew it, she had a fistful of blooms making a beautiful bouquet.
She looked around for her next clue, but she didn’t see anything. She took a couple of steps in the direction she’d been walking, parallel to the riverbank, and as she ducked past a tree, a small clearing opened up.
A table had been set up with a snowy white cloth that fell all the way to the ground.
An empty vase sat in the middle of it, and a slip of something purple lay beside it.
Lila Mae’s breath quickened as she glanced around, and then, like smoke rising from the ground, Trap came walking up the riverbank.
He wore a dark wash pair of jeans, a long-sleeve button-down the color of eggplant skins, his customary dark brown hat, and the widest smile Lila Mae had ever seen.
He nodded toward the table, and she approached it from her side at the same time he did. He got there first, and he reached for something behind the vase and lifted out a navy-blue ring box.
Tears filled Lila Mae’s eyes, and the bones in her legs felt like they’d been replaced with brittle sticks. Still, she managed to keep walking, and Trap dropped to both knees next to the table and cracked open the ring box as she arrived in front of him.
“I love you more today than I did yesterday,” he said. “And I will love you forever and ever. I’m ready to start our life together here at Feline Friends with you. Will you marry me?”
Lila Mae started to nod, her tears spilling out of her eyes. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, yes, yes!”
Trap grinned and took the ring from the box with perfectly steady hands.
She held out her hand, and he slid the diamond onto her finger. He then kissed the knuckle right above it. Lila Mae could only gaze down on him, this amazing man who had somehow fallen in love with her.
He placed another kiss on the back of her hand and then the inside of her wrist. “You make me so happy.”
He stood and swept the flowers out of her arms and quickly tied a purple ribbon around them, then put them in the vase. Lila Mae could only marvel at him, at the planning he’d done to get her here.
“I love you,” she said.
He smiled that devastating smile and touched his lips to hers. After kissing her so completely, he leaned his forehead against hers and whispered, “I love you too, Lila Mae.”
I love Lila Mae and her adventurous spirit - and how Trap grounds her and lets himself get swept up in the grandeur of Texas he’s never seen before! What did you think of Where Promises Stay? Let me know in a review now!
Keep reading for a sneak peek at the next book in the Cowboys of Three Rivers Romance series - MEANT TO BE, which is now available for preorder!