“Cook when you’re happy, cook when you’re sad?” Jake teased.
“Cooking happens to be the right answer for any occasion, I’ve found. Now get your ass in the house with Livi’s bags, Jake. Unpack them once and for all.”
“Gladly,” he said, pulling me back into his chest once Kit was free.
She simpered at the sight of us, hands over her lips before she waved us off and hoofed it into the house. A second later, I heard her out the back door calling for Mack and shouting that I was staying like the town crier.
I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Think she’s happy?” Jake asked.
“I think if she were any happier, she might explode in a cloud of glitter and confetti.”
“Then that makes two of us.”
I turned in his arms to smile up at him. “Make it three.”
“Goddamn, I’m glad I caught you before you left.”
“When did you do that?” I asked, nodding to the tractor.
He glanced back at it like he’d forgotten it was there. “We’ve been working on it since last week. I was gonna surprise you with it but then …”
“It’s pink. You gave me a pink tractor.” I beamed up at him. “You hate pink.”
“Not as much as I love you. So much in fact, I was prepared to get on a plane, if that’s what it took.”
“Painted me a pink tractor and you would have gotten on a plane for the first time for me?”
“And gone to New York. It’d be a host of firsts. But there was no way I was letting you leave here forever, not without making sure you knew that I’m an idiot and that I love you.”
“Say it again,” I cooed.
With that tilted smile of his, he slipped his hand into my hair. “I’m an idiot. World’s biggest asshole.”
“No, the other part.”
His smile widened. “Oh, the part where I love you?”
“Mhmm,” I hummed.
“I’m sorry, Livi. For everything. I don’t know how to make it right, what I did, what I said. You were going to leave, just like I was afraid you would. Except instead of you turning your back on us, I drove you away. Never again. If you ever do leave, it won’t be on account of me. In fact, I might just hold you hostage.”
Laughter bubbled out of me. “Gonna lock me in the barn with the goats you didn’t want?”
“I was thinking more in the way of a ring on your finger and a new last name.”
I blinked, unsure I’d heard him right. “Do you mean—”
“I mean that I want you here with me forever. Starting right now.” He thumbed my cheek, smiling again. “If I didn’t think you’d need a year to plan some big to-do, I’d throw you over my shoulder and drive you to the courthouse this minute.”
“Don’t act like you know me,” I said on a laugh, though there were tears in my eyes.
“Oh, I know you, Olivia Brent, and you’re the best thing to ever happen to me. Even next to Frank. Because he might have taught me what home meant, but you showed me how to love. How to trust. So someday, I’m gonna bring you a ring and get down on one knee and ask you that question. You’re not even gonna see it coming.”
I groaned. “Oh my God, you’re going to drive me crazy waiting, aren’t you?”
“A hundred percent. I’ll even make sure Kit catches it on film for your social media.”
A fake gasp. “You’re on board with my social media? What are the odds I can get you to do the calendar too?”
“Don’t press your luck.”
I sighed. “I swear, one day I’m going to convince you.”
“You have a better chance of convincing me to paint my truck pink.”
One of my brows rose in challenge.
“Jesus,” he said, laughing. “I don’t stand a chance, do I?”
“Nope.”
“Good thing I’d do anything for you. Except the calendar,” he added when he saw my face. “I’m putting my foot down at the prospect of half the town having my naked chest on their refrigerators.”
“You’re no fun,” I pouted.
“Well, I hope you don’t love me for my sense of humor.”
“I love you for many, many reasons. So many reasons that when you do get down on one knee and ask me that question, I’ll say yes.”
Fire sparked behind his eyes. “Good. Then let’s get these suitcases inside, empty them out, and put them away indefinitely.”
“And then let’s humor Kit and get through her party as quick as we can. Because all I really want is to lock us in my room for the next three days to make up for every second we were apart.”
With that smile, he picked me up so we were nose to nose, chest to chest, my legs around his waist and our lips close enough to breathe each other.
“How about we start with an afternoon?”
“I’ll take it. I’ll take all of it. All of you.”
“Good thing. Because I’m yours, Livi.”
Our lips met with an exchange of hearts.
And I never wanted mine back, not if it meant that I could keep his forever.
Epilogue
JAKE
It’d been the happiest year of my life, thanks to her.
I stood on the edge of the dance floor at sunset with a whiskey in my hand, a smile on my face, and my eyes on my wife.
Olivia danced with the abandon she approached everything with. Her wedding dress was hitched by her fists so she didn’t trip, exposing her pink rain boots. When she’d shown up here a year ago, they’d been spotless and unused. Now they were scuffed and banged up, the shine gone and the rubber worn. I’d tried to get her to buy new ones for the wedding, but she said it wouldn’t be the same. It had to be these.
Half the town was here at the farm to celebrate. It’d taken her this long to plan it, as suspected, and she’d put every bit of her into it, just like everything she did. Just a few short hours ago, I’d stood under the last two elms at the end of the drive, sunlight dappling the seats lined up between the trees. Every one was full—Kit in the front row with her nose in a hanky and Olivia’s aunt crying at her side. Maybe just a little in mourning that Olivia wouldn’t be leaving the farm to go back to New York. She didn’t yet know of Olivia’s plans to convince her to move here and matchmake her. I didn’t know with whom. The only unmarried man of her age was Buffalo Joe, and I had a feeling he had way too much body hair for her.
I stood under an archway of flowers with my heart beating in my throat, waiting for the moment my life would change.
And then I saw her at the end of that aisle on Mack’s arm.
I have never in my life been so overcome as I was in that moment. As she made her way to stand by my side where she’d forever stay, I was stripped of everything but my love for her, leaving me with bone-deep appreciation that this woman would have chosen me when she could have had the world.
I held her hand, repeated the words. Listened to her vows with my throat in a vise, spoke mine with a rough voice and my heart too full to master myself. I promised her forever. She promised the same.