Slow Burn Cowboy(60)

He looked at her, and a sensation filled his chest until he could barely breathe around it. He thought it might take him over completely. And he wasn’t sure if he minded. “I haven’t said this...” He cleared his throat. “When I came home from school and found that my mom was gone. That she’d left me, for real. That she chose her deadbeat boyfriend over me... I never wanted to feel that way again.” He paused for a moment, trying to collect his emotions, to keep them from spilling out.

“She left all the pictures of us,” he continued, “on the walls, in the photo albums. I broke the picture frames. And then I burned everything. So that I wouldn’t be tempted to ever look back at it.”

“Finn... Oh Finn.” She wrapped her arms around him, held him close. He braced his hands on her hips, rested his face in the crook of her neck.

“I never wanted to feel like that again,” he repeated. “I never wanted to be blindsided. I never wanted to need somebody that much. I wanted... I wanted something I could tame. Something I could control. That’s why the ranch has been everything to me for so long. It made me feel like I could reach down and grab hold of the earth. And with you...it’s not about control. The last thing I ever wanted was for you to become everything, Lane Jensen. I could only just barely handle you as a friend. I knew that losing you even if I never touched you would devastate me. That’s scary. To give you this. To want you like this.”

“You’re kind of preaching to the choir,” she said softly. “I’ve been dealing with a pretty significant amount of fear myself.”

“I’m out of practice saying this,” he said, drawing the moment out longer.

“That’s okay.”

“I love you,” he said. “As a friend. As a lover. As everything in between. And I want... I do want you to be everything. I want to give you everything. I want you to know me, like nobody else does. I want exactly what you said we could be. That whole picture you painted. I want that.”

“I love you too,” she whispered.

“I love you,” he said again. “I love you. I love you. I’m already feeling less out of practice.”

Every time the words came out of his mouth they felt a little bit lighter, and so did he. And it helped that Lane held even tighter to him each and every time.

That with every press of her body she made a vow not to let him go.

“I never wanted to get married. And I never wanted to have children. But you’re right. That was when I put a generic, faceless person in that place as my wife. As the mother of my kids. A woman who would only end up leaving me. But when I imagine you there? I want it all. And I know you’ll stay. I know you will. Because I know you.” He stared at her for a heartbeat, watched as a variety of emotions played across her face.

“I didn’t think...” She cleared her throat. “I didn’t think I would ever want that life. Mostly, I didn’t think I deserved it, so I trained myself not to want it. But I think we both do. I think we deserve all of it. I think we deserve everything. But you’re the only person I could have everything with, Finn.” She clung to him more tightly still, pressing her cheek against his, and he felt a tear fall onto his face, dropping from her eye. “It’s always been you. It really has been.”

“For me too,” he said, wrapping his arms around her, holding nothing back, pulling her against him completely, with nothing between them.

He held her like that for a long time, just listening to her breathe. Feeling the softness of her body, of her hair, inhaling that scent that was so uniquely Lane.

“So,” he said. “Since I love you, do you think you might want to marry me? You were talking about that thing that was like a lover, and like a friend, but was more. And I think the word you might have been looking for was wife.”

She tilted her head back, tears trailing down her cheeks. “Yes,” she said. “I would really, really like that.”

“Me too,” he said, leaning in to kiss her.

“Maybe Robert can be our best man.”

“No,” he said, wrapping his arm around her waist. He was going to have a hard time letting go of her. Now that he had her back, he wanted to hang on forever. Wanted to touch her forever. “I draw a hard line at a best mouse.”

He slid his thumb over her cheekbone. “You know my brothers will have to be in our wedding.”

She laughed. “Oh really? You think they’ll put on tuxes?”

“Wait. You think I will?”

“Hmm. I think you would if I asked you to, Finn. But I have to say there’s some appeal in having you marry me in a white T-shirt and jeans. And your hat and boots, of course.”

“Doesn’t matter to me, as long as you marry me.”

“Try and stop me. Hey, maybe Violet can be the flower girl.”

“She’d probably want to wear black and throw dead flowers.”

“That’s super metal, but possibly not what I want for a wedding.”

“Your brother has to be the best man,” Finn said. “Since he did kind of introduce us.”

“Wow. We get to tell Mark.”

“Something tells me he’ll be okay with it. Since all he’s ever really wanted was for you to be happy.”

“What a coincidence, that’s what I want for me too.” She kissed him. “That’s what I want for us.”

“I think we stand a pretty good chance at being happy.”

“For how long?” she asked, a smile curving her lips.

“Forever.”

It was funny to think that just a few weeks ago having his house full, having his brothers there, sharing the ranch, sharing his life had seemed like the end of everything he’d worked for.

Now it seemed like a beginning.

With Lane by his side, with his family around him, his life was full for the first time.

“Do you want another casserole?” Lane asked.

That snapped him out of his thoughts. “I thought that was sadness food.”

“It is,” she said. “I mean, usually. And I made it because I was sad. But now I’m happy and I have casserole. So, maybe we make a new tradition.”

“I’m going to have anniversary casserole for the rest of my life, aren’t I?”

She laughed. “Probably.”

And he did.





EPILOGUE

IT WAS LANE’S favorite time of the month. Time to curate a new batch of The Best of Copper Ridge boxes. She liked to prepare them three months at a time. And of course, now that her subscription business had expanded to include other regions in the state of Oregon, plus a Best of Oregon box, she was even busier.

Luckily, she had a crew of tiny taste-testers always on hand to offer opinions. Though she had quickly learned that her three-year-old son was an unreliable authority on hazelnuts, since he deemed them “yucky.”

She smiled to herself as she walked to the end of the long driveway that led from the main house of the Laughing Irish ranch down to the highway. She opened the mailbox and took out the mail, leafing through it as she wandered back up to the house.

There was a small white envelope in the middle of the stack that made her heart stop. She tore it open while she ran up to the house, her heart galloping.

She remembered that Finn was still out in the field, and veered away from the house toward where she guessed he might be.

She’d already read it all by the time she found Finn, and tears were tracking down her cheeks. When he saw her, his face contorted.

“What happened?” he asked. “Is everything okay? Cade? Alana?”

“They’re fine,” she said. “I just... I just got this letter from the adoption agency. The one...the one.”

She offered her husband the letter and he took it, holding it gently as he read the contents. She didn’t know why, but for some reason it made her heart stop, watching for his response.

“He got into Harvard,” Finn said softly.

“He did,” Lane replied, a fresh tear falling down her cheek. “And he has a great family. He...he thanked me, Finn. For giving him up. I never thought... I mean I was afraid to hope...”

Finn reached out and pulled her into his arms, holding her tight. “I’m so happy for you, sweetheart,” he said, his voice gruff. “Happy for us.”

In the past six years their lives together had been wonderful. She loved her husband and her children, and she’d made peace with her past. But she’d still wondered about her firstborn. She thought of him often, especially when Cade was born.

But he’d written to her now, through the agency. To tell her he was well. That he was going to school. That he was grateful.

It was all she’d ever wanted to know. All she’d given up hope on ever knowing for sure.

She looked up at Finn, the love of her life, her best friend, and she felt complete. All the pieces of her heart were right here. Her family, this ranch, this town.

So many wonderful things, it didn’t leave any room for fear.

“I love you, you know,” she said.

“Me too. I pretty much always have. Ever since that time we watched a movie together and I saw you—really saw you—for the first time. But it’s changed too. Every time I see you smile—” he dragged his thumb over her cheek “—every time you cry. When you first made love with me. When you married me. When you had our daughter, when you had our son. And I think...just in the last minute or so, seeing this, it changed again. Got deeper. I think that’s how it always will be.”