I’M PLACING bales of hay into the bed of one of the work trucks when Mare comes into view. I toss the bale I was holding into the truck bed before closing the distance to her.
The look on her face makes me nervous. She chews her lip as she keeps smoothing out the fabric of her cotton sundress. I don’t know how long she’s been back from helping Pippa, but apparently long enough to change her clothes.
“Hi,” she says softly, looking up at me.
“How was it?”
Mare shrugs. “It was good, I guess.”
My heartbeat picks up because of her demeanor. She’s too quiet, too in her head. I can’t help but wonder what direction her conversation with Pippa went with the way she’s acting.
“Good?” I press, grabbing her by either side of the face. She immediately leans into the touch, calming some of the nerves coursing through me.
“Yeah. I know she was hurt by us keeping a secret from her, but I also don’t think it was fully a surprise to her either. She was cool about it though. The biggest thing was that she asked a lot of questions about what our plans were…”
“Your plans are my plans, Goldie,” I assure her.
Her eyes trail over my face. I hate that they turn down slowly, that there’s a sadness in her expression that I can’t take away. She lets out a slow, defeated sigh. “I think we’re faced with the same problem again. You’re meant to be here and my job is somewhere else.”
“I don’t care. We’ll make it work.” I slide my hands down her neck and shoulders until I’m grabbing her waist and pulling her body to mine.
“Pippa told me not to hurt you again. She said she didn’t want to see either of us hurting at the end of all of this.”
“There is no end to this.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I agree with her. I don’t want either of us to end up like last time. For neither one of us to get hurt, we can’t end. I won’t let us end.”
Mare snuggles into me, pressing her cheek against my heartbeat. She clutches me tightly, like she’s afraid that I could disappear at any moment. She must not be listening to me because there’s nothing that will stop me from keeping her forever. I’ll do whatever it takes, no matter the distance between us, for us to never give up on each other again.
“I love you, Cade,” Mare says, her words muffled by the fabric of my shirt. “I’ve loved you my entire life. I don’t plan on stopping anytime soon. I just don’t know what happens when our real lives catch up to us.”
I grab the back of her head, keeping her against me as I press a kiss to her hair. “I love you. I don’t plan on letting anything stop me from loving you this time.”
The moment she tilts her head up to look at me, I’m pressing my mouth to hers. I need to feel her lips against mine. I need to taste her, to caress her tongue with mine and use our bodies to promise how I plan on loving her forever.
I don’t know how much time passes as we stay locked in the kiss. I take my time with her, not wanting to rush things between us. It isn’t until she pulls away, a whisper of a smile on her pink lips, that I speak up.
“Can I show you something?”
Mare tilts her head, looking at me with curiosity in her eyes. “Show me what?”
“If I told you it wouldn’t exactly be a surprise.”
“You never said it was a surprise. You just asked if you could show me something.”
I roll my eyes, wrapping an arm around her and pulling her into my side. “Okay let me rephrase this, can I show you something? It’s a surprise.”
“A surprise?” she says in mock shock. “I’m intrigued.”
I open the passenger side door of the Jennings Ranch work truck and help her climb into it. As soon as she’s comfortable, I close the door and round the front to get inside.
Once I’m seated in the driver’s seat, Mare slides across the bench seat until her body presses into mine. I love the feeling of her head against my shoulder as I put the truck into gear. I could get used to her riding around with me. For it to become something mundane to us. Something we do forever.
She’s silent at first, peacefully looking out the windshield as I head toward our destination. I was expecting her to ask questions, but she doesn’t. She’s quiet the entire ride, not saying anything until I pull down the driveway of the house I’ve spent years planning.
Mare sits up in the seat, leaning forward to get a better look at the framed out house coming into view. “It looks so different in the sunlight.”
I look over at her, trying to get a read on her emotions. “Good different or bad different?”
The truck comes to a stop. Once it’s in park, I sit back and run my hand over my mouth, soaking in the moment of watching her look at the house I’ve worked tirelessly on.
I didn’t bring her here to show her the home I want to spend forever with her in, but I’m caught up in the way she’s looking at it. The other night she looked at the house like she feared it. There was something so heartbreaking and haunting in the way she looked at the house we’d dreamed of together. It was like she didn’t want it to even exist, like she hated me for bringing it to fruition. That night I was terrified that things were so damaged between us that we wouldn’t be able to repair them.
Watching her now, I know that isn’t true. She looks at the house now with hope. Before I can say anything, she’s opening the passenger door and hopping down to the gravel. She doesn’t wait for me as she walks toward the house.
I stay in the truck, letting her take it in with fresh eyes. Hopefully now she can see through her hurt. Maybe now she’ll be able to understand what I’ve been trying to tell her.
I’ve loved her this entire time. While she was making her dreams come true, I was doing everything to build a house she could call home once she’d achieved every single one of her wildest dreams.
Mare disappears into the house. I grab something from the bed of the truck and follow after her, feeling like she’s had enough time to take it in on her own.
The gravel crunches underneath my boots as I climb the driveway. I can’t hear her, but my eyes land on Mare in the open floor plan almost as soon as I walk in.
It’s a lot easier to see the details of the house in the daylight. My headlights could only illuminate so much the other night, but now with the sun shining high above us, everything can be seen.
I stop in the kitchen, watching Mare trail her hand over the framing of the living room. She lets her eyes travel the space slowly, like she doesn’t want to forget a single detail of the house.
My heartbeat picks up when she takes a step closer to the kitchen. Soon she’ll be close to the nook she’d always told me she dreamt about.
Soon, the real reason I brought her here in the first place will come into view.
