"You're going to crush it," I said against her mouth. "You know that, right?"
"I know." No hesitation. No qualifier.
We kept driving. The road climbed. The ridge campsite opened up as we crested the hill — the one I'd set up for her, the one with the lanterns and the wildflowers and the view that made your chest hurt.
I'd added things since last time. A proper fire ring. A double swag laid out under the open sky with extra blankets rolled at the foot. More lanterns strung between the trees, casting the clearing in warm light. A jar of bluebonnets on the camp table.
She climbed out of the truck and stood at the edge of the ridge, and didn't speak. Just looked. The valley falling away below us, the hills layered in shades of green and gold, the sky so wide it didn't have edges.
"Clay," she said. Quiet. "How did I get here?"
"I drove you."
She laughed. "You know what I mean."
I did.
I built the fire while she opened the wine. We cooked steaks over the flames and drank the good bottle — the one Wyatt would have called a blood oath — and watched the stars come out one by one the way they do in the hill country when the light pollution is zero, and the sky stretches so wide it makes you feel small in the best possible way.
She settled between my legs, her back against my chest, the firelight catching the edges of her hair. I rested my chin on her shoulder and wrapped my arms around her.
"You know what I keep thinking about?" she said.
"Tell me."
She was quiet for a moment. Her fingers traced patterns on my forearm.
"A year ago I was in a rental in Dallas with the curtains closed and a lock on the bathroom door and a plan that was basically — survive. Keep it small. Keep it manageable. Don't want too much because wanting too much is how you get hurt." Her voice was steady, but I could feel her heartbeat against my chest, fast and strong. "I had this whole life mapped out in grey. Safe grey. Quiet grey. The kind of life where nothing bad happens because nothing happens at all."
She turned her head just enough that I could see her profile against the fire. Her eyes were bright.
"And then you walked into it. And it was like someone turned the color on." Her fingers moved to my chest, pressed flat against my heartbeat. "You. This ridiculous, beautiful, stubborn man with your green eyes and your quiet confidence and your body that should be illegal and your loyalty that doesn't have a single condition attached to it. You walked into my grey little life and loved me like it was the easiest thing you'd ever done." Her voice caught. She pressed her lips together and breathed through it. "The ranch, the hills, Sunday dinners, Maisie laughing so hard she can't breathe, your mother's pot roast, your dad on one knee on a kitchen floor — all of that is beautiful. But it started with you. You're the color, Clay. Everything else is the bonus."
She turned in my arms. Faced me. Put her hands on my jaw and looked at me, and her eyes were full and shining in the firelight.
"You color my world, Clay Blackwood."
My throat closed. I couldn't speak. I pressed my forehead against hers and held her face and breathed her in and let the words land somewhere deep where I'd keep them forever.
"You're my best friend," she said. Softer now. "I didn't even know I was looking for that. Not someone who just loves me — someone who knows all of it. The mess, the fear, the ugly parts. And stays anyway. Someone I can call at two in the morning or sit with in silence or laugh with until my stomach hurt." She pressed her lips against my wrist. "That's you. Every single time. That's you."
My arms tightened around her. My throat was doing something inconvenient.
"I never dreamed there'd be someone like you," I said. Low. Into the curve of her neck, where her pulse was beating. "Not once. Not in the arena, not after. I couldn't have imagined a woman this beautiful, this brave, this — " I stopped. Started again. "You chose me, Callie. Out of everyone. Out of every life you could have built. You chose this ranch and this family and this broken-down cowboy who doesn't have a single thing to offer you except showing up. Every day. For the rest of my life."
She turned in my arms. Faced me. The firelight was in her eyes, and her hands came up to my jaw, and she held my face and looked at me with an expression that took my breath and didn't give it back.
"You are the furthest thing from broken down," she said. "And you offer me everything."
"I will spend the rest of my life protecting you. You and Maisie. Loving you. Being there. I need you to know that's not a promise I'm making — it's just what I am now. It's who you made me."
"I love you," she whispered. "I love you so much it scares me sometimes. How much room you take up in my chest."
"I love you." I pressed my forehead to hers. "I have loved you since the night of the party when you told your daughter the stars were nightlights and I thought — that's her. That's the one."
She kissed me. Soft. Her hands still on my face. Then she pulled back, and she was smiling — no walls, no performance, just Callie.
"I want more of this," she said.
