Tears burned her already tired, stinging eyes. Ben would think of such a proposal, lassoing her window and putting an engagement ring on the rope. Some people would think this gesture meant Ben had bent, but she knew him.
Was he seriously doubling down on trying to make her stay by asking her to marry him?
The tiny pieces of her heart broke again.
She wrapped her arms around herself. They’d talked about getting married since they’d known what it meant. They’d waited to finish college, largely due to her father’s concerns about her finishing her pre-med degree, one she wasn’t continuing to pursue.
A sob caught in her throat.
She dashed at her eyes. No! She was not going to start crying again. In fact, he’d be lucky if she didn’t lift her window and throw her cowboy boot at him. Stupid, stupid man. All she’d asked for was a year.One measly year.In Edinburgh, Scotland. What idiot turned that chance down?
Ben McAllister, that’s who.
“Hannah Montgomery!” he bellowed. “You open that window.”
“Oh, I’ll open it all right.” Hannah grabbed her white cowboy boot from the floor and headed to the window. But her words caught in her throat as she spied her ring up close before looking down…
Ben looked as handsome as ever with his tousled black hair, strong brow, and square jaw, sitting atop her horse, the one she’d told him to take care of while she was gone. The one he’d given her for her birthday because he’d said Flame reminded him of her in heart and spirit. The posey of pretty shooting stars, with their dark pink color and swept-backpetals resembling a fireworks display, looked downright dainty in his large, calloused hands.
He was freshly shaved and wearing his version of Sunday best: gray slacks, a button-down white shirt, and a suit jacket. No tie. He didn’t wear one. Not even for their prom. His black Stetson rested on his saddle horn while his best cowboy boots were in the stirrups. The whole outfit was beyond impractical if he’d ridden Flame from his family’s ranch well out of town.
Their eyes met. The set of his hard jaw said it all.
He’s here to say his piece.
Swallowing thickly, she carefully lifted the window and reached out to unhook the rope. God, how many times had he wrapped a little present to the middle of a rope and lassoed it to the nail her dad had hung ages ago for holiday lights? The first time had been when they were thirteen. He’d asked her to the spring dance, and after saying yes, she’d floated on a cloud for days.
Now she wondered how she’d get through the day without seeing his handsome face, stroking his thick, dark hair, and laughing into his light gray eyes, the color of the stones lining her favorite brook on Wild Mountain.
“Well, go on and take your ring,” he called out gruffly, shifting in the saddle enough to make the leather creak. “I know it’s not fancy or traditional, but I thought you’d like it better.”
She untied the rawhide holding the ring to the rope and bit her lip when she saw the design. “You got me stars.” Even she could hear the awe in her voice.
He cleared his throat, lifting a shoulder. “We’ve always said our love was written in the stars. So I gave youourstars, because they always made you smile. And I do so love your smile. Hannah, there isn’t a single thing I don’t love about you, and you damn well know it. Marry me. Say yes.”
She wanted to clutch the ring to her breaking heart. Shewanted to hurl it back at him for being such an idiot, trying to force her this way. “You know I can’t, since saying yes would mean I’m staying.”
“Me asking is my best offer.” His determined voice was the kind that called across a valley. “We’ve talked about getting married since I carved our names into Big Red, and we agreed to marry after graduating from college?—”
“But that was before?—”
“Don’t I know it. Please say you’ll be mine forever like you’ve always been and stay.”
She leaned out the window and glared at him. “Ben McAllister, I swear you don’t know me at all sometimes. I am not agreeing to marry you like this.”
“Are you going to make me beg?” he blasted back, setting the flowers on top of his Stetson. “Don’t go, dammit. Please, Hannah. You belong here.”
The slamming of a window made Flame jerk her head up. Ben tightened his grip on the reins as Flame spooked. Hannah glanced over to the house beside her parents’. She caught Jolene shooing her three boys away from the window where they were watching in their pajamas.
“See!” He thrust a finger in their direction. “I know Jolene is all about you being an independent woman and going off to Scotland for your career, but those boys need you. You’ve been babysitting them since they were babies?—”
“Ben…stop.” She inhaled deeply, trying to breathe out the pain in her chest because what he meant wasI need you.“You know how much I love you. I always have. But we’ve talked until we’re blue in the face. Studying with Duncan Murdock is the chance of a lifetime. Come with me. I want you by my side. We’ve been through everything together.”
He made a show of setting his Stetson on that stubborn head of his while keeping Flame’s reins in one hand. “Now that I’ve graduated, I need to step up and give my all to the ranch.”
Here we go…“Yet you’re the only one who feels this way. Your dad has told you over and over again to go. Will has agreed to handle your duties while you’re gone?—”
“My brother has plenty on his own plate.” He shook his head, that aggravated shake he gave when he was getting worked up. “Besides, I’m not imposing on anyone by traipsing off to a country on the other side of the world?—”
