I exhale, relief and triumph surging through me all together.
She pulls back to look at me, eyes wet, cheeks flushed, the cold turning her nose pink. “I moved to this town looking for a place that felt like home. And I found it. But it wasn’t the town, Slade. It was you.Youare the home I was looking for.”
She kisses me. Or I kiss her, I don’t know. All that matters is that she said yes. Yes to me, yes to forever.
“I love you,” she says, when we pull back. “I was waiting for you to realize it. I was so scared you weren’t going to get there in time.”
“I can be a little slow sometimes,” I admit. “I’m working on the whole ‘facing your feelings’ thing.”
She laughs and pulls my face down to hers again and kisses me in the middle of the frozen lake with the cold air all around us and Lucky bearing witness with joyful tail wags as the puppies yip happily in the background.
I skate us slowly back toward shore, none of us in any hurry.
We’re almost to the bank when I hear the sound of tires on the ranch road. Then hoofbeats.
Walker’s truck pulls into the clearing first, parking beside mine. The doors open and Sadie climbs out, twins bundled against the cold, and Walker follows behind her with Jonah scrambling down from the back seat.
Behind them, coming through the pines on horseback, my father and Rafe and Tanner, their breath and the horses’ breath rising together in the cold air. Josie is on horseback beside them too, evidently home early for Christmas.
Lila lifts her head from my shoulder.
“Did you plan this?” she says.
“No,” I say.
Which is true. I didn’t plan it. I just may have mentioned to Walker last week that I was taking Lila up to the lake today, and no doubt Walker told Sadie, and the whole Rhodes family phone tree did its thing from there.
We reach the bank and step off the ice.
Tanner swings down from his horse and looks at me and his face splits into a grin.
“Holy shit,” he says. “Slade. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile like that.”
I hadn’t realized I was smiling, but I look down at Lila and am pretty sure I’m grinning like a fool. “Lila just agreed to be my wife.”
Josie lets out a little yelp and then she’s rushing over to Lila and giving her a bone-crushing hug. “I knew it! I knew Slade was hopelessly in love with you.” She glares at me even as she hugs Lila. “Couldn’t have just nailed the first proposal, could you? Idiot.”
“I know,” I say, unruffled.
Dad grins. “Cut him a break, sweetie. Every man in love is an idiot.” Dad’s knowing gaze sweeps over all his sons.
Jonah pushes through to the front of the group, already having scooped up one of the puppies in his arms. The puppy licks Jonah’s cheeks as my nephew looks between me and Lila with his brow furrowed.
“But you’re already married to Auntie Lila,” he says.
“Yup.”
“So why did she agree to be your wife if she’s already your wife?”
“It’s complicated,” I say.
Jonah looks at his father. Walker shrugs.
“Does this mean Uncle Slade is getting old?” Jonah asks. “Because Dad says old people forget things they already did.”
“I said that one time,” Walker says.
“You said it about Grandpa and the tractor.”
