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I leaned across the table and kissed her.
We drove to a craft fair a couple of hours away, across a covered bridge, where Tenleigh took out her cell phone and snapped pictures of me, laughing when I offered up a tense, unnatural smile, finally making me laugh a genuine laugh with some ridiculous, goofy faces. She seemed pleased with the picture of me looking to the side, my teeth flashing in a grin, the bridge a quaint backdrop. She made it her screen saver. “You really want to look at that every time you turn on your phone?” I asked, even though it made me happy and I hoped she’d keep it there.
“Yup,” she said. “I like to look at my handsome boyfriend, especially when he’s not around.”
I pulled her into me and kissed the top of her fragrant hair. Boyfriend. The word didn’t seem big enough to describe the extent to which I belonged to her.
I bought her homemade ice cream churned by an old woman with rosy cheeks, who wore a brightly colored calico skirt. She looked at us and smiled a warm, knowing smile as if she understood something we hadn’t told her in words.
We walked hand in hand as Tenleigh looked at the arts and crafts made by local artisans, listening to their lyrical mountain speak—a language mixed with simplicity and poetry. I knew some of the local people on our mountain growing lavender had gone to one of these a few weeks before. Just seeing the many Appalachian entrepreneurs filled my heart with pride.
We sat under a giant buckeye tree and listened to a bluegrass band, the music filling the air, every note singing home.
I leaned in to Tenleigh and whispered in her ear, “I’m going to marry you.”
She leaned her head back and gazed at me. “You better,” she said. “I want babies. Lots and lots of them.”
I laughed. “As many as you want. I’m going to make all your dreams come true. All my life.”
Her eyes filled with tenderness. “And I’m going to make all your dreams come true. All my life.”
I leaned in to kiss her. You already have. You are my dream.
When the sun was setting over the mountains, we drove back to my house, hand in hand in the cab of my truck.
We ended the day making love under my open window, the floor familiar now, the fit of our bodies bringing the joy I’d lived without for too long. I drifted off to sleep happy, content, and filled with peace.
EPILOGUE
Kyland
Six Years Later
My wife stood at the big picture window, gazing out at the golden, sunlit mountains—the view that would never cease to take my breath away. It was early, just past sunrise, but the air inside the house was already still and humid, the distant noise of the cicadas filling the trees outside. It was going to be another hot one. Tenleigh lifted her hair off the back of her neck and rolled it forward, as if she was working out the kinks.
I walked to her, wrapping my arms around her swollen middle, putting my palms against her belly where I could feel our baby moving inside. “Hey, beautiful,” I said, my voice raspy with sleep. She gripped my hands at her waist as I laid my chin on her shoulder, breathing in her scent. “Baby keeping you awake?” I asked.
“Hmm,” she hummed. “He’s a strong little sucker.” She massaged a spot on the lower side of her belly as if she’d been kicked. “I’ve been telling him to go to sleep since four a.m. He’s as stubborn as they come.”
I smiled against her skin, running my nose along it and letting my lips linger there. She shivered and pulled me closer. “He?” I asked. “Sounds like a she.”
She turned her head, laughing softly, nuzzling her cheek against mine.
“I didn’t want to wake you…or Silas.”
“Silas will be asleep for a while. That kid played for hours at the creek yesterday.” I had taken him fishing with me for his first lesson. My boy. I kissed Tenleigh’s neck again. “Plumb tuckered himself out.”
“Careful with that kind of talk now. That’s how this baby got in here.” She rubbed her belly again.
I made a soft growling sound. “Come to bed. I’m fixin’ to give you a back rub.”
She hummed a sound of contentment. After turning, she took my hand and I led her back to the queen-size bed in our room.
Four years ago, we had moved into this old, drafty farmhouse on the outskirts of Dennville. When we’d first walked into it, we could clearly see it was a fixer-upper, but when we’d entered the family room with the high, cedar-beamed ceilings and the huge window with the breathtaking view of our mountains beyond, we’d known it was exactly where we wanted to be. It was simple, but it was beautiful, and it was ours.
