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We rock together, happy and content with our little decision.
“So what do you think about the courthouse?” Ranger poses the question, interrupting my joyous musings.
“Courthouse?” I repeat.
“To get married in.” Ranger looks at his hands, again a flush of embarrassment coming across his face. “I’m not sure I could afford a fancy wedding ceremony. Just the cost of the marriage certificate.”
“I’d get married to you in a burlap sack on this very porch, mister. Don’t worry about a thing.” And I mean it.
Ranger kisses my cheek and smiles at my declaration. “Well alright then. But how about a justice of the peace in town and one those short sundresses of yours instead? Plus, the paperwork to make it legal.”
“I think that’d be mighty nice.”
“All right then.”
Ranger kisses me sweetly on the lips and we go back to gazing at the magnificent colors spreading out across the horizon.
Meanwhile, internally, I’m over the moon. A lot of girls dream up big fancy weddings, but I only ever wanted to find someone I adored.And now I have someone I love. I take in Ranger’s massive form as he stares across the yard at the brilliant sunset: his vibrant blue eyes and shock of charcoal hair.
He’s the man of my dreams, I confess to myself, amazed at how suddenly my life has changed.
With a happy sigh, I turn to watch the sunset with him, consumed by happiness and the prospect of what my future – no,our– future, will bring.
10
RANGER
You’re going straight to hell.I’m mad as a snake at myself.
I keep looking at Darcy out of the corner of my eye. We’re weeding the vegetable garden together, and it’s a scorcher of a day.
I want to marry Darcy. In fact, I’ve never wanted anything more in my entire life. I’m madly in love with the curvy girl and I know she’s supposed to be mine. And when I asked her last week if she’d be my wife, I meant every word I said. In fact, tomorrow, we’re supposed to go to the courthouse downtown and make it official.
But try as I might, I can’t ignore the devil on my shoulder: Darcy has no idea who I am and I’m a monster for asking her to marry me without telling her the truth.
Hell, she doesn’t even know my real last name. Darcy thinks I’m a traveling ranch hand named Ranger McLeod, with not a penny to his name. I wince a little as I look at her again. My beautiful fiancée notices, and we smile quickly at each before turning back to the task at hand, each of us lost in our thoughts.
We talked about her changing her last name at dinner last night. But I managed to convince her to keep ‘Fields’ arguing that it’s an apt one for a farmer.
And she fucking bought it, you bastard.
On so many occasions over this past week, I’ve considered telling Darcy the truth about myself, to see if she’d still want to marry me once she found out. But each time, I’ve retreated like a fucking coward. Still, it has to happen sometime. There’s a marriage certificate to be signed, and she’s going to get the shock of her life when she sees she’s actually marrying a man named Rock McLaughlin.Goddamn.
“There’s a lot we still need to learn about each other,” I decide to broach the subject again as I pluck out a stubborn weed. “I’m glad we’re getting married, but I think it’s important to remember that.”
“Come on Ranger, I already know that you snore,” Darcy teases me.
“But still, we’ve only known each other a few months. There’s going to big life stuff to figure out, you know?” I feel my pulse quicken.
Darcy pauses her weeding and sits back on her heels. “What kind of stuff?”
Once again, my courage fades and I try another angle. “How we’re going to run the farm, what to do if the crop doesn’t yield what we need it to. That kind of stuff.”
Darcy nods thoughtfully. “It’s happened before. It’s not ideal but…”
“So would we keep working the farm?”
My pretty fiancée pauses in her work.
