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The sun disappears below the horizon in a brilliant burst of purples and oranges and pinks that only she can rival.
Her smile vanishes, her gaze faraway, on the setting sun.
I frown, stroking a hand over her silky hair. “What’s wrong?” She told me last night she was nervous about the clinical trial. Even though it’s not major surgery, I’m terrified. But I refuse to worry or entertain grief. I did enough of that in my last life.
Ruby shuts her eyes and takes a steadying breath. “I feel like everything is over, Charlie.” Her eyes open at my growl. “But not in a bad way. I feel like I know who I am now. I came to do what I wanted to do and did it.” She palms my cheek and I catch a flash of the yellow diamond on her hand. I went overboard, but I couldn’t help it. It’s as bright and as bold as Ruby herself.
“I came, and I found you.” She smiles, tears glittering in her eyes. “My cowboy who yells.”
I bust out in a rumble of a laugh. Then I clear the rock from my throat and kiss her roughly. She makes a small whimper, twisting in my arms. Her lips are hot, sweet, soft.
When we part, I gather my wife against me, so tight I can feel her heart beat against mine, and I bury my face in her hair. “Christ, I love you,” I breathe into her neck. “I love you, Sunflower.”
I can never tell her enough. The words don’t mean enough. What this wild, gorgeous woman brought to my world, every heartbroken piece of me she put back together with her sunshine glow and her laughter. I’m the grateful fucking man who has Ruby in my life. And I’m never letting her go.
My sunflower that I will always keep blooming.
“I love you too.” Beautiful blue eyes glassy with tears, she rests her forehead against mine. “Let’s start a new list, Charlie.Ourlist. For our new beginning. For our life and our ranch.”
My eyes close briefly. Goddamn.
There is not a day that passes where I stand in amazement at the power of my wife.
“I want everything,” I tell her. I run a rough hand down her arm, relishing her pulse beneath my fingertips. She’s mine and she’salive. “Every reason I love you will be on that list. And we’ll do it together, baby. We’ll fill it and cross it off and add to it until the end of our goddamn days.”
“Yes,” she says breathily. She nods and nods and nods. Her smile brightens everything around us. “Yes.”
A FEW YEARS LATER
Bloom’s Blooms is bustling.
Twinkle lights glow across the large walk-in coolers. Vases full of hydrangeas and purple roses dot the long plank table in the center of the room. Spring sunshine dapples a whitewashed wall of river rock. Cowboy boots crunch across the hardwood floor. I take a second to admire Charlie, standing at the counter, his big fingers tying twine around the ends of a custom-made bouquet of sunflowers.
The best sight in the world. My cowboy.
Amidst the chaos, my husband’s piercing blue eyes find me. He gives me a wink and warmth curls through my stomach.
Today is the opening day for Bloom’s Blooms. My little flower shop with white shutters is now a reality. Located in a charming former drugstore from 1920, the light-filled shop is like a secret garden on Main Street.
Between healing my heart and getting Runaway Ranch back to where it was after the fire, it’s been a long journey to get here. It took many sunrises and sunsets, but we made it. Somehow, we did it.
And now all our family and friends are pitching in to get my flower shop open and off the ground.
I’ve never been so loved.
Wyatt lifts a circular vase of peonies. The ends of his fingers are dyed bright pink from the florist dip dye. “Where do you want these, Fairy Tale?”
I point across the room. “Cooler.”
Davis’s wife pops her dark head up behind a table and lifts a Mason jar filled with wildflowers. “Do we take pre-orders for these?”
I puff a lock of hair out of my eyes and squint. “We do now.”
Charlie’s sister, Emmy Lou, rushes across the room, followed by her husband Jace. Her pretty face is flustered as she scans the shop for her daughters. “Oh Lord, where’d those babies go?”
“Got ‘em,” Davis drawls, one giggling twin slung over his shoulder, the other carried under his arm like a baguette.
The day passes in a flash. I trim the ends of a bouquet of daisies, while taking a phone order for thirty centerpieces to be used at the National Finals Rodeo celebration dinner.
