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She smiled up at him. “I like it. I like that we’re each stepping out of our old lives.” Her smile faded. “But what comes next?”
He tightened his arms around her and pressed a kiss to her temple. “Whatever we want. We get to make it up.”
She sighed and rested her cheek against his as they watched the sun slowly dip beneath the horizon. “I think I’d be happy to stay on our road trip for a while. I like this. We can drive for as long as we want to, then find a nice place and stay for as long as we want.”
He nodded slowly. “It does have its appeal.”
“But?”
He chuckled. “I’m not saying anything against it. It’s just that I know myself, and I think I know you well enough to say that you’re the same. We will enjoy this for a while, but it won’t be too long before we want something more. You talked about wanting to find a home. I want that too.”
“Maybe we’ll find it along the way.”
“Maybe so.”
She laughed. “If we find it before we get to Summer Lake, we can always drop the truck off and then turn around and come back.”
“True. Or if we haven’t found it by the time we get there, we can drop the truck off, visit with your mom, and then carry on.”
She raised her eyebrows. “You’d do that? You like the idea?”
“Sure. It’s like we’ve said before. We don’t have a timeframe. We’re not tied to any place in particular. Neither of us is enthused about going back to Napa, and I don’t know about you, but I can’t see us staying in Summer Lake.”
She laughed out loud at that. “I do like it there, it’s a really nice place. But no, I can hardly see myself wanting to settle down in the same small town where my mom lives.”
He laughed with her. “You know I’ve got nothing against your mom, I think she’s an awesome lady. But I have to tell you that I am relieved to hear you say that.”
She leaned in to kiss him, and for a while, all thoughts of the sunset, Summer Lake, and everything else faded away.
When they finally came up for air, her eyes shone as she smiled at him. “I don’t think it matters so much whatever place we choose. I feel as though I’ve already found my home – with you.”
His heart felt as though it exploded in his chest. “I want to be that for you, Tori.”
He closed his eyes when she brought her hand up to caress his cheek. “I want to be that for you, too.”
He didn’t open his eyes as he nodded – he didn’t want to go into all the explanations of everything he felt. It turned out that he didn’t need to say a word; she already understood.
“I know that you don’t like to talk about it, but I know from Hannah how it was for you guys after your folks died. I can’t imagine how that felt – how it feels. What I can do is tell you that I want to be someone you can turn to – I want to be a safe place for you.”
He crushed her to his chest and buried his face in her hair. “You already are, sprite. I would have told you that I didn’t need that – didn’t want it. But I would have been wrong. I want you to be my home – my family.”
Her eyes were wide when she met his gaze, but he could tell that she was more pleased than shocked. She understood what he meant – when he said make her his family, he was talking about making her his wife. He hadn’t given much consideration to the idea of marriage before. To be fair, he wasn’t giving it much consideration now – it felt like a foregone conclusion.
Chapter Eleven
Tori leaned against the railing and stared out across the canyon; it felt impossible to take in the vast beauty of the landscape before her.
Xander came to stand behind her, resting his hands on the railing on either side of her as he leaned over her shoulder.
“Isn’t it amazing?” she asked in a hushed voice.
“It is.”
“Doesn’t it make you feel small?”
He turned his head so that he could look into her eyes. “Does it make you feel small?”
She let out a short laugh. “It does, but not in a bad way. It’s just that it’s so… so vast. And when you think how many hundreds of years it took to form …” She shook her head. “I don’t mean that it makes me in particular feel small. It’s more that it reminds me that, as humans, we’re just like little ants scurrying around this planet. We feel like we’re so important. But in the grand scheme of things – compared to the Grand Canyon – we don’t really matter.”
