Waiting for this moment.
For me.
And when he sings—low and steady, voice husky with emotion—my throat tightens. Because the lyrics aren’t just pretty. They’re honest.
About a man who lost himself chasing the world.
About a storm that nearly swallowed him whole.
And about a woman who walked into his life like a flood—unexpected, wild, and somehow exactly what he needed to remember who he was.
He doesn’t look at me while he sings.
He doesn’t need to.
Because every word is for me.
And by the time the last chord fades into the trees, I’m blinking back tears and wondering how the hell I ever thought this would be just a story.
This is so much more.
This is our beginning.
“I love you, Sam Stone,” I whisper, the words catching on the lump in my throat.
His fingers still on the strings, and he looks up slowly, that smile pulling at his lips.
“I love you, too, Charlie,” he says, voice rough, eyes warm.
It’s not grand or dramatic. But it hits like the earth settling beneath my feet. Like coming home.
He sets the guitar aside and reaches for me, pulling me close until I’m tucked into his side. His lips brush my hair, then my temple, then my cheek like he’s marking every piece of me as his.
And I let him.
Because I am his.
We stay out there until the sky turns from pale gold to dusky lavender, and the stars bloom quietly overhead. Themountains fade into silhouettes, the air cooling with each passing hour. But I don’t feel the cold.
Not with Sam wrapped around me, his arms a blanket, his chest a heartbeat I’ve already memorized.
We lie back on the blanket, tangled together, and talk about everything. No more walls. No more tiptoeing.
Just truth.
He tells me about Gwen. How they loved young and lost slowly. The guilt, the silence that grew between them. How music became both the escape and the cage. And I tell him about Kurt. The betrayal. The heartbreak. The way it made me question my worth. My voice. My future.
He listens without flinching. No judgment. Just those steady, grounding eyes that see through everything and still stay soft.
We talk about what we want next. Not just someday, but soon. A real future filled with morning coffee and late-night barn walks and maybe a family.
The words come easy here, under the stars. Because there’s no noise. No cameras. No deadlines. Just this land. This man. This feeling.
By the time we walk back to the house his hand in mine, our footprints barely visible in the silver grass, I know something with every beat of my soul.
I never want to leave Stonewater Ranch.
Not because of the mountains.
