“Where are we going to live?”
“In her house?” Rosie guessed. “I’ve been there, and I’m pretty sure your three pairs of jeans and seven shirts will fit.” She smiled at him, and Cole heard the teasing note in her tone.
“I feel stupid,” he whispered.
Rosie straightened, a hint of surprise marching across her face. “Why?”
“Cole’s up?”
Sunny came into the kitchen still wearing her pajamas. She paused and looked at Cole and Rosie too. “What’s going on? Are you sick?” She hurried toward him now, and actual tears pressed into his eyes.
“I’m fine,” he said, but his voice broke on the tail end of the last word.
“He’s going to ask Rachel to marry him,” Rosie said, and she’d never been great at keeping secrets.
Cole still threw her a withering look before focusing on his step-momma again. “We’ve been dating for six months, and I have the ring, and I’m dying a little more every day where she’s not wearing it.”
His step-momma looked like he’d hit her with that giant diamond ring, but Cole hadn’t even bought Rachel a diamond. He’d gone with a much cheaper and just as sparkly moissanite.He and Rachel had gone to Jackson Hole a couple of weekends ago—much to his father’s disappointment. The trip had come with warning after warning, and in-person and text lectures.
But Cole’s mind and heart had been fully captivated by Rachel, and that wasn’t going to change.
“I’m in love with her.” And he sounded absolutely miserable about it.
“So ask her,” Rosie said, getting to her feet. “There’s no reason to torture yourself.” She knew about the six-month rule his parents had put on him, but she happened to agree with Cole that it was a stupid rule.
Cole had abided by it, because he loved and respected his parents, and he was living in their home.
Because he had nowhere else to go.
“We’re all up this early, and no one’s made coffee?” Cole’s father padded across the tile in the kitchen to the coffee pot. He picked it up and moved to the kitchen sink. “What’s going on this morning?”
Of course his eyes landed on Cole, and he seemed to have a spotlight shining on him all the time lately.
He didn’t see how he could get down on both knees and beg Rachel to be his wife if he couldn’t look his father in the eye and tell him the truth. Cole wanted that relationship with his daddy, and he knew his father was only awake this early on a Tuesday morning because he’d be heading to his AA meeting soon.
The water reached the top of the pot and spilled over, and still Daddy stood there holding it under the stream. Cole inhaled again, stood, and squared his shoulders. “I’m in love with Rachel, Daddy, and I’m going to ask her to marry me tonight.”
His father blinked once, opened his mouth, then looked down at the coffee pot. He reached to turn off the water, then poured out the excess water and returned to the machine. “Is her family in town?”
“Her brothers are getting in this morning,” Cole said. “Her parents arrived last night, and they’ll be at the ranch through the New Year.” He’d come home after work yesterday to give Rachel a few hours of breathing room to receive her parents and spend some time with them.
Cole had met Wyatt and Marcy Walker previously, and they seemed to like him. He liked them just fine, and they normally didn’t come to Wyoming in the winter. Rachel and her brothers had often gone to the warmer climate of Texas, where her parents still spent most of their time, but as their rodeo animal training facility had grown, the less they’d been able to leave it.
“They invited me to dinner tonight, and Marcy is asking if y’all want to get together and do dinner.”
“Us?” Sunny asked.
“You and Daddy,” Cole said, his throat suddenly so dry. “Me and Rachel. Marcy and Wyatt.”
Daddy finally stopped measuring grounds into the filter, and he flipped on the coffee maker before facing Cole again. “That sounds fun.”
To him, maybe. To Cole, it sounded like an opportunity for his parents and Rachel’s parents to try to talk them out of getting married. His pulse quaked through his veins, and then Cole did the thing that always settled him: He thought of the gorgeous honey-haired woman he’d fallen for.
He reminded himself that he didn’t have to live with his parents. She didn’t have to live with hers. They could make their hometogether, and Cole would do anything to wake up next to Rachel, run Whispering Pines with her, and build his life around hers.
“They’ll be here for the next five weeks,” Cole said. “And I think you have Wyatt’s number.”
Daddy nodded, and he still hadn’t said anything about Cole’s idea of a proposal that evening.
