Lara smiled. “Everything is better with water.” And it was the truth. The ranch was slowly coming back to life. George and Arlen had been up half the night again, but this time discussing plans for the future instead of worries about failure.
Mitchell set the cup back down and adjusted his arm, grimacing.
“The doctor said you ought to be lying down,” Lara said as Belle went chasing after Joseph, who was chasing Shep across the yard. “Want me to help you back inside?”
Mitchell eyed her. “Don’t think you can be ordering me around once I’m all healed up.”
“I’mnotordering you around. I’m simply reiterating what the doctor said.” She gave him her most angelic smile. “Besides, you ought to have seen how Josie tormented Arlen when he sliced open his leg last summer. You’d have thought he was on the verge of death with the way she kept after him.”
That made Mitchell look even more pained. Lara bit her lip to keep from laughing. In truth, she was just so happy he was here with her—all in one piece—that she would have tolerated him turning somersaults in the yard with Joseph so long as he wasn’t bleeding.
A warmth covered the hand she had rested on the arm of the chair. She looked down to see Mitchell’s good hand covering hers. She turned her hand over and laced her fingers through his. She would never get enough of this simple, reassuring gesture.
He was here. Arlen and George had welcomed him back instead of running him off. And he cared for her.
“The sheriff sent word that Clarkson passed on before they could send him back to Denver,” Mitchell said quietly.
Lara glanced up at him. “Are you all right?” She couldn’t imagine knowing she had taken a man’s life, even if it was to protect her own. Her heart hurt for him.
“I will be, once I sit with it for a while.” He caught her eyes. “I’ll say that I’m grateful this means he’ll never bother us again.”
Us. His words made Lara feel warm inside. The future.Theirfuture. As soon as they’d returned to the ranch, Mitchell spoke haltingly to her of his past while they waited for the doctor to arrive. He’d told her of feeling alone, desperate for friends, and uncertain of anything after losing his family. He’d drifted along for a while, working jobs as he’d found them for a few years before finally landing in Denver. And there, he’d filled the empty place inside with people he thought were friends. People like Clarkson.
But they weren’t friends, and Mitchell had found himself in too deep with them before he understood that. Choosing to leave was an impossible decision. He’d felt as if he was betraying the only people to show him kindness since his family. He weighed the decision—until it was made for him.
They were caught just as they attempted to rob yet another train. Clarkson shot a man acting as a guard, and while Mitchell and the others faced charges of robbery, Clarkson was looking at something much more serious. And so when the state offered to withdraw all of the charges against Mitchell and to reduce Clarkson’s sentence from death to a lifetime in prison if Mitchell told them everything that they’d done, he agreed.
He’d saved Clarkson’s life.
After he told Lara, he repeated the entire story to George and Arlen and had offered to move on as soon as he was well enough.
They wouldn’t hear of it.
And so here he was, with her. With them.
Lara squeezed his hand. “Are you in very much pain?”
“It’s better than it was. But I’ll be glad when I have both my arms again.”
“So you can ride and mend fences and search out stray cattle?” she teased.
“Oddly enough, yes. I miss the work. But there’s this girl I know, and I’d like to wrap her up in both my arms again too.” He gave her a mischievous grin.
“Oh, I don’t know that Josie would much care for that,” she said, looking up at him sideways.
Mitchell shook his head, still smiling. “You know, Lara, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you. I’ve been trying to wait for the right moment, but time alone is something that’s hard to come by around here.”
As if to prove his point, Belle, Joseph, and the dog raced by again before disappearing around the side of the house.
Lara laughed. “With eight other people in this house, I can’t imagine that.”
“So I’m going to ask you now.” He shifted in the chair as far as his hurt arm would let him. “I love you, Lara Cummings. I love everything about you—your bravery, your heart, your stubbornness, and yes, your curiosity.”
Lara pulled in a breath. “I . . . I love you too, Mitchell.” It felt so good to finally say that out loud. “I was so afraid I’d lost you when you left.”
He held her gaze. “I’ll never leave you again. I promise that.”
Tears stung her eyes, and she blinked them away, focusing instead on Mitchell’s dear, wonderful face and the reassuring way he held her hand.
