She chokes out a laugh despite herself. “That’s absurd. Stop it. You know it’s not the same.”
“You're right that it's different,” I say, squeezing her hand lightly. “It’s not casual. It’s not the same, because I care about you. Because watching you carry all of this alone when you don't have to is something I'm not willing to do. And since you won't let me give you diamonds…” My thumb moves over her left ring finger, where I’d like to put the biggest diamond of all. “Let me give you this instead. Let me take this one thing off your plate.”
Out the window, we’re rolling towards the familiar sightsof Wild Rose. The ranch road, the fence line, the first gate coming up.
Home.
My home. The place I came back to when everything else fell apart, that became her home too over the course of one summer.
The place where she put the pieces of a family back together.
“I don't know what to say,” she says finally.
I've been waiting for an opening like this since I met her and I intend to use it.
“I've got some suggestions,” I tell her. “How about, ‘thank you, Walker. You’re so handsome and loving and strong, and did I mention what a big dick you have? I adore you. There’s never been and never will be another man who compares to you. You're my hero.’”
An eyebrow raise.
“Hard pass,” she says.
And then we're both cracking up, letting out the laughter that feels so fucking good after a hard day.
When it settles, she leans over and kisses me on the cheek. Her lips are warm and she stays close for a second, her forehead briefly against my jaw.
“Walker,” she says.
“Yeah, darlin’?”
A long beat.
“Thank you. For being there for me.”
“Always,” I say. “No matter what.”
Her hand tightens in mine as she opens her mouth to say something else.
But then she closes her lips. Doesn’t say it.
It’s okay.
I know what she was going to say the same way I knowwhat I'm not saying, and we're both going to keep not saying it for one more week.
And then she's going to get on a plane and go to New York and take all her summer sunshine with her, and the not-saying will have done its job.
Chapter 39
Rumors
SADIE
When we get home, I turn on the TV and flop down on the couch. I just need to turn my brain off for a while.
Walker settles next to me and pulls me in close. This is probably our last night alone together and some part of me knows we should be making the most of it.
Instead I'm too wrung out to do anything other than this, my cheek on his shoulder, his hand moving slow through my hair.
The TV shifts to one of those entertainment news shows, the kind I normally flip past, and a gratingly enthusiastic voice blares through the room.
