My voice comes out steady, which is a miracle considering my pulse is going a million miles an hour.
“You walked into my life and changed it forever. You loved my son like he was yours. You got me to pick up a guitar I hadn't touched in years. You made this ranch feel like a home again. I love you. I'm so fucking crazy in love with you, and I'll never stop loving you.”
“Dad!” Jonah exclaims. “Language!”
The crowd that has gathered around us, and it is a crowd now, fifty, sixty people, phones up, completely still, starts laughing.
Sadie has a hand over her mouth. Now she hiccups a laugh too, eyes shining.
“Thank you, Jonah,” she says.
And then her eyes come back to me. Big and blue and my whole world.
“I love you too,” she says softly. “I love you so much.” There's that familiar teasing glint in her eyes as she adds, “But I still don't hear a question, Walker.”
I drop down to one knee.
A woman somewhere behind me says, out loud, to nobody in particular, “Oh my God.”
Sadie goes completely still.
I've stood on the biggest stages in the world. Live at the Grammys, the Super Bowl halftime show, arenas on every continent. I’ve never been this terrified.
My heart is in my throat.
I pat my jeans, instinctively looking for a ring that doesn't exist. The ring I should have bought weeks ago, months ago, before I was too afraid to admit what I already knew.
“Psst.” Jonah's voice, a loud whisper. “Dad.”
I glance sideways.
He's standing with his hand already in his pocket. From it he produces a cherry ring pop, still in the wrapper, slightlywarm from how long it's been in there. He holds it out to me with solemn dignity.
“I've got you,” he says.
I stare at my son. This boy who packed a cherry ring pop in his jacket pocket and has evidently been waiting for his father to get his act together.
“Jonah.” My voice comes out hoarse. “Did you know this would happen?”
He lifts one shoulder. “I figured you might need it in a pinch.”
I take the ring pop from my son's hand. Unwrap it.
I look up at Sadie.
She's laughing and crying simultaneously, her eyes moving between me and Jonah and the cherry ring pop. Her copper hair catching the sun light. Those blue eyes.
My girl.
I take a breath.
“Sadie Sullivan. Will you marry me? Will you be my wife? Will you be the queen of this family, now and forever?”
The terminal is completely silent.
She looks at me for one long moment. This woman who waded out of a freezing lake without a second thought. Who sees the real me, the man beneath all the fame and the walls I put up to protect myself. Who loved my son back to himself and loved me back to my music and my life.
There’s not even a moment of hesitation before she says, “Yes.”
