The corner of his mouth tugged up and he fought it valiantly before finally giving in to a rueful smile. “Yes, ma’am, I am. But maybe tell me why you think so?”
“You could’ve just called me.”
“I could have.”
“Why didn’t you?”
He thought about it. He took a sip of his coffee. He set the cup back on the porch floor. He looked at her the way he had across the auditorium, like he was surrendering not to her but to himself.
“Because,” he said, “you needed to make your decision in a room with no one in it but you. And when I called Charlotte yesterday, I knew you’d already done that. The only thing left to do was come back and stand in that room with you, if you wanted me there. And I wasn’t sure you did.”
Her eyes filled with tears again, but at least she’d cried off all her mascara during the talent show and there was nothing left to smear on her face.
“I’ve wanted you in that room with me,” she said slowly, “for a long time.”
He stood up out of Makayla’s small blue rocker.
He stood up slowly. Set his coffee on the porch rail. Came over to her chair. He knelt in front of it, both hands resting on the wooden arms of the rocker he had built for her, and he looked at her intently.
“Tessa?”
“Yes?”
“I love you.”
Words deserted her. Thought deserted her. She couldn’t have spoken if both geese attacked her on the spot.
“I think I’ve loved you since the funeral. Since you called me the worst veterinarian in Montana to my face.”
“I called you the least useful.”
“I stand corrected.” He smiled a little. “Anyway. I love you. I would like, if you’ll have me, to keep showing up here for as long as you want me to. Forever, if that’s what you want. I don’t need you to say anything back. I just needed you to know.”
She reached out and took his face in both her hands.
His skin was warm and slightly rough from wind and sun and the day’s stubble, and his eyes, those blue, blue eyes, gazed at her in adoration she wasn’t at all sure she deserved but for which she was exceedingly grateful. She leaned forward in the chair he’d built for her, and she kissed him.
It wasn’t their first kiss. That had been a surprise kiss, seasoned with the salt of her tears, a kiss she had been carrying inside her like a held breath weeks. This one was different. This one wasn’t sad or stolen, and it didn’t have to end before someone’s phone rang.
This one was hers.
She kissed him slowly and thoroughly, leaving no doubt in either of their minds as to how she felt about him. His hands came up off the arms of the chair to her face. The chair rocked backward gently as their kiss deepened.
When she finally pulled back, his eyes were dazed but also elated.
“I love you, too,” she said softly. “In case that wasn’t clear.”
“It was,” he said with a smile. “But it’s nice to hear.”
She laughed, but it got tangled up with the tears, and Dillon stood up, gathering her out of the chair and into his arms. They stood there on the porch like that for a long time, their arms around each other and their hearts beating next to each other.
The willows went dark at their tips and the lake turned copper in the fading light. From the pasture came the sweet, distant sound of a child laughing as a quarter horse decided he was, in fact, willing to be gallop one more time across the field before sundown.
His phone rang in his pocket.
He let it go to voicemail. It rang again.
“You should answer it,” she said into his shirt.
