I shouldn’t ask him to refute me, but I probably have a better shot at him saying something I want to hear in my dream.
He rests his forehead against mine. “Lark, I love you. I was so stupid. So fucking dumb to think that if I pushed you away, maybe my heart would come back to me. But you have it. It’s yours and…I promise that every day, I’ll do whatever I have to in order to make things right between us.” Tristan pulls back, his brown eyes not leaving mine. “I’ve been here, beside you, talking to you, since you got hurt. I’ve had it out with your brothers, parents, and my family. I’ll make a town-wide announcement if that’s what you need for me to prove that I don’t want to love you in the shadows anymore.”
My lip trembles as I hold back the tears. “Can you pinch me?”
He pulls back, his hands falling, and confusion flashes across his face. “What?”
“Pinch me or something because I’m pretty convinced that I’m dreaming or still in the coma or something, because none of this makes sense.” I get out my words with shaky breath.
The beeping from the monitor grows faster, and both of us look up before he rubs his thumb against my cheek. “Relax, don’t get worked up. I’m sorry I’m laying this all on you.”
I blink a few times as the reality that this isn’t a dream finally sinks in.
Tristan is here, he loves me, and he told everyone about us and how he feels while I was in a coma.
Okay.
I look at him, my heart feeling stronger than it ever has. “I should make you work for it.”
He grins. “You should.”
“I should make you make that announcement.”
“And I will.”
I shake my head with a smile. “It took me having a head injury for you to come to your senses. Make that make sense.”
“It doesn’t. All I can say is that I knew before the injury. I knew the minute you rode off. I was…terrified. I didn’t want to love you because I was afraid of what would happen if I ever lost you.”
Man, he’s making me all gooey inside, but along with that, I want to know he’s serious. That this isn’t just him making a decision out of fear because I could’ve died.
Thankfully I didn’t, but none of them knew I wouldn’t.
“Tristan, you realize that this isn’t going to be easy.”
He lets out a half laugh. “I’m very aware. Between your brothers and my sisters, yeah…we’re in for it.”
“What about Sadie?”
His warm hand cups my cheek. “Sadie is more than happy with the prospect of us being together.”
I try to hide my smile at that but fail. “I swear, before…before I rode Cloud, she was trying to set us up.”
“Oh, I know. She did it the day I brought her home from camp,” Tristan confesses.
That’s a bit of a surprise, but one that warms my heart. I like that she likes me. I adore her. I’m really hoping I can be a part of her life, in whatever way she’ll have me.
Thinking of her right now causes my chest to constrict. “Oh, God, Cloud? What happened?”
Tristan’s jaw tightens before he releases it. “When you didn’t come back to the barn for a while, she waited, and then Cloud returned without you, and the saddle was askew. She ran to me, told me everything and was sorry she lied.”
She lied? “I don’t understand. What did she lie about?”
“She knew she wasn’t allowed to work with that horse. She knew, and she went behind my back—and you almost died because of it.”
Oh boy. I have a feeling this is going to be a fight, and right now I’m way too tired.
“That’s not what happened, but we can argue later.”
