Daniela
We walked to the house hand-in-hand.
It was my last day in Briar Hill before the shoot started, and Peggy had planned a big dinner to send me off. Everyone was going to be there—Millie, Gage, the kids…Haven and Wyatt, Forrest, Dakota. Adam would be there if he didn't get distracted making something, which was never a guarantee.
Even Stetson, Sawyer’s most elusive cousin, would be there.
It was the perfect time to tell everyone that Sawyer had just agreed to marry me.
I kept reaching up to run my fingers over the St. Christopher’s medal, a stupid grin on my face that I couldn't wipe away. Sawyer looked the same, especially when we caught sight of everyone at the kitchen table in the big house…when we could hear them laughing.
“They're never going to let me live it down,” Sawyer said. “That you had to askmeto marry you…and that I don't even have a ring.”
I snorted. “I did kind of spring it on you.”
He was smiling, looking at the lit windows, the shadows of people moving around inside. "I'm saying I should've done it first."
"Next time."
He looked at me.
"Next time I get engaged," I said, "I'll let you do it first."
"There's not going to be a next time."
"I know." I squeezed his hand. "That's why you'd better make it up to me with a very good ring."
"I was thinking a simple band."
"You were not."
"Something with diamonds."
"There we go."
He laughed, low and easy, and pulled me into his side for a second—arm around my shoulders, mouth to my temple—and I leaned into him and felt the medal warm against my collarbone and thought about how none of this was what I'd planned when I drove out to Holt Creek Ranch in December to see my best friend.
None of it.
All of it better.
"Ready?" he said.
I looked at the house. At the warm windows and the moving shadows and the sound of Dakota's laugh carrying out into the cold night air.
"Millie's going to cry," I said.
"Millie's definitely going to cry."
"Dakota's going to say something terrible."
"I'll handle Dakota."
"Forrest—" I stopped.
Sawyer looked down at me.
"Forrest is going to be happy," he said.
