Page 21 of Knots and Broncs
“When’d you get back?” I ask her as I brush my thumb over her cheek.
“Just now,” she says. “I went straight to my dad’s to drop him off, but he fell asleep before I even got the car in park. So I came here.”
I kiss her again because I can, because she tastes like travel and summer dust and everything I’ve missed for three long days.
She catches my shirt and pulls me close. “I’m here to invite you all to dinner tonight. Dad’s going to stay home and sleep off the drive. But I want the rest of you there.”
Tex lifts his hat in salute. “Say no more. Free food from Sedona’s kitchen? I’m in.”
Seth nods. Joey raises a hand and calls out that he’ll be there after checking on Diesel.
Jasper keeps taking pictures, muttering about “natural romance lighting” like a man possessed.
I look down at her. “What’s the occasion?”
She bites back a smile, playful and nervous at the same time. “I talked to my dad. I told him I want us to have an engagement party.”
My chest pulls tight like someone hooked a rope around it. I try to speak, but the sound sticks for a moment. Then I lean in and kiss the corner of her mouth, more tender than I expect.
“You’re sure?” I ask. “Really sure?”
Sedona rises on her toes and kisses me. “I’m very sure,” she murmurs. “Do you think you can get me a ring? No pressure, babe, but I want the whole world to know I belong to you. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy. Maybe we can go into town. I think we can find something at the flea market.”
“No need.”
I peel off my gloves and reach into my pocket. Her breath hitches when she sees the small velvet pouch.
I’ve had it with me every day since she told me she wanted to marry me. I was convinced it was just her grief speaking, so I asked her to take her time and think about it.
I didn’t think she would make the decision so fast. That she’d be sure so fast. I didn’t know when she’d be ready to say thereal words, but I wasn’t about to be caught unprepared a second time.
I loosen the drawstring and slide out the ring. It’s my mother’s ring. Sedona’s breath catches.
“I’ve been carrying it around,” I tell her. “Waiting for when you were ready to say yes.”
She presses her hands over her mouth, shaking with emotion she tries to swallow. Her eyes look darker than usual, wide and wet and full of this aching tenderness that hits me right in the sternum.
“Yes,” she says, voice cracking. “Yes.”
“You mean it?”
“Yes,” she says again, louder this time. “Billy, yes.”
I laugh because I can’t do anything else. My brothers are already running toward us.
Joey gets there first and claps my back hard enough to make me stumble. Tex hugs Sedona. Seth shouts something about needing champagne even though none of us are fancy enough to keep that around.
I slide the ring onto her finger. It fits like it was always meant for her.
She raises her hand, staring at the band glinting in the sun. I kiss her palm, then her wrist, then the inside of her arm. She blushes all the way to her hairline.
Jasper snaps a photo at that exact moment.
We kiss again while my brothers cheer. Sedona wraps her arms around my neck as if she’s trying to climb inside my skin.
My hands ease down her back, and I hold her close enough to feel the rise and fall of her ribs. She breathes my name against my mouth.
The kiss is slow and warm, full of the promise we’ve been circling for years.
