Page 88 of Falling For You

Wyatt climbed up first and reached down for me. I took his hand and he pulled me up. At the top, he didn't let go. He pulled me close and kissed me.

"Daddy! Daddy! Do it here! Do it here!"

Birdie was jumping up and down ten feet ahead of us on the trail. Her bag was bouncing with every jump and her face was so excited she looked like she might burst.

I looked at Wyatt. He was smiling the way he smiled when he had a secret he couldn't keep.

"Do what here?"

Wyatt turned to his daughter. "Can you hold this for us, Birdie?"

He pulled a small camera from his jacket pocket and handed it to her. Birdie took it with both hands and held it up like a professional, her tongue poking out the corner of her mouth in concentration.

Wyatt turned back to me.

He got down on one knee on the red sandstone, with the desert stretching out behind him.

"Cass."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring.

"I've loved you since the night you beat Travis at darts and smiled at me on the walk home. Every version of you since then. The woman who braided my daughter's hair, who held my hand at a funeral, who stood in a holding cell and called me stupid. The woman who reads romance novels in the bath, who learned to bake cookies and knit for my daughter, who can tackle a six-foot firefighter, who stared down her sergeant when he was being an asshole. I love all of them." His voice caught. "And I want to spend the rest of my life watching you figure out which ones are new."

I laughed through the tears.

"Daddy, is she crying?" Birdie whispered behind the camera.

"Yeah, sweetheart. That's a good sign."

I pulled him up by his shirt collar and kissed him.

"Is that a yes?" he said against my mouth.

"Yes. That's a yes."

He took my hand and slid the ring onto my finger.

Birdie screamed. The sound echoed off the canyon walls and startled a bird out of a nearby bush. She dropped the camera and ran at us. Wyatt scooped her up with one arm while the other stayed around me.

The three of us stood on the trail. Birdie's arms around both our necks. Wyatt's forehead against mine. The ring on my finger, warm from his pocket.

Birdie squirmed down from Wyatt's arm and ran back to the camera. She picked it up, checked the screen, and turned it around.

"Daddy, your eyes are closed."

"Then we'll take another one."

He pulled me close. Birdie held up the camera, tongue out, one eye shut.

"Say cheese!"

Epilogue

WYATT

Andy and I spent the winter fixing up her father's house.

The tenants had kept it in good shape, but Andy wanted to make it ours. We'd drive over from West Ashmont on our days off and I'd do whatever she pointed at. We repainted the interiors, recarpeted the floors, and shopped for new furniture. Birdie claimed the room with the window facing the backyard on the first visit. Andy offered Barb the room downstairs and told her it was hers.