I rest my head on Hunter's arm and let out a sigh. This is bliss.
Wyatt has had the best day; every second, he has had a smile on his face. We put him to bed and kissed him goodnight, while Jerry watched over him for us.
And I can’t lie. It makes me want to fill this ranch with kids. Brothers and sisters he can run around with.
Now we’re back at the party. Hunter’s jacket is off. His sleeves are rolled to the elbows. His tie is gone. He reached his limit with that suit in the heat.
He’s beautiful.
I slide my hand into his.
He looks down at me. The ring catches the light, his mother’s diamond, back on my finger where it belongs.
“Dance with me?” he asks.
“Always.”
He leads me onto the floor. Pulls me against him. One hand on my waist, the other holding mine against his chest. We sway. The band plays something I don’t recognize, but it doesn’t matter because the only song I can hear is his heartbeat under my palm.
“You know what I keep thinking about?” I murmur against his shoulder.
“What?”
“The first time you caught me. At Wyatt’s party. I tripped on a rock, and you grabbed my waist like it was nothing.”
He chuckles. “I remember.”
“Although the first time I met you was the moment that sticks in my mind.”
I blush just thinking about it.
“Not the truck. Although that was fucking hot. No, the moment you walked in that bar. You stole my breath away. I couldn’t stop myself from walking over. From that moment, I knew that was it.”
His arm tightens around me.
“I wanted you the moment I saw you, too,” I whisper.
“And now look, I’ve made a city girl a cowgirl.” He glances down at my cowboy boots beneath the wedding dress.
I press my face into his chest and breathe him in. Cedar and whiskey and something warm underneath that’s just him.
The band shifts into something slower. The crowd thins as people drift to tables, to the make- shift bar, to the edge of the dance floor where the candlelight bleeds into darkness.
I look up at my husband. “Hunter?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“Can we sneak off?”
His eyes darken. That shift I know so well, the gentleman dissolving, the other Hunter rising to the surface.
“What did you have in mind, Mrs. Sterling?”
I take his hand and lead him off the dance floor. Past the tables. Past the flowers. Into the dark beyond the lights, where the ranch opens up, and the sky stretches to infinity.
I look back at the party, and then I look at the man beside me.
My cowboy. My husband.