“I mean it.”
“I know.” We sit there in comfortable silence, just looking at one another.
Something pushes me to ask a question of my own, one that has nothing to do with first dates and everything to do with Em and me.
“You don’t have to answer but I think…” I shake my head at myself, “no, Ineedto ask somethin’ just to put my mind at ease.”
Her brows pinch together. “OK…”
“Do you regret leavin’ town the way you did?”
I watch as she picks her wine glass up off the table and pulls it close, cradling it in her hand. She doesn’t hide that she’s running the question over in her mind, but she does it for a long time. So much so, I’m just about to take back my question when she answers.
“You’ve been nothin’ but honest with me, so I’m goin’ to do the same,” she starts. “I’d just lost Dad, I was tryin’ hard to hide how lost I was and be strong for my brothers, and then there was you.” She smiles over at me. “Perfect, helpful, always there,and confusin’ me to no end because of the way you make me feel whenever I’m around you.’ My lips part, my heart literally tries to punch its way out of my chest. “But I also knew it wasn’t fair to anyone if I stayed on the mountain out of obligation. Not when I knew everythin’ I needed to get myself together was back here in Palmer.”
“Everythin’ you needed?” My voice is rougher, but I’m not ever going to hide my emotions from her. Never her.
She waves her spare hand in the air. “A sense of normalcy, my job. All of it. For the record, I realize now that I had already started fallin’ for you, even back then. Even when my world was crumblin’ and my heart was breakin’. I just didn’t have the capacity to think about—let alone process—how I could feel so connected to a stranger I’d just met and who’d married me because Dad asked him to. It felt wrong to be drawn to you.”
“Because I’m a Cooper?” I ask.
I catch a glimpse of her spark this time as she glares at me for a moment as if to say, ‘as if.’
“It was too much, too soon.” She turns her hand over to lace her fingers with mine. A slow rolling wave of rightness spreads out from the touch, filling me with a sense that I’m exactly where I’m meant to be.
“As much as I had a moment when I wished our weddin’ was real, I never really thought itcouldbe,” she continues. “And even with both of us knowin’ what it was and why we were doin’ it, you never acted as if it was fake. You gave me and my Dad the best possible memory you could have, and for that, I’m endlessly grateful.”
“I just did what anyone would do,” I reply.
“You did it because you’reyou, Jude. A kind, thoughtful, selfless man who didn’t even stop to think about it before acceptin’ a dyin’ man’s unreasonable request.”
I flex my fingers in hers, losing myself in her expressive gaze, loving the fact that I could—no,will—have a lifetime of moments like this. She’s letting me in, allowing me to see every part of her. “I can’t explain it, I just knew that it was somethin’ I was meant to do.”
“Marryin’ me or helpin’ Dad?” she asks. “Because whatIremember is you turnin’ up out of nowhere and in a room that had been suffocatin’ me with dread and heartbreak for days, I suddenly felt like I could breathe again. When you stepped behind me, I knew you had my back. We didn’t know each other and yet you bein’ there gave me the freedom to let go if I needed to.”
Not for the first time, I wonder if this is how the Call is for everyone. It’s like I want to brand her onto my heart. I want her and only her. She’s literally on my mind from sunup to sundown. Everything I do, I do it with her in mind.
My life is not just the ranch and my brothers anymore, there’s Em too. My wife. My One. My future everything.
“I meant every word I wrote in that letter.” I rub the back of my neck. “Though, I do have to confess that the prenup—the thing thatshouldhave been lodged—was not.” She gasps and I rush to reassure her. “But I’m told it can be easily fixed with a post-nup. We can do that whenever you’re ready, but I give you my word, what’s yours now and forever will also just be yours.
“Wait… “ Her body stills. “You’re tellin’ me the document thatshouldhave been lodged, wasn’t. And the one that shouldn’t have been, was?”
I laugh at the irony, grinning wide when she joins me. “I mean it, Em. I don’t want anythin’ belongin’ to your family. Just you.”
“What about whatyouown?”
“You’re my wife. What’s mine is yours,” I say matter-of-factly.
“Jude,” she says gently. “You’ve got to protect yourself. What if this doesn’t work out—” I pin her with a questioning stare and she holds her hands up in surrender with a knowing glint in her eye. “OK. I love the faith in us, but what would you have done if I didn’t believe in the Call? Or the existence of the mountain spirit? What if I was completely against ever returnin’ to Timber Falls. What if?—”
I dip my head so our eyes are level. “Wherever you are is where I want to be, Em. Full stop. End of sentence. I don’t care how long you need, or how long it takes, or even if it happens at all. You’re my One and I’m yours,” I tell her. “I’m already strugglin’ bein’ apart from you and that’s before we’ve even gone down the road of completin’ the Call.” Her eyes flash at that and I can see she’s rememberingexactlywhat that means. “I can’t imagine I’ll be able to cope with a day, let alone anight, from you after that.”Shit. Have I rambled too much now?
“Please don’t take that back,” she whispers. Not only can I see her emotions lying just beneath the surface, I feel them tugging at my soul. “What you said confirms everythin’ I know about the man you are. It’s why I believe you’re my One too.”
I never could have imagined how good that would feel to hear.
“OK,” I rumble quietly, not trusting myself to say anything more right now.