He’d spend his life making that up to her, and he wouldn’t regret having the opportunity to do so. Hell, he’d be the luckiest man on earth. But first he needed to say the one thing he’d been avoiding since he met her.
“I was wrong. No, I wasn’t just wrong—I was lying to myself. It was easier to think you were after my brother for his money than to think you were in love with him. Pushing you out of his life was acceptable as long as it was because I was protecting him and not because I was in love with you myself.”
…
Hadley just stared at him. She’d been less shocked when he’d walked off the airplane in Denver than she was now. Really, besides Lightning showing up with his fourth leg, she had no idea what would throw her more than Will Holt standing in front of her in one brown shoe and one black, wearing his TV movie cowboy hat, and telling her he loved her.
Discombobulating. Flabbergasting. Confusing as hell. It was all of that—but that wasn’t all. That little bubble of hope had her feeling lighter as she listened. She wanted to believe him, like, really wanted, but how could she trust that he really got it this time? That he understood?
“Why are you telling me this now?” The question came out as a whisper, as she knew on an instinctual level that all of this could disappear again in a moment, and there was nothing in the world she wanted more than to have this moment last forever.
He took off the cowboy hat, holding on to it with such a tight grip that it was as if it was a talisman. “Because I’m a wreck without you. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. I can’t stop thinking about you.”
Heart pounding, hope expanding, she could barely stand to look at him, but looking away was an impossibility. Not now. Not ever. Will Holt was the man she loved, and he loved h
er.
“You are…” The words died on his lips as he looked at her with a kind of vulnerable hope that echoed what she felt. “You’re my everything. Please give me another chance. I love you. I know I can be the worst, but—”
Unable to stop herself, she cut him off there by closing the distance between them.
“Will Holt,” she said, lifting herself up on her tiptoes and bringing her mouth within millimeters of his. “You are the best man, the absolute best.”
“Only because of you. I love you, Hadley.”
“I love you, too.”
Dipping his head down and meeting her halfway, Will kissed Hadley. She put everything in it that she felt, promising the world and meaning every bit of it.
By the time they walked back out into the ballroom, her dress was a bit askew, his cowboy hat sat cockeyed on his head, and both of them had that half-dazed, kissed-out-of-my-mind look on their faces.
The Harbor City elite staring at them as they emerged from the coat closet were buzzing with gossipy glee as well. Not giving a shit and grinning like a man in love, which she now knew he was, Will picked Hadley up and carried her out of the ballroom, past the huge mural of a sunset that took up an entire wall, and into the rest of their lives together.
Epilogue
One Year Later…
Will was wearing his black cowboy hat again, and Hadley was so beyond the point of denying that seeing him in it and his worn-in Wranglers was hot as hell. And the fact that they were back on the ranch to celebrate Adalyn’s decision to move to Harbor City and become an equal partner in Hadley’s charitable consulting firm, of course, meant only one thing: family game night.
She and Will had barely survived the first round of charades after dinner, which was what must have him so nervous. The bench at the outdoor picnic table they were sharing was practically vibrating from the speed of his knee bouncing up and down, and he hadn’t stopped shoveling Puppy Chow into his mouth since her mom had put it down in front of him with a wink.
She leaned in close to him, lowering her voice. “You okay?”
“Fine,” he said through clenched teeth. “Everything’s fine.”
“Weird” didn’t begin to cover this. After a year of spending nearly every non-working moment with him, she’d pretty much pegged all his moods. This one, though, was totally new.
“If you want to concede, we can totally do that.” She gave his thigh a comforting squeeze, then glided her hands up about as high as possible, considering her entire family was out on the patio with them. “That would mean we could sneak off to the cabin sooner.”
“No,” he said, the single word coming out sharp as a firecracker. “Sorry. I just really love Scrabble.”
Okay then, nothing to see here at all. Just her boyfriend passing on hot cabin sex for a game involving wooden square tiles. Letting out a sigh, she turned back to the board, her shoulders slumped with disappointment. So much for that whole honeymoon, can’t-get-enough-of-each-other period.
PawPaw laid down the first word. Marry.
“Really? You couldn’t have gone for more points than that? You wasted an M on a square that didn’t even have double points?” Aunt Louise rolled her eyes. “I should have partnered with the dog.”
“Oh yeah?” PawPaw shot back, his question sounding oddly practiced. Of course, after decades of the siblings needling each other, how could it not? “What do you have that’s so amazing?”