Page 109 of The Cowboy Who Worked Late
“You’ve looked at it?” she asked, pure fire in her eyes.
“Only online.”
She nodded, softening. “I want to look at it online.”
“Okay,” he said. “But let’s go right now. Let’s get off the ranch. Let’s just go.”
“It’s the Fourth of July,” she said. “He’s not going to be available to look at it tonight, and we have the family dinner tonight, and the rodeo, and the fireworks.”
“There’ll be fireworks everywhere,” Henry said. “Heck, we can buy some of our own and just set them off in the middle of the road.” He took her hand. “Please, just come with me right now.”
She searched his face and then looked away, scanning something on the horizon.
Henry wanted to ease this burden for her, take it if he could. He wanted to rage at the cowboys who had made her feel this way and tell her daddy to back off and let her make her own decisions about teaching at the academy.
“All right,” she said. “Let’s go right now.”
“I’ll call Jerry,” Henry said. “If he can’t come, we’ll just drive by. It’ll be fine.”
“Will you send it to me?” she said.
“Right now,” he said, and he pulled out his phone to send her the link to the listing that he’d been looking at.
“Come on, baby,” he said, and he took her hand. “Let’s not stand in this field in the middle of the summer day.” She turned back toward the ranch and started walking with him, reluctantly in his opinion.
“Let me slow you down,” he said. “I got you, okay?”
She nodded. “Okay.”
“That’s what we do for each other, Angel,” he said. “It’s what I want to do for you for the rest of my life.”
“All right,” she said.
“So you tell me what you want for the rest of your life,” he said, hoping this conversation didn’t stir up a new nest of worries for her.
“Like kids?” she said.
“Yeah, kids,” he said. “Do you want a lot of kids? Not very many kids? Kids right away after we’re married, or…something else?”
“I haven’t really thought about it,” she said.
“Do you want to get married in the spring, summer, or fall?” he asked. “I don’t believe you haven’t thought about your wedding.”
“I’ve thought about it,” she said, and he slowed as they neared the cabin. Henry didn’t want her to go back inside, but if they were going to go for a drive and then maybe go to the rodeo after, she might need to grab a few things.
“I think spring would be awesome around here,” she said. “The flowers bloom, and it’s so green.”
“Spring,” he said. “Doesn’t give you much time if we’re gonna get married this next spring.”
“Doesn’t givememuch time?” she asked. “Or it doesn’t giveyoumuch time? I mean, it’s not like I’m wearing a diamond.” She glanced over at him, and Henry almost tripped.
“Do you want to wear a diamond?”
“If it’s yours,” she said, and Henry was the one who stopped this time.
“I’d marry you in the spring,” he said. “Heck, I’d marry you tomorrow. And I’d take a baby anytime God gave us one. I want us to find a place of our own that we can move into when we get married. I don’t want to live there before you, and I don’t want you to live there before me. I want it to beourplace.”
“I want that too, Henry,” she said.
