Walter had grown up as his parents’ golden boy. Right up until he’d finally developed a spine, moved away from home and settled in Serenity, he’d done exactly what was expected—except, of course, when he’d married Sarah.
Even then, however, he’d let his folks influence him and get in the middle of his marriage until the divorce had been inevitable. There were days when he could still hear their voices in his head, complaining about this or scolding him about that.
From the day he’d met Rory Sue, he’d tried to imagine his parents’ reaction to her unpredictability and untamed exuberance. Tonight, though, as he looked at her sprawled across his bed, her hair like silk on the pillow, her cheeks flushed, a smile on her lips, he realized that his opinion was the only one that mattered. He knew exactly what he wanted, had known it for a while now, but caution had kept him silent.
“Marry me,” he blurted before he could analyze it to death.
Rory Sue shot up, dragging a sheet with her, and stared at him. “Excuse me?”
He grinned at her stunned expression. “I asked you to marry me,” he repeated quietly. “I love you, Rory Sue. I’ve made plenty of mistakes in my life, but I know you’re not one of them. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
Instead of flinging herself into his arms as he’d half expected, she studied him warily. “Why now?”
“Why not now?”
“Maybe you’re just feeling left out because Sarah and Travis have set their wedding date for next month and Raylene’s getting her life under control and doesn’t need you to look out for her anymore.”
“Believe me, this has nothing to do with my ex-wife or my friend,” he insisted. “I just realized that you and I balance each other perfectly. When I get stuffy and traditional, you yank me right out of that and get me to do something I never dreamed I’d do. I think maybe you need me for the flip side of that. I’ll keep you from doing something so crazy you’ll wind up in a hospital or in jail.”
“Like when you talked me out of going bungee-jumping?” she asked, a twinkle in her eyes.
“That’s one example,” he said. “And when you talked me into going skinny-dipping in your parents’ pool while they were home.” That had been at the same time the most terrifying and the most liberating risk he’d ever taken.
She laughed. “I told you they’d never catch us, but you should have seen your face when that light in the house came on. It was priceless.”
“I thought for sure Sonny was going to be out there with a shotgun two minutes later,” he admitted.
Rory Sue knelt beside him. “You have to admit, it was pretty exhilarating.”
“That’s one word for it.” He looked into her eyes. “I want a lifetime of that, Rory Sue. I want us to do the unexpected for the rest of our days.”
“What about all the normal stuff, like having kids?” she asked. “I don’t think I’m anywhere near ready for that. You understand that, right?”
Walter swallowed his disappointment. He’d known for a while now that Rory Sue would probably never be tamed to the point of being a traditional wife and mother. “As much as I would love to have a baby with you, I have Tommy and Libby. It may take me a whole lifetime just to figure out how to be a good dad to the two of them. If those are the only children I have, it’s okay. You’ll be an amazing stepmother.”
She studied him worriedly. “Are you sure you can live with us not having kids of our own?”
“Very sure,” he said solemnly. He waited a minute, then asked, “So, what do you think? Want to get married? We could do it skydiving over the Grand Canyon if you want.”
She blinked at the suggestion, then started laughing. “You surprise me, Walter Price! If I thought you were serious about that, I’d book us flights to Vegas tomorrow.”
He reached into a bedside table and pulled out two plane tickets he’d booked the week before. “Already done.”
She looked at the two tickets, then at the confirmation for the skydiving excursion. “Well, I’ll be darned.”
“So, what’s it going to be, Rory Sue?”
Laughing, she threw her arms around his neck. “What time do we leave?”
* * *
Hands on her hips, Carrie stood in front of Carter, eyeing him with disgust. “Please tell me you are not going to spend the rest of your life sitting around here drinking beer and pouting. It’s been ages since you’ve done anything besides work and hang out with us. Mandy and I are sick of it.”
Carter scowled at her. “I am not pouting. Two-year-olds pout.”
“Well, it looks that way to me, and believe me, I know pouting when I see it. I am the queen of pouting.”
He grinned despite his sour mood. “I certainly can’t deny that.”
“So, get a grip and fight for Raylene,” she said, her expression serious. “If you sit back and let her spend who knows how long trying to decide what she wants, she might figure out it isn’t you.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” he replied sourly.
Carrie made a face. “Don’t mock me. You need to be in her face while she’s deciding, so you’re one of the options. If you play this right, I still think you can be at the top of the list.”
“I think you spent too much time last summer watching soap operas or some of those hot new teen shows,” he accused. “This is real life. It gets complicated.”
“And you don’t think soaps are complicated?” she asked incredulously. “I could fill you in on some plots that would make your head spin. The point is, you want Raylene. She loves you. Sure, she has options now, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be the one she chooses. How’s she supposed to figure that out if you’re over here sulking?”
“What do you suggest?” he asked, more out of curiosity than from any intention of following her advice. She’d barely turned sixteen, for goodness’ sakes. How wise could she be?
“I’m glad you asked,” she said, whipping a piece of paper out of her pocket and handing it to him. “Here are a few ideas for starters. Mandy and I agree they all sound pretty romantic, but what do we know? We’re kids. We would have asked Raylene for her ideas, but that might have given away the plan.”
“The plan?” he repeated, staring at the list of twelve surefire ways to get Raylene’s attention. That’s what it actually said in capital letters: “TWELVE SUREFIRE WAYS TO GET RAYLENE’S ATTENTION.” Clearly they’d given the matter a lot of thought and were pretty confident about their scheme.
He scanned the list. Some of it was fairly predictable—sending flowers, taking over her favorite foods as a surprise. Even sending a hundred balloons that said, I Love You, though over the top, was something any man on a mission might try.
It was the twelfth suggestion on the list that caught his attention: “Work in her garden. Don’t wear a shirt.” He laughed as he read it.
“You honestly think me parading around half-naked is going to do the trick?” he asked.
“You have a halfway-decent body,” Carrie said. “All my friends say so.”
“It’s late October. Haven’t you noticed it’s starting to get chilly around here?”
She shrugged that off. “There’s a warm spell predicted for this weekend, but even if it’s freezing, you should do it to prove how serious you are about getting her attention.”
“You don’t care if I wind up with pneumonia?”
“Not so much,” she said cavalierly.
Carter shrugged. He supposed it was worth a shot, though he wasn’t convinced that the sight of him showing off his abs was going to override all of Raylene’s doubts about the future.
Still, Carrie and Mandy’s list got him thinking. If a piece of paper with a few clearly stated objectives could make him view things in a different light, perhaps something similar would work with Raylene.
“I need paper and a pen,” he told his sisters.
Carrie’s eyes brightened. “You’re going to write her a love letter,” she said eagerly. “Great idea. We should have thought of that one.”
“Not exactly,” Carter responded, accepting the pen and stationery that Mandy had hurriedly provided. He winced at the pink paper, but what the heck? Maybe Raylene was partial to pink.
And if he got the words right, the color of the paper would hardly matter.
* * *
Raylene sat at the kitchen table, despondently sipping a glass of lemonade. It was the first pitcher she’d made in a while, but the unexpected arrival of springlike weather in late October had put her in the mood for it. She pursed her lips when she realized she’d forgotten to add sugar. She’d been doing that a lot recently, getting lost in thought and forgetting things. She couldn’t seem to focus, not since she’d sent Carter away and then told his sisters that it was over.
She’d been half expecting them to somehow intervene and stir things up, but as the days passed, they hadn’t returned, and there’d been no sign of Carter. Obviously, he’d taken her at her word and was going to stay away. What had she expected, that he’d fight for her?
Oddly, now that she was actually able to leave the house every day, at least for a brief walk into town and long enough to do a little paperwork for Travis at the radio station, she realized there was no place she really wanted to be, except with Carter and the girls. All of those big plans she’d hinted to him that she wanted to make for her future seemed unimportant compared to what she’d already found with him.
A full-time job? Maybe even a real career? Sure, it would be nice if she could define herself as something other than an agoraphobic at long last. Volunteer work of some kind? There was nothing to stop her from doing that, even if she were married and working. Travel? Well, what fun would it be to see the country or the world without someone to share the trip?
But even though she was reaching those conclusions on her own—okay, with plenty of helpful prodding from Annie and Sarah—she couldn’t bring herself to pick up the phone and call Carter to tell him she’d made a mistake. She’d given him the freedom to move on. Now she had to let him do just that. If the path ultimately led back to her…well, she’d be waiting.
Carrie’s declaration calling her an idiot rang in her head. She probably was. In facing down Paul, she’d discovered that she was a fighter, after all. So why wasn’t she fighting for this, for the future she knew she wanted? What was stopping her? Fear? Hadn’t she had more than enough of letting fear rule her life?
Somehow she had to find the courage—and a plan—for going after what she really wanted.
* * *
When Raylene looked outside the next afternoon, to her astonishment she saw Carter working in her garden. Most of the flowers had died back and weeds had taken over since that fateful day when Paul had turned up. She hadn’t gotten around to buying any of the fall plants she’d intended to put in. What was left looked sadly neglected.
On this unseasonably warm day, Carter was shirtless and wearing a pair of jeans that fit like a glove. He made her mouth go dry. Then, again, he inspired that reaction pretty much whatever he wore.
She opened the door carefully, but it brought his head snapping around. His gaze met hers and held.
“I’m surprised to see you here,” she said.
He gave her a sheepish grin. “It’s been brought to my attention that I’ve been behaving like an idiot.”
She laughed at that. “Mine, too. Your sisters, Annie, Sarah—all of them have expressed that at one time or another.”
He chuckled, but then his expression sobered. “One of the things they all have in common is that they’re smart. I have been acting like an idiot. I’m in love with you and I walked away from that just because you told me to. That’s exactly when I should have stuck around to fight.”
“So you came over here to fight for me?” she asked, her heart in her throat.
“I did,” he said, pulling a pink envelope out of his back pocket. The incongruous sight made her smile. “It’s all in here. Read it.”
He crossed the yard and handed it to her.
Raylene took the thin envelope and sat down. When she pulled out the single sheet of paper, she saw that it was a list of all the things she’d ever mentioned wanting to do if she got her life back. Beside each one was a promise.
“Whatever job you decide you want, I will support you in that a hundred percent. No matter how time-consuming it is, I’ll never complain, as long as you come home to me at the end of the day.”
She lifted her gaze to see that he was watching her intently. “Good start,” she said softly, fighting tears.
“Keep reading.”
“If you want to volunteer or help out in the community, I’ll be by your side,” he’d written. “We’ll both give something back in return for all the blessings in our lives.”
She swallowed hard as the words in front of her swam on the page. She tried to keep reading through her tears.
“Wherever you want to travel, I’ll do everything I can to make sure the trip is memorable. We’ll fill a hundred albums with all our memories so we can look at them again when we’re too old to roam.”
Now Raylene’s tears were flowing freely as she came to the next item on his list.
“We’ll have the family you wanted, starting with Carrie and Mandy and adding all the kids you dreamed of, raising them together with love, through good times and bad, from colic to acne and angst.” She smiled at that.
“And last,” he’d written, “we’ll grow old together and spend our evenings sitting outside with the scent of honeysuckle in the air, holding hands and remembering the wonderful life we built together.”
When she looked up, her eyes shimmering with tears, he met her gaze, then held it. She couldn’t have looked away even had she wanted to.
“Make that dream with me,” he said quietly. “Please don’t go off on your own, Raylene. Let’s do it together. Marry me.”
Raylene’s heart swelled at the sincerity she heard in his voice and the words he’d written on that ridiculously feminine stationery. It was all there, her hopes and dreams, the role he wanted to play in the rest of her life. All she had to do was take a few steps away from the house that had been her haven for so long and walk into his arms.
She’d conquered her fears weeks ago, all except this one, reaching for the dream that mattered the most. Now, once more, her heart was in her throat as she stepped off the patio and onto the grass. She walked slowly until she was right in front of him, close enough to feel his heat, near enough to reach up and touch his amazing face.
“I love you,” she whispered as she placed her hands on his warm, sun-kissed shoulders. She waited for the faint flicker of fear at the risk of embracing an untested future, but all she felt was yearning and need.
And then she was in his arms…where she felt safer than she ever had in her life.