He carried her over to the couch and set her down on his lap. He put the box and bag next to him, and she stared at him, saying nothing.
“I stopped and got you something,” he said.
“What?”
“Cookies,” he said, pointing at the box. “And this.” He opened up the bag and pulled out the little ring box that was in there.
He paused for a second, and realized the strangeness of the moment. Because actually... Though he would never admit it to anyone, it was something he’d thought about. When he’d been young, and he’d been in love... He’d just been waiting.
Waiting to be eighteen, waiting until he could buy Breanna a ring. He’d started to save up. Money that he got from working the ranch, because he wanted to buy her something great. He hadn’t had to save up for this, because he wasn’t a sixteen-year-old boy, he was a thirty-two-year-old man. He had his own money. But he’d still had to go talk to the girl’s father.
He thought about how he’d take her out somewhere fancy. Maybe even drive to Eugene. Have her get all dressed up. And then he’d get down on one knee. That had been the best thing he could think of then.
All he’d had to do was wait a little.
All he’d had to do was be sure she felt the same.
And it had all ended too soon.
That fantasy and this moment were not the same.
He opened up the box. “I asked your dad. He said as long as you want to do this, you have his blessing. We have his blessing. So will you? Will you marry me?”
“Oh,” she said. Her eyes filled with tears, and he instantly wondered if he had made a big mistake.
And he felt for a moment like the bottom had fallen out of his world.
“Is this not what you wanted?” he asked.
“It’s just... It’smorethan I expected.”
And that didn’t restore the ground. No, instead, it made him feel like he was falling.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry you didn’t even expect a ring from me.”
“Don’t be sorry. It’s just the whole thing has been inside out.”
“She said there are sizes? I don’t know anything about that.”
She took the ring out of the box and slid it slowly onto her finger. It seemed to fit.
“It is perfect,” she said. He could feel her retreating into herself, and he didn’t understand why. But then, he didn’t understand a whole lot of what was happening right now.
She put her hands on his face and kissed him. And this, he understood. This, between them, he understood. And he wondered if this was when he should tell her about Breanna. If he needed to have the conversation now. But it seemed wrong. And it just didn’t... It didn’t matter.
He just kissed Violet, because she wanted to kiss him. And as long as they were kissing, everything was fine. When they had their clothes off, things seemed easy. It was when they had them on that it all seemed harder.
It was when he didn’t know what to do.
And Wolf Garrett never didn’t know what to do. There were certain things he chose not to involve himself in, and he could see now that maybe he didn’t live a life of absolute certainty so much as he lived a life absent of some very specific things.
Connecting with people being the biggest one.
Hadn’t his own sister said to Violet that he was difficult that way?
That he kept things to himself.
But it didn’t matter now. She was in his arms; she was wearing his ring. She was his. It was that simple.