Page 25 of Run to Me
The world pauses, freezes, and then slams back into motion with the force of his words. “What happened?”
“Fell off the horse, out by the corral,” he says, wiping sweat from his brow. “Doc’s with him now.”
I see their concerned looks, feel their whispers more than I hear them, but nothing registers except the direction he points and the thunder of my pulse. My feet fly, my thoughts a jumbled mess of panic and want and love. I push past the crew, past the calm they expect me to hold, out to where this is no longer just a test of my resolve but a test of my heart.
I step inside and stop. Breath suspended. He’s here. Bruised, silent, and so terribly still. The sight of him is a hard punch to the gut. “Ace.” Bandages trail up his arm. He’s always been the picture of strength, sculpted muscles, hard hands—untouchable. Now, he looks breakable, a porcelain version of the Cowboy I’ve been chasing.
“You’re a damn fool, Ace Montgomery.” His eyes flutter open. My heart collapses, falters, then finds a rhythm in the faint upturn of his lips. It is a small and delicate smile, and it breaks me.
His hand brushes my hair, shaky but trying to be strong. I sit up, wipe my eyes, force myself to be steady. “I can’t lose you.”
He squeezes my fingers. “I’m right here.”
“I was this close to signing. The investor.” He knows what it means. Knows how hard I’ve fought to build something on my own.
“You gonna do it?”
I lean in close, close enough to see the hurt that swims beneath his words. “I turned him down.” His eyebrows raise in surprise, almost enough to make me laugh. Almost. “None of it means anything. Not if I lose you.”
He blinks, swallows, and his body shifts beneath the sheets. “Olivia, I—” He stops, hesitates, like the truth is a word he can’t quite pronounce. “It scares me. Jumping into this with you, but I don’t want to lose you. I spent too many years fighting what my heart was trying to tell me. I’m done being like my father.”
I sit beside him, afraid to touch, afraid not to. My heart does a strange and clumsy dance in my chest, trying to keep up with the hope I have kept hidden for so long. Ace watches me, sees right through me, sees the old fears wrapped up in new dreams. The Cowboy is fragile. He is breakable, and I have never seen him stronger.
“We can build something real. You and me and the life we have always wanted,” he says it with the confidence of someone who has known the hardest truths, who has looked fear in the eyes and walked away unscathed.
He has been waiting a long time to say those words. I have been waiting a long time to hear them. He squeezes my fingers,tender and deliberate and right. I don’t let go. I hold on, even when it hurts.
“I’m all in, Ace.”
OLIVIA
Three months later…
Guests float beneath a wash of twinkling lights. My designer boots click against the old wood. The open house for the barn venue has been a major success. More people showed up than we planned.
“Looks like a success already,” Serena beams, her arms full of freshly cut flowers.
“I hear you’re the one to thank for all this,” one of the women says, gesturing at the space around us.
“It’s a team effort, but I’m proud of what we’ve done.” My gaze drifts across the room, to where Ace stands.
I see my dreams taking shape in the nods of the visitors, each handshake a promise, each interested glance another step toward securing the venue’s reputation.
“You two have really outdone yourselves,” one man says, clapping Ace on the back as I walk up.
“All credit to Olivia. I’m just the extra pair of hands. Never doubted she could do it.”
I take his hand and take him somewhere quieter, wanting just a moment alone with him. He reaches into his jacket,withdrawing a small, velvet-lined box. He opens it, revealing a ring.
“I can’t wait any longer. You have completely disrupted my life. Showed me that I deserve everything I want. And that’s you. Our future. Olivia, will you marry me?”
Ace’s eyes are as steady as his voice when he steps closer. “Been waiting a long time for this.”
I don’t move. He is the whole world. I take his hand: the way his hands still bear the calluses of hard work despite the expensive cut of his jacket This is Ace, solid and complex, and this is our moment, stripped of pretense.
When he opens the box, the ring gleams. It’s exquisite, the design echoing both a cherished family heirloom and something sleekly modern, the perfect union of past and present.
“Olivia,” he says again, and there is a rawness to his voice, as if each word risks shattering the careful composure he wears like a shield. “Will you marry me?”
