Page 51 of How to Say I Do
I knew we’d arrived when the chatter from the front seats changed. Tyler’s voice dropped in a murmur of surprise, and Tessa gasped as she reached into the backseat and swatted my knee. “Noël! It’s absolutelyamazing!”
We turned off a loping two-lane country highway and onto a private drive lined with colossal oak trees that looked like they’d been transplanted out of some rich fantasy film. Thick branches draped in weeping Spanish moss crisscrossed above us, and the sunlight that wiggled through the canopy left lace-edged shadows playing on the gravel. The world behind us dissolved. We emerged onto what looked like an Oscar-winning movie set or something animated out of Disney, so enchanting and picturesque that it didn’t seem real.
My wake-up-crying-into-my-pillow dreams of Wyatt’s ranch had never come close.
Wyatt’s home—a farmhouse, two stories, and painted the palest of yellows with a crisp, cotton-white trim, with dormer windows, and curtains that ruffled through open sashes—gleamed beneath the sun. The wraparound porch dropped snapshots into my mind’s eye: summer nights and fireflies and rocking chairs, ice-cold lemonade, and American flags snapping in the breeze. Big, bold Texas roses lined the front of the house like tiny golden suns, surrounded by brilliant beds of poppies, daisies, and tulips. A lawn circled the house and grew all the way to a far-off line of split rail fences, dividing yard from pasture and field. Nearby was a weather-worn barn, one side open to a wide paddock where a cluster of horses grazed. Beyond all of that, the upward slope of a gentle hillside boasted rows and rows of perfectly-aligned grape trellises running toward the horizon.
Wyatt had significantly undersold his ranch.
A butterfly danced across the windshield before fluttering over to a daisy. Tessa was nearly incoherent, and Tyler was at a loss for words.
A man strode down the porch steps, caught in shadow and sun fall, one arm raised in a Texas hello. He wore tight jeans, a plaid shirt buttoned over a white tee with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and a dove-gray cowboy hat.
Tyler and Tessa scrambled out of the Navigator. Roses and rich earth swarmed my senses through the open doors.
I was paralyzed. I’d had too many vodkas on the plane— No, I hadn’t had enough. I wasn’t ready. I couldn’t do this. I held my breath like I was underwater and I could stay, just stay, in the depths where I didn’t have to move.
“Howdy, ma’am. Sir.” Wyatt held out his hand to Tessa, then to Tyler. “Y’all manage to find the place all right?” Tessa and Tyler spoke over each other, far too exuberant to be cool celebrities.
There he was, feet away. The last time I saw Wyatt was from the doorway of his hotel room. I’d hesitated, turning back, looking at his face buried half in the pillow and I’d thought,What if—
But then I’d shut that door, and I’d climbed into the taxi that took me to the airport, and I’d bought that ticket to New York. I’d left, and I’d thought, at the time, that I would be strong enough to survive.
Wyatt smiled at Tessa. My heart turned to dust.
I kissed you. I climbed your body and I tore off your clothes and we made love for days. I kissed you, and I sleep with the fading scent of you as my pillow and I think about you every moment, even when I’m desperate not to. Andnow? I don’t know how to face you.
Wyatt didn’t look at me when I joined Tessa and Tyler. He kept his eyes on the two of them, nodding politely as they gushed about his ranch at full speed.
“Mr. McKinley,” I said, after Tessa called Wyatt’s home “beautiful” for the third time. “Thank you for inviting us.”
His eyes slowly slid to mine. I held my breath—
Wyatt raised his fingers to the brim of his hat. “Howdy.”
We followed Wyatt to his backyard, where he had spread out a red gingham—part of me smiled, part of me wailed—tablecloth on top of a picnic table and set out three bottles of wine.
The view was soul-shattering. Life-defining. Endless trellises of grapevines, cattle dotted in far-flung fields. I searched for the longhorns, but couldn’t spot them. Butterflies wandered. Bees hummed. Sunflowers and buttercups and daffodils waved on a breeze. I’d dreamed of this place so intensely and for so long that being here now seemed surreal.
I was already envisioning a dozen more picnic tables scattered between the house and the barn, and was mentally laying the framework for Tessa’s wedding: shade sails and silk bunting and lighting the space with thousands of string lights.
Tess and Tyler sat at the picnic table. I hung back, watching while Wyatt handed a bottle of wine to them and explained what was inside, pointing to exactly which hillside and which vines had gone into each varietal.
I was still tipsy from the vodka on the jet, and between the alcohol and the sunshine and Wyatt not four feet from me, my hold on the moment was fingertip-strong at best. Still, I was with it enough to read the labels on the wine bottles he’d set out. Baby Boy, Saddle Song, Yellow Rose… I frowned. “Where’s the petite sirah?”
Wyatt poured Tyler a glass of Baby Boy. There was a pause, a silence that left a bruise, lingering after his pour. “I’m sorry,” Wyatt said. “The petite sirah is not available today.”
Tyler asked something, but I didn’t catch it. Sounds and colors were starting to slowly whirlpool down some invisible drain.
“Noël?” I thought Wyatt was talking to me—
Wyatt shook his head as he answered Tyler. “No, Noël and I don’t know each other at all.”
No, not at all… Except for the way you made love to me, Wyatt.
It felt like I’d pulled a plug somewhere. My memories drowned me. All my fantasies collapsed, shattering against a rocky shore. Upheaval swept me out to sea. I’d been the center of Wyatt’s world last month, and he’d built his days and nights around making me smile, but all of that was gone.
Too much, too fast. Too many memories, too much vodka on the plane, again. Jesus, I had a theme, didn’t I? I lurched for the back porch. “The restroom?”
