Page 50 of A Christmas Baby for the Cowboy
He wanted to pull her into his arms, but he hadn’t earned it. And he might not earn it tonight. Still, he was going to say what should have been said a long time ago.
“You taught me how to feel, and I pretended I couldn’t. You showed me how to fall head over heels in love, and I pretended it was just physical. And for reasons that I will never understand, you kept forgiving me. You kept coming back. You kept letting me do it over and over again.”
She looked as if she was about to speak then, but he shook his head. “I’m sure you want to say something self-deprecating, but Ramona, every time you came back, you showed me exactly what vulnerability looks like when it’s actually strength. You showed me that there was no shame in leading with your feelings. Hell, your apartment is decorated like a feeling and it’s the most comfortable place I’ve ever been in my life.”
He leaned a little closer and when he couldn’t hold back anymore, he put his free hand on one of her knees.
And his heart kicked into double time when she put her own hands on top of it, and held it there.
Knox kept going. “I didn’t realize it soon enough, but I realize now. This whole time you’ve been giving me a crash course in what actual strength looks like. Not being foolishly stubborn for no good reason, letting yourself feel and hope even when that hope is dashed, and finding a way to stand up again. I’ve never seen anything like it. And I would have told you that I’m the kind of man who would never believe in miracles, but I do.”
He moved his hand from beneath hers so he could pick up the one on top, her left. “You are the greatest miracle that has ever happened in my life,” he told her, his voice raw. “There’s no possible way that I would ever have let myself love that baby the way I think we both know I do, and did from first sight, if you hadn’t shown me how it was done.”
Her eyes were filled with emotion again, and Knox wouldn’t have been surprised if his were too.
“I love you,” he said again. “And I don’t intend to make you doubt that another moment for as long as we live. There is not one thing in my life that isn’t better with you next to me, Ramona, and whether we travel to every single nook and cranny in this world as a family or we stay right here in Cowboy Point and grow roots together, it doesn’t matter to me. The only thing that does is you.”
But he didn’t want her to think he didn’t understand that she had every reason to tell him she was done, despite all the things he was saying. He kind of assumed she might.
He said them anyway. “I don’t deserve another chance from you. I don’t deserve for you to even listen to me say these things. But if you give me one last chance, I swear on my life and on the life I want to show Hailey, and hopefully her mother, too, that I will never not choose you again.”
She pulled in a ragged breath, and he slid that ring on her finger. It fit her like it was made for her. It gleamed. It was unique and strange and it suited her perfectly.
“I want to see you every day for the rest of our lives,” he told her. “I want my mausoleum of a house to be our house, and I want you to teach me how to make it bright with all of these feelings. I want you to feel claimed by me, needed by me, worshiped by me, every hour of every day you draw breath.”
It was almost like he couldn’t tell where she began and he ended. That was how intense this was. That was how real this was. He kept going. “You are the love of my life, and I cannot believe it took me so long to accept the truth that I’m pretty sure hit me like a sledgehammer that very first night.”
“Well,” she said after a minute, and her smile was a little damp but it was the brightest one he’d ever seen, “I think that I’ll forgive you.”
“Will you?” he asked.
He felt like he was caught in a held breath.
Everything depended on what she did next.
Ramona’s gaze was brilliant now. She looked down at the ring on her finger, then she lifted that same hand and slid it to hold the side of his face.
“I’m pretty sure I will,” she told him, though her eyes were gleaming. “There’s just one catch.”
“Anything,” Knox told her, and it was a hoarse, heartfelt vow.
“It’s going to take a long time,” she told him solemnly. “There might have to be legal ramifications. In the form of binding ceremonies, if you know what I mean. A long, long time, Knox. I’m thinking… forever, if that works for you?”
And he knew that later, he would think back and understand that this was the day that he’d become the man he’d always wanted to be. The man he always should have been.
All because she trusted him one more time.
“Forever sounds like a perfect amount of time for me to try to make it up to you,” he told her, and he dared to smile. “Let’s start right now.”
Down below, the community of Cowboy Point started counting down to the new year in the half-finished Lodge, but up in this little nook with the lights of their little valley gleaming in on them from afar, Knox and Ramona made a promise.
One that they would spend the rest of their lives living up to, with every scrap of joy that they could find.
But first, as the clock struck midnight, they sealed it with a kiss.
Chapter Twelve
It was almost Valentine’s Day before Belinda got to throw the Christmas dinner she wanted.
