Page 85 of Montana Rain

“You okay?” Grace asked.

“Yeah.” I kept my voice light. “I just need a second.”

Stepping out onto the porch, I inhaled the crisp air. Most of the snow from the blizzard had melted, but some remained, and the chill never left the air.

Everyone had surprised us when we’d come home, everything in the cabin, my office, and my home already set to rights, as best they could. There had been some things they couldn’t save. But the relief of not having to go through it spoke volumes about this family. And it was a family.

Tears leaked out of my eyes. I didn’t know why. It was all beautiful, and it brought this out of me.

The door opened behind me, and Cole stepped out. “Hey.”

“Hey,” I whispered.

He stood behind me, pressing me into the railing. “Why are you out here, princess?”

I smiled. The nickname had grown on me so much, I almost hated when he called me anything else.

“I was just looking at everyone, and we’re all so happy. So different. It hit me in a weird way, and I didn’t want to cry in front of everyone and make them all concerned.”

Turning, I looked back through the window, where Harlan dipped Grace backward in some sort of dance he’d swept her up in before kissing her. Nothing but joy.

“And are you happy?” Cole asked.

I looked at him. The moon was already bright, painting him in pale shades on the porch. His eyes were serious—he really wanted to know.

“Yes,” I breathed the word. “I’m happier than I ever thought I would be. Could be.”

Cole reached his hand up, stroking his knuckles down my cheek. “You’re everything, Rayne. You’re my home. You weren’t the thing that changed me, but you were the cause of my change. Because I saw myself in a new light and wanted to be the man who deserved you.”

I caught his wrist. “You were always that man. It just got lost along the way.”

“Maybe.” One side of his mouth tipped up into a smile. “But I have my North Star now. I’ll never get lost again.”

Tears blurred my vision. Cole pulled me against him, brushing his lips over my forehead. “I have something I want to ask you.”

I laughed once, the sound coming through my tears. “I don’t know if I’m fit for that right now.”

“You are. Promise.”

“Okay.”

He smiled, and I felt it against my skin. “Would you say the two of us were a long time coming? It feels that way for me.”

I nodded. Once I met Cole, it was like no one else existed, even when we weren’t speaking and when I tried to push him away. Something deep inside me had kept me waiting for him.

“I’m glad you think so.”

“Why?”

Cole took one step back so he could see me. “Because to me, it doesn’t feel fast. It feels inevitable. There is no one else for me. I know it, and I think you do too.”

I was nodding at his words until I saw him move again, lowering himself down onto one knee. The gasp that came out of me was loud in the silence. “Cole?”

“People will look at the two of us and say we’re rushing. But we both know we’re not.” He pulled out a black box and opened it. “What do you say, princess? Marry me and build a whole new kind of happiness?”

Tears streamed down my face now. I couldn’t stop them. Everything clicked together like the last piece of a puzzle I’d been trying to solve for years. “Yes.” I managed to say the word. “Yes, of course.”

Cole’s smile lit up the night. He slid the ring on my finger and kissed me, bending me back over the railing. “I love you,” he said. “More than anything.”

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