by M. Mabie
I had firsthand knowledge of what that ladder was like, and I jumped out of my truck as it sat running.
“What the hell are you doing?” I hollered as I ran the hundred or so yards to her. My legs burned from sheer exhaustion followed by sitting in my truck for hours. So I wasn’t fast by any means.
She climbed as I ran and when I saw what she’d done, I froze.
Sunny loves Rhett was written in yellow.
She leaned over the edge of the small town’s tower.
I looked up at her, and the rain pelted my face. “Sunny, please come down. You’re going to get hit by lightning.”
“Can you see it?” she shouted. The fabric of her dress flapped as the breeze picked up. “I did it for you, Rhett. Do you remember?”
How could I forget? Nobody in a thirty-mile radius would let me. Mine had read somewhat different from hers, but it was no less life-changing. Still, it was raining like hell and all I wanted was her feet on the ground.
“I see it. I love it. Please, come down.”
“Okay. Okay,” she said and started to descend. I neared the ladder and watched her from below as rung by rung she made her way to the sweet, wet earth.
When she was at a safe height—and I could breathe again—I allowed myself a good long look up her shirt. I was just a man, after all.
She hopped to the ground when the ladder stopped and spun into my arms.
“I think I need to build you a tree house at the new place. Not afraid of heights, huh?”
I felt her chuckle against me, her arms around my neck.
“Nope,” she said, smiling.
“Good, then you can help.” Her blue eyes blinked away the rain as it dripped down her face. She was stunning, even sopping wet. “Listen, I need to tell you something and I should have said it before.”
“Me first. Rhett, I love you.” She leaned up and kissed my lips. “I love you.”
Just like that, my life went from good to great.
“I love you, Sunshine. I’ve loved you for as long as I can—”
“Excuse me?” Three swift pats struck my back. “Which one of you wants to tell me what’s going on up here?”
Officer Long.
My hold on Sunny weakened, and she slid down my body, as I pivoted to face the cop who’d busted me in the same park all those years ago.
“Hey, Marv. I did it,” Sunny confessed.
“You know that’s vandalism on government property, Sunny? You’re gonna have to come with me,” he said.
By that time, a crowd had formed under the awning at Sally’s across the street, everyone watching while the red and blue lights flashed. Additionally, all of her classmates at the party were now looking out of the open door of the banquet hall, too.
“Are you serious? Marv—” she exclaimed. “I’ll paint over it.”
That’s what I’d had to do. Of course, I also got grounded for the rest of the summer.
Before I knew it, Marv Long had ahold of one of Sunny’s wrists, putting her in handcuffs. While she studied the new bracelets connecting her hands, Marv winked at me.
“You can’t be serious,” she argued, still laughing and hardly believing she was going to jail. “Rhett,” she said, waiting for me to come to her defense, but I didn’t have a chance to answer as Marv gave her a slight nudge in the direction of his flashing squad car.
“Come on,” he said.
She stomped off with him, barefoot through the grass.
“Rhett, come and get me.”
I was going to do just that.
After we were in the car and out of the rain, I listened to my Miranda Rights for the first time in my life—totally shocked that I was actually in trouble.
“I cannot believe you’re arresting me,” I droned from the back of Marvin Long’s cop car.
“Oh, Sunny, calm down,” he scolded, but his shoulders shook like he was laughing as he sat in front of me. “Now, how could I not arrest you? I arrested him for doing the same daggone thing. Fair is fair.”
He had a point, but I wasn’t a criminal. We both knew it. I grumbled and nearly fell over as the car went over the curb when he pulled into the new Wynne Police and Fire Station building only two blocks from the damn water tower.
He flashed the lights and turned on the siren before he put the car in park. Five or six heads peeked out the window of the great big garage door.
How embarrassing.
Marv stepped out and opened my door, and then we walked inside the building. My cousin Aaron met us in the shared corridor and asked, “What the hell did you do?”
“Sunny can’t talk right now. She’ll get a call in a while.” Marv held his hand up to Aaron.
Maybe I was in trouble. Times had changed, and I wasn’t a kid like Rhett had been.
Shit. The panther made me do it!
He led me through an area that looked like a waiting room at a doctor’s office then through another door. “You can sit right there,” he said and pointed to a bench opposite a desk. The stocky older man took a seat behind it and pulled out a pad from one of the drawers. “I’m writing you a warning for vandalism.”
A warning? That was good news.
I leaned forward and my dress squished water onto the floor. “Thank you. And I’ll clean up the paint.”
He walked to a cabinet, unlocked it, and pulled out something orange. Then came over to me, his keys still in his hand. As he unlocked my handcuffs he said, “Oh, I know you’ll clean it up. It actually works out perfect, because the tower hasn’t been painted for over ten years. The town board was just talking about you two. Funny enough, they hoped one of you would do something like this.” He chuckled. “It took you long enough. Maybe your boyfriend will help ya. He does have experience.”
I smiled from the mention of Rhett and the relief that I wasn’t going up the river. “I guess he does.”
“You can use that bathroom over there. Change into these so you don’t have to sit there and get soggy.” He put the orange thing in my hands and pointed to the door on the other side of the big office.
I changed into the hideous, yet oddly comfortable, prisoner get-up. It was a little big, but it was nice and dry.
When I came back out, Marv was hanging up the phone. “We could make a lot of money arresting you every now and then. I’ve had three calls from people trying to bail you out,” he teased.
I took a seat on the bench and placed the wad of wet dress at my feet. “When can I go?”
“Well, I’m holding you for a little while. I can’t just let you paint the water tower and then off the hook too easy. Makes me look bad. I’ll let you go in an hour or so.”
My phone, along with my purse and my keys, were all still uptown in my car.
Both of his phones rang non-stop, and each time he answered them the same way. “She’s still filling out paperwork.” Which wasn’t true, but I didn’t say anything and I never asked who it was. I could only imagine because he never let on.
“Sunny, I’m gonna have to put you in a holding room for a few minutes,” he said and shuffled around a few papers on his desk.
“Uh, okay.” I’d never been in jail, so I wasn’t sure what a holding room meant, but I knew it probably wasn’t as cushy as the office.
And, I was right.
It was pretty much a tiny room divided into two sections by a half wall. One side had a bed and a small desk thing and the other section, the side behind the wall, had a toilet and a tiny sink. The holding room was a jail cell.
“You won’t be in here long,” he said at the doorway behind me. “Just relax and I’ll be right back.”
I was officially scared straight. Even though the room was clean and not all that frightening or anything, I wouldn’t be back. My career as a lawbreaker was decidedly short-lived as I sat on the thin mattress against the tan cinderblock wall.
Nevertheless, even being in jail couldn’t get me too down. Rhett had said he loved me, too. So, since I had nothing but my mind to
occupy me, I thought of our future and all the things to come.
It felt like a long time, but it was probably only twenty minutes or so before I saw Marv’s head through the small glass window on the door.
“Someone’s here for you. You ready?”
I was ready as hell to get out of there, but mostly I was ready to start my life for what felt like the first time.
Marv stepped back and I saw Rhett down on one knee a few feet behind him.
“I’ll give you guys a few minutes,” the old police officer said and left us alone.
I was smiling so wide that my cheeks ached. My heart pounded like the bass line of a fast song, and my blood tingled like there were tiny champagne bubbles fizzing through my veins.
“You look funny,” Rhett said and chuckled, which was one of the best sounds I’d ever heard. Then he nodded for me to come closer and held out his hand. I took a few steps and laced my fingers with his.
“A long time ago I told a girl I loved her, and she told me she knew, but couldn’t love me back.” When he paused, he grinned and cleared his throat. “She gave me some advice that night in this very jail. Well, not this one—the old one—but you know what I mean. Things have changed a little.” He winked and my breath caught in my chest remembering what I’d told him all that time ago.
“I followed that advice, Sunshine. She’s written me a lot of notes. Some of them were pretty dirty, actually. She’s given me some of the best gifts. Many of them priceless, but the biggest one was her heart. She calls me and spends time with me and makes me smile and laugh. She’s heard songs that made her think of me and played them for all to hear.”
Warm tears fell from my eyes as he kissed my hand, then he reached into his pocket.
“I’ll be damned, if she didn’t even paint the water tower for me. And you want to know what? I’m dying to marry her. I need her to be my wife so I can spend a lifetime showing her how she’s always been the one for me.”
I bent and kissed him, my free hand cupping his cheek. “I love you,” I whispered against his lips. “Thanks for waiting on me.”
“Marry me, Sunshine. That’s all the thanks I need.”
He let my hand go to open the box, and immediately I recognized the ring.
“Where did you get that?” I asked in awe.
“Well, I asked your dad a long time ago if I could marry you, but I went back again tonight to see what your parents thought. I told them I couldn’t wait anymore. I only want you—now and forever. They gave me this ring.”
I stared at my grandmother’s engagement ring. The one Grandpa Sonny had given her. She hadn’t worn it since he passed, saying her wedding band was more important. Rhett slipped the precious jewelry onto my left hand.
“Will you finally put me out of my misery and marry me, please? Sit in the middle of my truck seat, drink all of my beer, pick out my countertops, and make me happy?”
How could a girl say no to that?
“Yes, but…” I paused and leaned in to kiss him again, and he pulled away.
“No. No buts.”
“I was going to say: Yes, but only if you help me paint the water tower.”
He stood laughing and wrapped his arms around my waist. “Okay, that’s a deal.”
Then his mouth claimed mine, really claimed mine. No holding back. No apologies. Rhett kissed me with authority and purpose.
All I could do was just hold on.
We were going to have our rough spots, just like every other couple in history, but I believed those times would only make the good times better. Like that perfect summer of Sunshine and rain.
We’d take the good with the less good—because, let’s face it, it wouldn’t ever really be that bad.
I moved into her place not long after her arrest, which worked out great for my parents because they were then able to lease out the cabin to hunters.
That next spring, after all of the countertops and paint colors were chosen, Sunny, Andy, and I moved into the new farmhouse. Our house.
While I’d helped my contractor where I could, I knew it would go faster with a professional, and the construction quality was much better than what I was capable of. We even built a handful of extra rooms in the basement of our huge garage where Sunny moved WDKR and finished work on her studio. As it turned out, the signal was even stronger at our new home on the hill, and she had lots of extra space for musicians to come and record—something they’d normally have to drive hundreds of miles away to do.
Watertower Records already had two bands planned for summer sessions. I was so proud of her.
I ran two marathons that spring and had another planned for the fall, in which Sunny was actually running half. She’d started training with me every morning after Nashville. She sprayed herself down with a lethal dose of bug spray and swore at me the whole time, but she did it until it got easier.
Those were the things that rushed through my mind as she came out of our bathroom wearing a white lacy dress, very similar to the one she wore on our first date, only longer and fancier. She looked gorgeous, and I felt underdressed in my trousers, even with the button up shirt and tie.
“Are you sure this is okay?” I asked, looking down at myself. She stepped up to me and ran her hand over my stomach.
“We’re getting married under a tree house. You don’t need a tuxedo to stand in a field, Rhett.”
She was right. After all, she usually was.
“You just look so damn good, Sunshine,” I said against her lips as my eyes darted to the clock on the nightstand checking the time. Then, I closed my eyes and took in the moment.
She was the first to pull back. “If you keep kissing me like that we’re going to be late for our own wedding. The whole town of Wynne is waiting for us.” Her words said one thing, but her mouth was proving them wrong as she then kissed me back in earnest.
“To hell with it. They’ve waited this long, what’s a few more minutes…”
She smiled against my lips.
“Come on,” she coaxed. “It’s about damn time we go become Rhett and Sunny Wilbanks.”
As always and above all else, thank you to every beautiful reader!
Beyond that, it feels like these acknowledgements are becoming a little repetitive. My teams, my support system, doesn’t change much—which is something I take pride in. Maybe we’re on to something?
To the beta readers, launch team members, my editor, cover designer, formatter, proofreaders, and all of the bloggers who support me and this community—thank you.
To the writer’s groups who act as sounding boards and provide me with so much entertainment, friendship, and resources—thank you.
To my Take the Bait honeybees—thank you will never be enough.
To my family, friends and my husband, I love you.
For more on M. Mabie, please visit mmabie.com