by Erin Wright
She nodded numbly.
“He never told them that. He only told me. If he’d told them that, then he would’ve had to admit to their faces that he’d made a mistake in his life. My parents were married for 22 years. My dad never once told my mom he was sorry, because he’d never been wrong, you see.” He gave a sarcastic twist of the lips to that idea.
“I might just have more pride than my dad, and I promise you, that’s saying somethin’. I’ve only ever said I was sorry to my brothers, and it was only after I was beaten with a belt into doing it.
“But Jennifer…I’m sorry. More sorry than I have the words for.” His cheeks flushed red, and his eyes seemed to take on a suspicious sparkle, as if they were filling with tears.
Jennifer was willing to bet her right arm that he cried even less often than he said he was sorry.
Suddenly, her gaze jerked to her office door, where people were walking past, discussing interest rates and what the bond market was going to do…He moved out of the way as she hurried to the door and shut it, leaning against it for support as she stared up at Stetson. She didn’t exactly want the entire office to hear this discussion.
And then, she waited for him to go on.
She’d told herself that he’d have to grovel before she took him back, and she’d meant it. Although finally telling her he was sorry was a real nice place to start, it didn’t excuse everything else away.
It didn’t make everything better.
“I miss my dad more every day,” he whispered, a trickle of moisture spilling out of his left eye, the light green bruises the only remnant of the fight he’d had with Wyatt. “I thought it was hard when he passed, but sometimes, ignorance is bliss. I didn’t know what I didn’t know, until he was gone. He’d tried one time to talk to me about bills and taxes and insurance, and I’d told him not to worry about it, because he wasn’t going anywhere. I wouldn’t listen to him. I don’t know if I was more terrified by him dying, or me actually being left in charge of all of that. Unfortunately, they went hand-in-hand.”
He laid the bouquet down on the guest chair opposite her desk, and used his freed hands to dash the tears away that were running down his cheeks. He stared at the door over her shoulder as he continued quietly, “It’s stupid to have put so much emotion into a damn crop. Somehow, in my mind, it became so much more than just a pile of wheat. It was actually the last of my dad, and it meant letting him go. Once it was sold, I’d have nothing left to hold onto.
“You know, other than the recliner in the family room, the Fainting Goat Chair in his office, and pretty much every tool and piece of equipment on the farm.” He rolled his eyes at himself. “Wanna know why I didn’t get a new office chair, even though that one has fallen over on me a couple of times? Because my dad used that one. Wanna know why I didn’t switch to a closer bank than Intermountain? Because Intermountain was where my dad banked. For the past year, I’ve been clinging to everything I could, not wanting to let go or admit that he was truly gone.
“Luke called me an idiot, by the way.” She jerked her head, startled by the comment. Stetson gave her a wry smile before going back to staring at the door. “He’s my best friend. We joke that we’ve been friends since we were in the womb. His mom and my mom were pregnant at the same time. Anyway,” he waved his hand, brushing that aside to the side, “Luke doesn’t pull punches. If he thinks you’re being an idiot, he’ll tell you that you’re being an idiot. It’s one of the many reasons that we’re best friends. He’s my kind of blunt.
“But he told me that I needed to pull my head out of my ass, because if my dad were here, he’d be telling me the same thing. My dad didn’t beat me with a belt after I got taller than him, but Luke said that for this, he probably would’ve at least given it his best shot. Luke is right, of course. My dad would never want me to give up the Miller Family Farm because of some sentimental attachment to wheat, for God’s sake.”
His eyes, red and swollen, dropped from the door to hers. “So, I’m here. I want you to know that I know that I screwed up. I am openly and plainly admitting that I was wrong, and I am genuinely sorry for reacting the way I did. You were just trying to help, and I treated you like shit. I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but someday, I hope you’ll see your way to giving it to me.”
“Oh Stettttsssoonnnn…” she cried, and her heart, already stomped and broken up into a million little pieces, broke completely apart. Her legs gave way and she slid down the door, collapsing into a pile on the floor where the tears just poured out of her.
How she could still be crying was beyond her. She’d never cried so much in all her life as she had in the last four days. And yet, somehow, they still came.
His arms wrapped around her and he rocked her, back and forth. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you cry,” he whispered into her hair. “Please don’t cry. I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry,” she hiccuped. He was never going to forgive her. Never. “I sent the report recommending foreclosure right before you showed up. Stetson, they’re taking your farm away.” She dissolved into a puddle of tears.
“Well, that explains that,” he said, a bit of an ironic lilt to his voice.
She pulled away from his soaked chambray shirt to stare up at him. He’d lost his ever-lovin’ mind. The stress of it all broke him.
He looked down at her with a small, self-satisfied grin. “When I handed the check over to cover my delinquent payment in full, plus fees, your boss looked like he was about to have an epileptic seizure.”
“You…hold on, what?!” she burst out. Now she was the one losing her mind, and hearing things. Things that he couldn’t possibly be saying.
“Well, after Luke gave me the kick in the ass that I needed, I didn’t just sit around all weekend, trying to find the guts to tell you I’m sorry, although I will admit that I did have to really work myself up to that. No, I also called a grain buyer buddy of mine and explained the situation. He gave me $6.45 a bushel. He said the extra twenty cents was a bonus for all of the years my father was a loyal customer. Anyway, that gave me enough to come current on the loan, with just enough leftover for the flowers.”
I am so in love with this man.
She launched herself at him, showering him with kisses and running her fingers through his hair, wanting to make sure it was real. He was real. It was all real.
“Greg kept ranting about some damn ski resort when I handed him the check,” Stetson said between kisses. “Do you know what he was talking about? I’m wondering if he’s a little screwy upstairs. I own a cattle ranch and row cropping farm. There is no ski resort on my place, or Sawyer at all. That tourist shit can’t be found until you get to Franklin, thank God. Do you think he’s lost his mind?”
“I’ll tell you all about it later, I promise,” Jennifer said, a bubble of happiness welling up inside of her, spilling out into giddy laughter. “I can’t believe you did this. Oh Stetson…”
Which was when their kissing finally became serious for the first time. She flung herself at him, wrapping her arms around him and kissing him so deeply, the world disappeared. When they finally pulled apart, she was breathless.
“What do you think of the flowers?” Stetson asked, tilting his head toward the chair. Oh. Right! Somehow, among everything else, she’d forgotten about them. Getting up off the floor, she saw Stetson following her lead as she picked up the bouquet to bury her face into the bundle of red roses offset by white Calla lilies. The scent of roses filled her nose and made her head spin.
“I even wrote the card myself,” he said proudly. She found the card, stamped with a logo from some place called Happy Petals, and read the words to herself. There were only two words on the card, but still, she didn’t understand them.
“Will you…?” was all that was written.
Will she what? Her mind stumbled over a million possible answers in about a half a second.
Suddenly, she realized the card was tied to the flowers by a brown, loosely
twisted string, and something was weighing the string down. She pulled the card to the side and saw, dangling from the string, a gold ring with a lovely, if small, diamond, sliding slowly along toward the stems of the flowers.
“Turns out, I had enough to bring my loan current, buy flowers, and buy a ring,” he said, trying to smile confidently, but she could tell his nerves were drawn taut.
Her eyes dropped back down to the ring, sliding on the string. It unleashed a cascade of conflicting thoughts that rushed through her brain so quickly, she felt dizzy.
Could I? Should I? What would I lose? What would I gain? Is he really the one?
She felt like the words were blazing on a movie screen above her head. Each question was flashing on the screen and then another piled on top, the words laying on top of each other, hard to read, hard to know what to do, and then suddenly, like a wrecking ball crashing through the side of a building, came a bold YES!, scattering the other words in its wake.
“I guessed at the size,” Stetson said, filling the silence that must’ve been killing him. She slapped him on the chest playfully.
“There for a moment, you were all romantic and stuff. Don’t you dare ruin this for me, Stetson Byron Miller,” she said, before draping her arms around his neck. The flowers knocked his cowboy hat to one side. Laughing together, their lips met.
Finally, pulling away from his lips, she tightened her arms around his neck and with her mouth close to his ear, she whispered her answer.
“Yes. But,” she pulled away, putting a finger to his lips to stop whatever he was about to say, “darlin’, you need to know – love means that you do say you’re sorry. In fact, bending and growing together, admitting faults, working to always improve…that’s love to me. If that’s not love to you, then this won’t work. I don’t need you to grovel every time you let out a fart,” he laughed uproariously at that, “but I’m not gonna put up with this half-ass shit. You did it a couple of times while I was there on the farm – came right up on the words ‘I’m sorry’ but refused to actually say them. I won’t marry someone who is gonna spend the rest of our lives trying to pretend that he’s done nothing wrong.”
He looped his hands around her lower back, snuggling her up against the juncture of his thighs, as he looked down at her with a quiet pride. “I bet Old Jennifer never would’ve dared to give Paul that lecture,” he said with a grin. “Damn, I’m proud of you, and I agree with you a hundred percent. I won’t say that I’m perfect, but…well, I should probably tell you now that Carmelita is on a warpath. She’s called me some Spanish swear words that I didn’t even know she knew. If I don’t bring you back home with me, she may not let me in the house.”
Jennifer let out a half-hysterical laugh, the kind of laugh that only happens after a period of stupidly high stress. “Are you trying to say that you only want me to marry you ‘cause otherwise, your housekeeper won’t let you back inside your own house?”
“I figure there’s other side benefits too,” he said, snuggling her tighter up against him. She felt him harden against her belly and when her eyes snapped up to his, he grinned down at her lasciviously. She shook her head in mock disapproval and he just laughed.
And then he grew serious.
“Jenn, I love you more than anything in the world. I love you more than my truck, my housekeeper, my family farm, even my pride. The only thing that’s kept me going these last few days has been knowing that if I pulled my head out of my ass and worked hard, I just might have a chance at winning you back. I’ve done a lot of really stupid things in my life, but this has taken the cake. If you’ll have me, warts and all, I promise to do all that I can to make you happy. And I promise to apologize when I’m wrong. No matter how much it sucks, it’s much worse to lose you.”
Jennifer savored another long look at this strong, warm-hearted, and loving man before turning to her desk and pressing a button.
“Susan, when Greg calls again, will you tell him I quit?”
Epilogue
Jennifer
September 2016
Sighing, she sat back down at the worn kitchen table that was covered with magazines, fabric swatches, brochures, and pictures. An only child, Jennifer’s mother seemed to have taken an almost unholy interest in the wedding plans and was driving down every weekend from Boise to “help” with the process. Six weeks into it, and Jennifer was already starting to go a little crazy.
The really good news was, Carmelita didn’t seem to mind the mess considering the reason for it. The bad news was, Stetson had become accustomed to Carmelita’s “normal” level of perfected cleanliness and the disarray had started to get to him. His barn could be a mess all day long, but the house was a whole different matter.
Truth was, this was really out-of-hand even by Jennifer’s estimation. She needed to reign in some of the chaos, but she couldn’t seem to make a decision on anything, much to her mother’s chagrin. She needed to talk to Stetson.
She braced her elbows on the table, crinkling some of the cake decorator brochures she’d picked up at the bridal show in Boise two weeks ago. She’d started off wanting to keep every scrap of paper that was ever considered, but now, she just didn’t care.
“We could catch a flight to Vegas,” Stetson said.
Jennifer flew out of her seat in surprise. She was so absorbed in all of this stuff, she hadn’t heard the back door open or close. She hadn’t heard his boots clicking against the tile, or the fridge door open and close, as was evidenced by the beer he was holding.
“Holy…” she panted. “Stetson, honey, don’t ever sneak up on me like that again. You have to actually get married before you can kill me off with a heart attack and get the insurance.”
He smiled. She loved that smile, the twinkle in his eye, and the way the left side of his mouth lifted just a little bit higher than the right. All of this magically made some of her stress disappear. She grinned up at him.
“To be fair, I, in no way, tried to sneak. I even let the screen door close on its own behind me,” he said, and cracked open the beer. “Want one? I could pour you some wine.”
“No, but thank you,” she said and pressed on. “I really need to talk to you about the wedding.”
“Babe, I already told you – it’s fall,” Stetson said, his smile wilting a bit. “That means harvest time. I know it’s hard for you to not have me involved, but when I only get one or two paychecks a year, this is do-or-die for me. I’ll help you more after I’m done and have more free time, promise.”
She just stared up at him. Logically, she knew this was his busy time and that was part of what she’d signed up for when she agreed to be the wife of a farmer. Emotionally though, she needed to be the center of his attention. Just for a few moments.
Stetson looked at her and seemed to sense her conflict. For having been raised around a bunch of men with only Carmelita as a feminine example, Stetson was amazingly considerate.
“I’m here now. Maybe we could decide on one thing together before I head for a shower and then bed? What do you think we should decide on – cake? Centerpieces?”
“The date,” she said, taking her opportunity by the horns. “I think we should move the date up. I think we should move it to October 2nd.”
“Honey,” Stetson said, sitting in the chair next to her. “I’m too busy to get married in December – what makes you think I have enough time to get married at the beginning of October? That is smack-dab in the middle of harvest. We can maybe move it to the weekend before Thanksgiving if you want it sooner, but even that’s a real stretch for me. I know you haven’t lived through a harvest before, but my days only get longer before they get shorter. You think I’m gone a lot right now – just wait until October hits. Some nights, it’s just easier to sleep in the tractor than it is to come home.”
“I just think the sooner the better,” she said, willing herself not to cry. “I think the beginning of October is the longest we should wait.”
“That just isn’t pos
sible, Jenn. We haven’t even started harvest over at Declan’s place because he’s helping Wyatt, and Declan’s place is huge. Plus, I want him to be there for my wedding – he’s my best man, after all. I know it’s tough, but that date would shut down two farms.”
She couldn’t hold it in any longer. At first, it was just a tear on her cheek but before she could even try to get a handle on her emotions, she was blubbering and sobbing. Stetson pulled her to him and stroked her hair.
He waited until she’d gotten most of the lip-sucking under control before asking, “Why is this so important?”
“The…the…the drahhh…the dress,” she finally blurted out before the sobbing took over again.
Stetson held her again until she got a better grip on her waterworks.
“The dress? I thought that was the one thing that was decided.”
She wiped the tears away with the back of her sleeve.
“It is. It’s here already.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“It won’t fit,” she said, and then stopped. She wasn’t really sure what to say.
“Ah, damn,” Stetson said, the relief at finding a simple solution registering on his face and in his voice. “Can you send it back? Or hell, just buy a new one.”
“I don’t know what size I’ll be by then,” she said miserably. She had no idea how blunt she was going to have to be, and even more worrisome, she had no idea what his reaction was going to be.
“Why not?” he asked. He obviously hadn’t connected the dots.
She couldn’t find the right way to say it. She was pretty sure he would be happy, but there was a real chance that all of this was happening way too fast for him, and was happening at the time of year where all he did was concentrate on bringing the harvest in.
She knew that was part of the problem, too. If she had to say it outright, she wanted the announcement to be perfect. She wanted this to be one of those moments that was just right. She just couldn’t find that perfect phrasing in her head.