by Maisey Yates
“You keep saying that. Hell, even I say that. But, honey, you held me in your arms right back. But you got me through, too.”
“We can do anything, as long as we’re together.”
She felt like something was expanding inside her, big and bright and true. Something that would change everything.
In the very best way.
“I was out here for a reason,” he said, his voice rough. “Putting up these lights because I wanted... I wanted to go find you today. I wanted to show you that I still love you. No matter what. And I wanted to bring you out here and tell you...tell you I’d wait. Because this isn’t the kind of love that passes, El. This is forever. If it would pass from me it would have done it a long time ago. I’m in. For the rest of my life, and I always knew it on some level. My whole body took a vow the moment I saw you.”
“Oh, Caleb...” His name was a sob.
She loved him so much. It hurt to love this much.
But he was right. It was like seeing in color for the very first time.
Bright. Brilliant. A little too much.
But you could never go back. You never could.
He took her hand, and he led her down one of the rows of trees, until the pines enveloped them, the lights overhead shining down on them.
“I wanted to tell you I’d wait. And I wanted to tell you...it does matter if you love me. I don’t want a piece of you,” he said. “I want all of you. I don’t want to have a small wedding. I want to see you walk toward me in a white dress.”
She put her hand over her mouth, her heart fluttering. And she could picture it. Could picture herself with him in a suit. A wedding. A real wedding.
“I don’t want a small marriage,” he continued. “To be someone standing there just taking care of you in the place of another man. I love you. Wildly. Deeply. More than I’ve ever loved anything in my entire life. Ellie Bell, you are my heart. I want you to be my wife. Be my wife because I love you, and because you love me. Not for Amelia, but for us. Because you don’t want to live without me, because I damn sure don’t want to live without you.”
Ellie thought her heart would burst, and she wanted to speak, but she didn’t want him to ever quit talking. This was it. These were the words. This was the deep love, the one she’d craved all her life. The one she’d been so sure couldn’t exist, not for her.
“Be my wife,” he said, “for no other reason than that this is love, and it’s real. That we light up the night in bed because there’s never been another love like this. I’m selfish. Ellie, I want it all. I want your heart, your whole heart. And I don’t mean... I’ll always love Clint. Whether he’s here or not. I’ll respect until my dying day that you loved him. That he’s Amelia’s father. But I want to be your husband. Me, and only me. I want to be the man who holds you at night from now to the end of our days.”
He reached out and put his hand on her cheek, stroking her gently. “Be mine because you want me. Not because you’re lonely. Be mine because you love me. And love me because... Love me because you can’t help yourself. Even knowing how cruel the world can be. Because I love you. And I may never be able to read without stumbling over my words. I may never be the gentlest, most caring man around, but I love you with all that I am. Always have, always will.”
Oh, this proposal... This was so different from the one behind the truck. Because she was still closed then. Trying to have what she wanted without letting herself be open. Without letting herself feel.
But she couldn’t. Not halfway. Not with him.
It would never be fine.
It would be all, and it would be big. And you couldn’t hold all with folded arms and a closed heart.
“I was afraid that loving like this, loving with all of me, would always mean wanting. Because growing up, it was. I told you about my mother and the Christmas tree. I told you she said...she said I wasn’t enough. That I was needy and I just never wanted to be that again. I wanted safe and contained. I wanted secure, and I found it.” She breathed in deep. “But I was still guarded. I was still protecting the deepest part of myself, and, Caleb, you get right down to it. It terrified me. You stripped me bare in every way and I didn’t know if I could... I didn’t know if I could stand it.”
“Sweetheart, why? Why did I scare you so much?”
“I could never do easy with you, Caleb. And I think something in me always knew it. I had to be willing to give you me, all of me. And that scared me, too. I grew up not having my mother’s love, not really. And I hoped and I wished I could. I tried to make myself someone she could be proud of until the day she told me I’d never be enough. That’s when I realized I had to be enough for myself. So I stuck to that. All those years. I knew, on some level, that if I let myself want you... Caleb, I was so afraid of wanting and not having again. It hurts too much...”
“You have all of me,” he said. “Every last piece.”
“I love you,” she whispered through her tears.
“I love you, too, Ellie. I always have.”
“Caleb, I’ve always loved you, too. My heart changed forever when I went through what I did. And that love that I held for you shifted shape right along with it. But it was always there. I have loved you with an everlasting love. My friend, my lover. My safety. My help, my hope. I have loved you as everything. I loved you with a shattered heart, and you’ve healed it, and you... You fill in all those cracks. Everything that I am. Everything that I ever will be.”
“Ellie,” he said, her name broken on his lips.
And then he did something totally unexpected.
He got down on one knee in the snow in front of her and pulled a box out of his pocket.
“You gave me a ring,” she said.
“I want you to keep it,” he said. “Because it’s a special ring. And it represents some things about us that mean the world to me. But I want you to have this, too.” He opened the box and produced the most exquisitely beautiful diamond ring she had ever seen.
“Where did you get this?”
“Honestly? Thank God for big-box stores that expect men to be way behind on Christmas shopping. And thank God for their jewelry counters.”
“It’s beautiful,” she said.
“I wanted you to have a diamond ring. I was... I was so focused on not forcing you to see this as the same kind of marriage you had. On not competing. But this isn’t about competing. But it is about deserving everything. And you and I deserve everything.”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes. I’ll marry you. I’ll wear your ring. Both your rings. Any ring you want to give me.”
“There is one more person that I probably need to ask.”
“Who?”
“We need to go to my parents’ house. We need to talk to Amelia.”
* * *
CALEB HAD BEEN nervous to confess his love for Ellie. After all, there had been a big risk involved in that.
But he wasn’t really less nervous to talk to the little girl who had stolen his heart from the moment she had taken her first breath.
Thankfully, he was armed with a puppy.
It was still early, the sky just now getting rosy and casting the snow in a pink glow.
He and Ellie walked hand in hand to the front door of his parents’ house, the puppy—who was still nameless—dangling from his arms.
He knocked, and it took a few moments for the door to open. And there was his mother, all done up already, wearing her traditional Christmas morning red.
She looked at him, looked at Ellie, and at the ring on Ellie’s left hand.
“So it all worked out,” she said softly.
“I think so,” Caleb said.
“We need to talk to Amelia.”
“She’s up and ready.”
They walked into the living room and Amelia was sitting in front of the Christmas tree, a big red bow in her pale blond hai
r, red plaid jammies still on her little body.
“Merry Christmas, princess,” Caleb said.
She turned around and her green eyes went wide as saucers.
“A puppy?”
“Yeah,” he said. “A puppy.”
“Who’s it for?” she asked, wary hope in her eyes.
“It’s for you,” he said.
The squeal of delight that exited Amelia’s mouth was nearly shrill enough that only the dog would’ve been able to hear it. And oddly, the dog didn’t seem off-put. He wiggled in Caleb’s arms, and Caleb set him down on the ground. He immediately went to Amelia as if he knew, for sure and certain, that that was his person.
She giggled, the puppy licking her all over.
Caleb crouched down beside them. “I want to ask you something.”
“What?” she asked, not even looking up from the puppy.
Damn. This was just as tough as a marriage proposal.
“Do you still want me to be your dad?”
She looked up at him, hope shining in her green eyes that was so pure and radiant and made his chest hurt.
“Because I’d like to be your dad, Amelia. I want to marry your mom. And I want to live with you both. Because I love you. Both of you. And I want to be your family.”
Her little face crumpled, and she didn’t speak. Instead, she just wrapped her arms around Caleb’s neck and cried. And only just barely, through her broken sobs, did he hear her whisper. “I love you, Daddy.”
And Caleb would be damned if he didn’t cry a little bit, too, because a man would have to be made of rock not to. And he didn’t want to protect himself from this. He wanted to feel it. Every bit, all the way down.
Because it was a gift.
The best gift he could’ve ever asked for in all his life.
Caleb Dalton hadn’t made a Christmas list, but he’d gotten everything he wanted all the same.
EPILOGUE
ELLIE BELL COULD sometimes imagine she lived an entirely different life. In fact, for a time she’d thought about that quite a lot. But not for a long while. And certainly not today. Her wedding day. When she was getting ready to walk down the aisle toward the man of her dreams. The man she loved more than anyone or anything on earth.
Her wedding dress was simple but beautiful, long-sleeved, perfect for the winter wonderland they had set up for the big day.
When your fiancé owned a Christmas tree farm, and when you had gotten engaged officially on Christmas Day the previous year... Well, there was no choice but to have the most Christmassy wedding imaginable. At least, that was how they had both seen it. Well, it was how she had seen it. Caleb had been a little bit put out to have to wait nearly a year to marry her. And she kind of liked that. That he was impatient.
But she had wanted a wedding. A big wedding, not just a rushed one. One for all their family and friends. One to show the whole world what they were doing. One to make the most real and certain declaration possible.
Because this wasn’t second-best. Or even a second chance.
It was their chance.
Amelia was the flower girl, eagerly spreading berries and pine boughs down on the ground, preparing a blanket for Ellie to walk over when the time came.
And the dog—who had been named Christmas, of course—was dutifully performing the part of ring bearer for the ceremony.
Ellie took a breath and picked up her bouquet. And took her position around the corner from the aisle, out of sight of the guests and of her groom.
And suddenly, on that pale winter day, the clouds parted and the shaft of light shone down from the sky. A little brightness. A little lightness.
She smiled and looked up.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
And then she gathered up the front of her dress and stepped around the corner.
And she saw him there. Dressed in a suit, wearing a black cowboy hat, his blue eyes shining with that beautiful brand of intensity that she had come to know as love.
She took a step toward her new life. A step toward becoming Ellie Dalton.
And when she got there, when they joined hands together, she didn’t wait for the minister to tell her to kiss him. She did it right away. Because she had waited a long time to kiss him, and she wasn’t waiting anymore.
“I love you,” she whispered.
“I love you, too,” he said back. “Always.”
“Always,” she whispered.
And as she spoke her vows, she meant them, with every word, every bit of conviction inside her.
And she gave thanks, for the Christmas miracle she was witnessing now, and the Christmas miracle she had been a part of a year ago.
One that had all started with a simple list.
And ended with forever.
* * *
ISBN-13: 9781488052330
Cowboy Christmas Redemption
Copyright © 2019 by Maisey Yates
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