“Mr. Holt, there’s something I’d like to talk to you about.”

His pause is a long one. “What’s that?”

He turns and leans back against the fence, crossing his arms over his chest and narrowing his eyes on me. Anxiously, I chew the cinnamon toothpick between my teeth. Then, thinking he might see it as a sign of weakness—my nervousness—I take it out and throw it into the orchard.

“Look,” I say, running my fingers through my hair. “We both know I’ve never had the best of reputations in this town. And, in all fairness, I’ve earned most of what I’ve gotten. But I didn’t bring you here to try and explain away my past. I brought you here to talk to you about your daughter, Mr. Holt. And our future,” I say, letting my thoughts drift to Laney and all that she means to me. “The best way I can describe what Laney is to me is to say that she’s been like life. For reasons I won’t go into, I was never quite alive until I met her. I had no idea what I was missing until she came along. She loved me before I did one single thing to deserve it. And, although I don’t ever see myself being good enough for her, I can promise you one thing. I will love her and care for her better than anyone else on this earth. And that includes you. She’s everything good in me. She’s everything I could ever want. She’s everything I could ever hope to achieve in life. And I’ll spend my very last breath making sure she’s happy. There is no one else for me, sir.

“Laney gave me a chance when no one else would. She saw something in me that I didn’t even see in myself. I hope you can do the same. And, with your permission, I’d like to ask her to marry me.”

Now I’m just spent. If I weren’t waiting for an answer, and it wasn’t rude as all hell, I’d turn around and walk right back to the house and crack open a beer. But, as it is, my entire future is hanging in the balance, so I guess I’d better not.

“You know, a parent always wants certain things for their children. Safety, security, love. The best of everything. But sometimes, we can’t see what’s close to us as clearly as we think we can. I’m man enough to admit I woefully misjudged you. That was wrong, and there’s no excuse. You proved yourself to be the better man when you pulled me out of that fire just to see my daughter smile again.

“It seems I stopped teaching Laney how to be a good person, how to succeed in life, a long time ago. In fact, here lately, she’s been teaching me. With you, she reminded me to look upon a person’s heart and nothing else. Jake, regardless of your past, I know you make my daughter happy. And I believe you love her. I can’t understand how anyone couldn’t. But I’m through trying to push her into doing what I think is right. I’m learning that she’s smart enough to figure out what’s best for her. And I’ll stand by her, whatever and whoever she chooses in life.” Mr. Holt pushes away from the fence and starts to walk by me. He stops when his shoulder is even with mine—him facing the house, me facing the orchard—and he turns to clap me on the back. “It just so happens that this time, I agree with her.” With a nod and a smile, he walks a few steps beyond me and then looks back, as if he’s waiting. I exhale and move forward until I reach his side, and we walk back to the house. Together. In silence. Perfect silence.

FORTY-ONE: Laney

The cookout went off without a hitch. My parents seemed happy and forgiving, which is enormously important to me where Jake is concerned. In my opinion, he should have every member of this town’s respect for what he did on the night of the fire. But I’m not worried about the whole town. I’m just worried about Daddy. I’d hate for him to make me choose between him and Jake.

He’d be disappointed by my choice.

But it seems that might not happen, if tonight is any indication. Now, the dishes are done, my parents are gone, and Jenna is waiting on the front porch for Rusty, her fiancé, to arrive.

And, for a few minutes, I have Jake all to myself.

I feel my nerves come back full force.

We’re lying in the hammock out back. Jake’s drinking a beer and chewing his toothpick at the same time. It sounds disgusting, but it’s something that I find kind of endearing now. Jake just does what he wants. He marches to whatever beat he happens to hear and like at the moment. And I love that about him.

I lean up on him, looking down into his face. His eyes are closed and his lips are curved in a little half smile.

“Jake?”

“Laney?”

I grin. “Were you serious when you said you could see yourself living out your days here?”

He cracks one eyelid open. “Why do you ask?”

Oh Lord, oh Lord, oh Lord! Here I go!

I push myself into a sitting position, causing the hammock to rock precariously. “Haven’t you ever heard that expression ‘don’t rock the boat’?” he asks, hanging on to the edge so it doesn’t tip him out.

“Of course. And I’m so glad we’re not in a boat right now,” I say with a grin. Jake grins back. “But I digress. So were you? Serious, I mean?”

“Yes. Why do you ask?”

Clearing my throat, I reach down to subconsciously pat my pocket. I don’t even realize what I’m doing until I see Jake’s eyes follow the movement. He frowns, but says nothing. “Did you mean here, as in this town? Or here, as in this place? The orchard?”

Jake shrugs. “Either one, I guess. But I think it would be kinda nice to hang on to the orchard, to stay here. There are still some things to work out with Ellie before I’ll ever know that this place is mine forever, though. Why?” he asks again.

“What if I told you I could make that happen? Would you be mad?”

“Mad? Of course not! I just told you I’d love nothing more. Why, Laney? What are you getting at?”

Jake is getting impatient, and I don’t want that ruining this moment, so I scoot out of the hammock and stand up, wiping my damp palms nervously on my jeans.

Jake sits up in the hammock and looks up at me, curious. For a few seconds, I get lost in his warm honey eyes. But then I remember why I’m nervous, what I’m supposed to be doing.

“Your aunt came into the office a few days ago. I may have talked to her. And I may have convinced her to sign over the orchard to you. All of it. Forever. She has no financial or legal interest in it whatsoever.”

He laughs. That kind of laugh that says he’s pleased, but speechless. “Wow! Are you serious?”

I nod, chewing my lip.

“That’s great! How did you do it?”

I resist the urge to kick my toe in the dirt or fiddle with my fingers. “I may or may not have slightly exaggerated the work that you’ll have to do at the orchard to keep it going. I may or may not have slightly exaggerated the expense of running and maintaining it now that it’s grown to its current size. I may or may not have slightly exaggerated the number of employees she could expect to have to hire for next year’s harvest. And I also may or may not have slightly exaggerated the amount of money she’d have to invest out of pocket just to get her through the first harvest before she might see a profit.”

Jake is smiling a proud, pleased smile.

“And you did this just for me?” And there’s the catch.

I say nothing for several seconds. I don’t move, either. I’m totally frozen, wondering if I’ve overstepped my bounds.

But I have to take the risk. Jake is worth it. Worth all this and more. He’s worth everything.

I drop to my knees in front of him, digging the metal out of my pocket. I let my hair swing down to hide my face as I spread the rings out on my palm.

“One day a couple weeks ago, I was helping Daddy clean up at the fellowship hall ruins and I saw something glistening in the sunshine. It was embedded in a chunk of concrete that had been busted up by the blast. When I bent down to look at it, I saw that it was a ring. Stuck in the concrete. I got a rock and I chipped away until I could get it loose. But buried there, right beside it, was another one. Two plain gold rings.” I pause and take a deep breath, taking a quick peek up at Jake’s face to gauge his reaction before I continue. I have his full attention. And he hasn’t run off yet. I think that’s a good sign. “Daddy saw me looking at them. I told him where I’d found them. He smiled, but he didn’t say anything for the longest time. But when he did, he told me that when he and Mom had gotten married, there was an old church where the fellowship hall is now. It burned down, too, and Daddy bought the empty lot right after he got the call to preach. He wanted to build a church back there. He said he and Mom used to go up there and sit on the ground where the old church was and where part of the new church would one day be, and they’d talk about the future and their plans, about the church and their life, and their family. Years later, when the foundation was poured, Daddy bought him and Mom new wedding bands and they went up to the new church site and they put their old rings in the concrete. Pushed ’em way down deep while it was still wet. He said he was planting a seed on holy ground for the health and happiness and prosperity of his family and his church.”

I tuck my hair behind one ear and look up at Jake, meeting his eyes as bravely as I can.

“I know the night that church burned down you thought I was gonna marry someone else. But since then, you’ve learned different. In a way, I feel like that fire burned away all the stuff that was coming between us, like it cleared the air and paved the way for us to just love each other. The way we couldn’t in the beginning. The way two people should love each other. Forever.” I feel the tears come and I can’t stop them. My voice is trembling when I ask, “Jake, would you marry me? I know it’s crazy for the girl to do the asking, but I’m afraid to go for one more day without you knowing that I’d pledge my life to you right here in this spot, right here in this very minute if I could. You’re the only thing in this world that makes me happy. Without you there’s . . . there’s . . . there’s just nothing. You’re my everything. And I want to spend the rest of my life showing you how much I love you.”

That’s all I can say before I start sobbing like a two-year-old who lost her cat.

I hear the creak of the hammock and then I feel strong, warm arms come around me. Jake pulls me in close to him and whispers against my hair, “You stole all my best lines.”

I lean back to look at him. He’s smiling a beautiful, perfect, happy smile down at me. “Is that a yes?”

“No. That’s a hell yes!”

The tears are still streaming down my cheeks, coming in a great flood of happiness and relief. “I don’t know if they’ll fit. Or if you’d even want to wear them, but—”

“If they don’t, we’ll put them on chains and wear them around our necks. This will be a reminder of one of the happiest days of my life and I’ll never let it go. Just like I’ll never let you go.”

My heart feels like it has melted and run all over my body, making me warm and more content than I can ever remember being. “Please don’t. Don’t ever let me go,” I say, breathing in his skin as I tuck my mouth against his neck.

“You don’t have to worry about that. I couldn’t survive without you. And I don’t even want to try. You make me the kind of man that I’ve always wanted to be. You make me a better me. And without you, I’m nothing.”

“But to me, you’re everything.”

“That’s just proof.”

“Proof of what?”

“That love really is blind.”

“Not this love! I see very clearly. And I love what I see.”

“Well, if you’ve got a few minutes, I can give you a lot more to look at,” Jake says, his grin suddenly playful. He stands to his feet, pulling me with him and into his arms, where the heat rises by several million degrees.

“A few minutes? Is that all it’ll take?”

“Oh, no! You did not just ask me a question like that! Challenge accepted.”

Tossing me over his shoulder, Jake takes off at a run for the back door.

“Jake, stop!”

“You’d better enjoy that word, baby, because that’s the last time you’ll be saying it for a very, very long time.”

I squeal as he flings open the door, races through the kitchen, and takes the stairs two at a time.

He needn’t worry about me ever asking him to stop. I’ll never want him to stop loving me.