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“So . . .” she murmured hopefully, “is that a maybe?”

He grinned down at her, his hands splaying across her back. “Ah, Shay, I’ve always loved you. And that didn’t change because of what you said. I should have told you about Trey. I should have done a lot of things differently. I was leaving because I couldn’t be here, near you and not with you. I couldn’t. I’ve wanted you, loved you most of my life and losing you that way, I-I couldn’t stay. I’m sorry, too, for how it all went down. I never meant to hurt you. Maybe we could just . . . give each other a little grace and start over?”

She blinked back tears, her mouth still feeling his kiss. “Yes. Please.” She hugged him hard, her breasts pressing against his hard chest. “Can we? Oh, I want that, too.”

Ray came out of the house wrapped in a quilt with a smile on his face. “It’s about time,” he called from the front porch.

“That’s what I said,” Cami shouted from beside the truck as she high-fived Ryan.

“I think they’re ganging up on us,” Cooper whispered.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

He grinned and dropped his mouth on hers again, and she kissed him back with all the love she had in her. No amount of cleaning or baking or pretending she was okay without this man in her life would ever be enough. She’d been alone for so long she’d forgotten what it was like to feel wanted. To want someone else the same way. With all their humanness, foibles, and flaws.

Oh, there would be mistakes. There would always be mistakes. But loving Cooper Lane? No, that would never be one of them.

They left Ryan and Ray in charge of Kholá with a stern warning about his lifetime of grounding if he ever did something foolish like that again. Ryan, looking very pleased with himself as only a teenager who’d won could, took the filly in hand and bending close to Shay’s ear, whispered, “That was OG, Mom.”

She gave him an affectionate shove, then pulled him in for a kiss on the cheek. He cringed with a smile. And maybe it was her imagination, but Kholá looked rather pleased with herself as well.

“You any good at hitching up horse trailers?” she asked Cooper, hiding a smile as they watched Ryan walk toward the paddock.

“I’m the best.”

“Then, you’re hired.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to work for you.”

She froze. “No?”

“No. But with you. That sounds doable.”

She smiled. “That sounds very doable to me. Also”—they started walking again—“I made a pie.”

“A pie!?” His eyes lit up. “Is that what I get for hitching up the trailer?”

“Oh, no, my love,” she said taking his hand, her eyes stinging with emotion and, for the first time in a very long time, hope. “That’s just the beginning.”

The End