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Kaitlyn laughed, not at the idea of the man who was about to blast into the Texas consciousness with the article she’d just read lugging baggage, but at the fact that she knew he meant it.

Lily said her goodbyes then, because she had an appointment to get to. Kaitlyn watched Ry watch rather intently as she left. She remembered the night in the saloon, when she had seen them together and had wondered if there was something between them. Now she just smiled, contentedly.

She was still adjusting to this odd, unexpected, unaccustomed state of near-constant happiness. She’d given up her tiny apartment almost with regret because of that long, loving week they’d spent there, with Ry not caring a whit how small it was. But here on the ranch she felt as if she’d truly come home. Her riding was progressing until she dared to take the sweet Latte out on her own now and then, although she preferred riding with Ry, or Lucas, who seemed to enjoy showing her around the place he, too, had come to call home. They were going to pick up Nick next weekend, and the two men she loved more than anything in the world would be together in one place, getting to know each other better.

And in a family gathering last week, she’d not only been informed that from here on her opinion would be required on any family action, she had also been presented with the belt she now wore, a Rylan Rafferty original, replete with images that brought tears to her eyes. An amazing replication of her father’s image from the photograph that had mysteriously gone missing a week before, the Llano River slab, for her hometown, her camera, and another amazing image of Nick. And anchoring it all an image of the small converted barn that was now her home, the place where she’d never been happier. As a welcome to the family, it had been overwhelming.

“She tell you what that appointment was?” Ry asked as Lily drove off.

“No, why?”

He turned to look at her then. “I saw her coming out of a doctor’s office yesterday.”

Kaitlyn frowned. “You think she’s sick?”

A smile quirked one corner of his mouth. “No. I think Shane’s in for it.”

She blinked. “What?”

“Remember where we first met?”

“When you almost knocked me over with—” She broke off, remembering exactly what door he’d almost hit her with. Her brows shot upward. “You think she’s pregnant?” Then, before he could even answer she nodded. “Yes. Yes, I believe it. There was something different about her, but I didn’t know what it was.”

For a long moment he just looked at her. Then he said softly, “Maybe someday it will be us.”

The idea didn’t even scare her anymore.

“I want a boy with your talent,” she said, gesturing at the painting on the stairway wall, beside the one his father had done. It had an entirely different feel, that image of a woman, almost undeniably her, astride a paint horse riding not into but out of the sunset. But it was no less skilled, no less powerful.

“And I want a girl you can teach what really matters,” he said.

She took a deep breath. “I suppose you can learn even from a bad example.”

“You sure learned what not to do,” he said with a grin. And then he pulled her into a fierce hug. “You’ll be the best kind of mom, Katie,” he said, using the nickname that pleased her because he was the only one who did, and because her mother had never allowed it. Her mother, who this man had put in her place fiercely and forever.

“I love you, Rylan.”

“I know,” he said, pulling back a little and still grinning. “I’m thinking we’d better give Mom time to recover from Keller’s wedding, and then Chance’s before we spring another one on her.”

She looked up at him. Her life had changed so much, she had so much she’d never dared hope for, let alone expected, that she had to remind herself that it was all real. Except he’d never actually proposed to her.

“Was there a question in there?” she asked.

The grin widened. “Didn’t they tell you?” His hands slid down to her hips, and the belt he’d done with such care. For her. “Accepting this is like saying yes.”

“To a proposal I’ve never gotten?” she asked, with no small amount of wonder at herself, and her newfound spunk, as Nick called it.

Instantly Ry dropped to one knee. He reached up and took her left hand. “Will you marry me, Kaitlyn Miller? Will you take on all this crazy?”

The joy almost bubbled over. “It’s the best kind of crazy. Yes. Yes, yes, yes.”

To her surprise he took something out of his pocket and slipped it onto her ring finger. “That’s just until we pick out a real ring,” he said. “One you want.”

She looked down. Saw it was a band of leather carved with their initials entwined.

“This,” she said, her throat almost unbearably tight, “is as real as it gets. I want this one.”

He stood then and held her so close and strong she thought she could almost feel the last of the pain and doubt flitter away.

“Welcome to the Raffertys, Katie.”

And Kaitlyn knew she had somehow truly landed in clover.

THE END