Page 132 of Chasing the Sun

“Yeah.” I swallowed around the lump in my throat. “He is.”

We stood in silence for a beat, watching the sun dip lower behind the orchard, turning the sky to fire.

Then I reached for her hand.

“You trust me?”

She turned to look at me, brow lifted. “Always.”

“Come with me.”

I led her past the cider tents and the bonfire pit, past the barn and down the gravel path that wound through the trees. The farther we went, the quieter it got. Just the crunch of leaves underfoot, the hum of crickets waking up in the grass, the crackle of a fire in the distance.

She looked up at the sky and smiled, soft and secret. And for a split second I almost backed out. Because how the hell do you give someone the world when they’ve already handed it to you first? But I knew, deep down, the perfect moment I’d been waiting for was something I was already living. Every moment with her was perfect.

When we reached the old oak—the one she loved, with the crooked spine and the wooden swing—I stopped.

She looked around. “Cal?”

“I’ve been trying to find the right moment,” I said, “to do this.”

“To do what?”

I dropped to one knee.

Elodie froze.

And then her hands flew to her mouth, eyes already glassy with tears.

“Elodie Darling,” I said, my voice low and steady despite the way my heart was trying to punch a holethrough my ribs, “this land might be what brought us together, but you’re what made it matter.”

She let out a tiny sob and immediately covered her mouth again.

“You’re the first thing I’ve ever wanted that didn’t come with a blueprint. You didn’t just walk into my life like a storm, you rewrote every line I thought I’d already figured out. And thank god you did, because the life I was building before you? It didn’t hold a candle to this. If you’ll let me, I want to spend the rest of my life building something that doesn’t need plans or fences or backup options.”

I pulled the ring from my pocket and opened the velvet box.

It wasn’t flashy. A thin, antique gold band, a marquise-cut sapphire hugged by tiny diamonds on either side. Simple. Vintage. Unmistakably her.

“It may seem quick, but I’m done waiting for my life to start. I want to chase the sun with you,” I said, voice cracking. “Every damn day.”

For a long second, she didn’t move.

Then she dropped to her knees and threw her arms around my neck, tears warm against my skin.

“You jerk,” she whispered, laughing and crying at the same time. “You actual, unfair, impossibly good man.”

I held my breath and waited.

“Yes,” she whispered into my collarbone. “Yes. Of course, yes.”

I held her there, buried in the scent of orchard wind and of the woman who cracked me open and made me whole.

Later, when the stars came out and the fire burned low, she stood next to me with my flannel draped around her shoulders, ring sparkling like starlight as she waved to the last stragglers headed to their cars.

I pressed a kiss to her temple, heart full to bursting.

Some people waited their whole lives for a love that felt like safety.