“You’re not wrong.” It dredged up years of heartache to admit the truth. “I would’ve hated it there. And if you’d stayed here, resentment definitely would have been a potential problem.”
“You said you want me to choose you.” She lifted her head and turned enough so they locked eyes. “I’m not here because I feel some kind of obligation, Chase. I’m here because of how I feel about you.”
“You two need anything?” Mom popped her head up over the stall. She took a step back as soon as she caught a look at his face. “Never mind. I’ll be back later with supper.”
Too late. She’d already interrupted the moment.
Michelle shifted on the ground, pulling away from him. “Sorry. I have to stand up. Thirty-year-old bones don’t like being on the ground that long.” She gripped the edge of the feed box and worked her way to her feet.
He followed with a wince, his knees complaining once again. “You know, I used to make fun of Dad for talking about his aches and pains. I get it now.” He rubbed his knee and shook out his feet, where the pins and needles sensation prickled the worst. “I thought for sure I wouldn’t feel this way until I was sixty.”
“Joke’s on us.” She elbowed him in the arm, her eyes panning around the stall. “About time to give her a rest, don’t you think?”
“You read my mind.” He held her arm on their way out of the stall. “Especially if it involves a soft chair and a cup of coffee.”
They’d made progress in their relationship today. He hesitated to push her into anything deeper. She’d admitted far more in the last hour than in their whole lives.
He’d been the one to ask for time, but when it came right down to the truth of it all, he was waiting for her. Waiting for her to heal enough to genuinely love him and not simply fall back to him as default because her memories told her to. Was it unfair to be that way? He hadn’t been able to make up his mind.
There had been times before her memory started coming back where he’d thought she had feelings for him, feelings that were not leftover echoes of their past.
“If you’ll make the coffee, I’ll find the cookies.” Michelle winked and let go of his arm.
“Cookies?” He shot the question at her retreating back.
Her laughter bounded back to him. “You’ll see.”
The last time he’d seen her that happy, they were teenagers riding side by side across the ranch.
By the time he finished the coffee, she reappeared like some kind of cookie fairy. The long white box gave off an enticing baked sugar smell. He dragged the scent in deep, his stomach churning. “Where did you manage to hide cookies all day?”
“Not all day.” She slid the box onto his desk and peeled open the lid. “I left earlier to get them from town. I’d just gotten back when you called the barn about the mare.” Her gaze drifted toward the stall. “I forgot all about the cookies and rushed to the tack room to start looking for supplies.
Ah. That made sense. He’d wondered why she stayed in the tack room the whole time they were walking the mare in.
“I’m sorry.” The hint of her smile fell. “I still don’t remember your favorite.”
“Cookie.” He lifted one and took a giant bite.
“Your point is?”
“Cookie.” He spoke around the mouthful. “I like all of them. Never had a favorite.”
“Even oatmeal raisin?”
“Mm.” He rocked his hand back and forth. “I’d still eat them.”
He grinned at her affronted expression. Even if she never regained all her memories, they had new ones to help pave the way to a future. If he was willing to take another chance and risk his heart all over again.
An ache built in his chest. He’d waited fifteen years. What was a little while longer? No one else could fill the gap in his life. He’d wait forever if that’s how long it took for her to fall in lovewith him again, a real kind of love, not something born of regret or some feeling that he’d saved her since coming home.
He craved the real thing, and nothing else would do.
Michelle poured them each a cup of coffee, picked up two cookies, and left the office.
He trailed along behind her without a word. Curiosity brightened the flavors of the red velvet cookie he carried, and he finished it off. Horses greeted them in their usual manner, but Michelle didn’t stop.
She walked with quick but quiet steps all the way to the back of the barn, to the last stall on the right. “There used to be a horse here.” A vein pulsed in her neck, and she rubbed her head. “Debbie? D something. Something about a flower?”
