Page 81 of Ocotillo Kisses
“Did you come back for me?”
Her gaze shifted to the side, and his heart sank. He was right. She needed an out.
Then she straightened and met his gaze head on. “I came back to be with you. Do you want that?”
He’d been so convinced he was right, he didn’t process her words right away. And his hesitation caused doubt to cross over her face.
So he took a step closer. “I want us to have a future. I thought when I applied for school, I’d be closer to you in Houston, but I want to ultimately come back here, like you said, come back and be a vet here for the town. But I can’t know any of that until I know if I’m accepted to school. I don’t want your life to be up in the air because of me.”
She angled her head to look up at him, hope clear in her gaze. “You wanted to go back to school because I pushed you, and you wanted to go to school near me because...”
“Because I want to be with you, Britt. I love you. I missed you. I’m sorry I let you go without letting you know.”
“I know now.” She stepped close, rose on her toes, and placed her hand on his cheek. “I love you, too.” She looked at the horses. “You know you could have driven over, right?”
“Yeah, I just thought this would be nostalgic. Romantic.” He didn’t want to admit he hadn’t given much thought to the truck, to be honest. He’d envisioned them declaring their love on the hill where they’d spent so many days together as kids.
She took his face in her hands. “I just want you to know, I’m not that person anymore, either. The girl I was then is gone. She—was gone from the minute she got out of that bus alive. I don’t think you are the same person from then, either. We’re the same bodies, but we’ve both changed so much. We have those memories to share, but our relationship will be different. I just want to make sure you don’t have that expectation, that we’ll go back to who we were.”
“The boy I used to be loved the girl you were. The man I am now loves the woman you’ve become. Never doubt it,” he said, and kissed her.
The Fourth of July was a scorcher, of course, summer in West Texas. But at least it was a dry heat. Britt had been accustomed to the humidity of Houston, even though she didn’t spend too much time outside back there.
But she’d spent a lot of time outside since she’d returned to Broken Wheel, riding with Con, swimming, and especially this last week, helping with the festival. Sofia remained in charge, but she was grateful to have someone of Britt’s experience to chip in. That was good for Britt—she felt like she needed to work her way back into the graces of the group.
She still wasn’t used to the weather, and for some reason, the center of town was hotter than the ranch, probably because it was crowded with booths and grills and people.
But the crowd was the most important thing. Riley Foster had spent hours signing autographs and flirting with the local girls. People were buying crafts from the booths, taking pictures by Sofia’s mural on the side of the grocery store, setting up blankets on the lawn of the square. Britt could hardly believe this was the same lot she’d been to last year. Hailey’s grandfather’s band was warming up on the stage Caleb and Beck had built. Sofia was running around making sure everything was running smoothly, though, really, most of the details had been worked out.
Britt’s job was to get her to settle down before the fireworks so that Caleb could do his thing.
Coordinating two marriage proposals within the same time period, employing the same people had taken some serious coordination, but that was Britt’s specialty, wasn’t it?
The brides-to-be were the challenge. Austin and Ginny were first. Before the fireworks started, Ginny’s grandpa would start their song, their friends would gather with their sparklers—and the timing of that would be a separate challenge, so so she had Janine, Maryann and Meredith standing by with lighters to get those sparklers lit as quickly as possible.
Then she was going to have to extract Sofia and get her in front of the mural, where Caleb would be waiting with his daughter.
Britt found a fan someone had set up near one of the barbecue grills and turned it toward herself for a minute, lifting her hair at the same time.
“You got this?” Con asked, his hands on her shoulders.
She turned her head and smiled. “Oh, I’ve got this. You’re going to see a master planner at work. You’ve got the sparklers?”
His mouth dropped open. “I thought you did.”
A surge of panic went through her just before her mind started working. Only a few minutes until the big moment, not enough time to drive out to a fireworks stand. Kids were everywhere—someone was bound to have enough sparklers for the right amount of money. Did she even have any cash on hand?
“I’m kidding. Sparklers and lighters,” Con said, presenting both. “Man, you didn’t even panic.”
“Did you want me to?” she asked, relieving him of his responsibility. “I told you, I’m a professional. I’m used to thinking on my feet. Let’s get everyone in place, without being too obvious.”
Austin had done his job of settling Ginny in one of the camp chairs they’d set up so all of them could watch the fireworks together—ha. Britt was only glad it wasn’t a professional fireworks show, that some of the guys around town had agreed to buy fireworks and set them off in the square so everyone could enjoy them. That meant she might have time to actually enjoy some after the proposals. As she recalled, last year the display had lasted nearly an hour.
She kept an eye on the stage as one of the songs wound down.
“How ‘bout it, y’all ready for some fireworks?” the singer shouted into the microphone.
The first Roman candles started to go off as Ginny’s grandfather nodded in Britt’s direction, and the first strains of the song started. Britt turned to the group of her friends standing behind Ginny, just out of her sight as they got their sparklers lit.
