“Do you think you’re ever going to do that?”

He chuckled. And it sounded kind of bitter. “I have a barrier to that. It isn’t the same thing you have. But it’s...an issue.”

And yet again, he wondered about the phone call he just overheard.

“Well. If you want to talk about it, I’m here. And newly in touch with my feelings.”

“Wow. I’m going to pass on that.”

“Okay. Love you.”

And he’d said it. And he meant it. Boone flipped him off, and that felt about perfect.

At midnight, he and Tansey were in his room, and that was when he did it.

“I have something for you.” He got down on one knee in front of her. “Tansey Martin...will you marry me? For real. Forever?”

Tears sparkled in her eyes as she nodded, and he took the ring out of the box and slid it onto her finger. “I know you can buy yourself any piece of jewelry that you want.”

“But I want this one. Because it’s from you.” She smiled. “I have a song that I want to play for you.”

“Well. Then I want to hear it.”

She sat down on the edge of the bed, holding her guitar, and this one was different. A little more upbeat than the songs she usually played.

And this song was about love. Choosing it, hanging on to it.

Love is cactuses

Good-luck charms and bad-luck nights

Sunny days and colder weather

Letting go and holding on

And I’ve heard the best revenge is living well

But the best is letting go

So you can just love

In the end, it’s all that matters

In the end, it’s the greatest

And he knew it was true. The real story of them. Good and bad and the two years in between, when they didn’t have each other at all. And he was grateful. So grateful, that she had decided to let go of all the anger she had every right to have, so that they could love each other instead.

She had apologized to him recently, for the song. For the fact that some people would never accept they were back together, because they were still holding on to that story she’d told so well.

“It’s part of our story,” he’d said. “And I wouldn’t trade it. Because it had to happen for us to end up here.”

It was true. He’d had to break again to know that he wanted to be whole.

“You know,” he said. “I was wrong, about winning. I said that you couldn’t love anything. That you couldn’t care about anything more. But loving you, that is winning. And everything else... Everything else is just noise.”

She kissed him. “I love you. And it’s winning for me too.”

“It was the cactus.”

She laughed. “You can’t prove that.”

And he smiled against her mouth. “You can’t prove that it wasn’t.”

Don’t miss any of The Carsons of Lone Rock series

from New York Times bestselling author

Maisey Yates!

Rancher’s Forgotten Rival

Best Man Rancher

One Night Rancher

Part Time Cowboy

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10