Jesse stood up, grabbed my hands, and pulled me up with him. “It started with the nightmares, I guess. That’s what first shook me. Then when I realized I’d lost something I’d carried around for years, that shook me some more. Really, it was a bunch of small things that added up to something big. Something too big, obviously.”
My eyebrows came together. “What have you been carrying around with you? What did you lose?” To my knowledge, Jesse’d never carried around a lucky charm or a worry stone or something of the sort.
“It wasn’t anything big or fancy. It was just this little, white—”
“Button.” I pulled it out of my pocket and held it out.
Jesse’s forehead wrinkled as he examined it. “Yeah . . . that’s it. How did it . . ? How did you . . .?” Biting the inside of his cheek, he looked away from it. “Where did you find it?”
“In one of my old steel-toed boots. I just found it the other day. How long have you been missing it?”
“A couple of months.”
I turned the button over in my hand. “What’s the story? I know there must be a pretty big one.”
Jesse cracked his neck and worked to unlock his jaw. “I found that a long time ago. Before I came to live with the Walkers.”
“This is from when you were still with . . . with . . . them?”
Jesse nodded. “It was down in one of the old drain traps in the basement. It took me forever to work the screw out, but I had to have it, and at least it gave me something to do. Something to work toward.” Jesse went somewhere else for the briefest moment before his eyes cleared and he came back. “Once I had it, I guarded it like you wouldn’t believe. At that point, I probably would have given my life to keep it protected and out of their reach.”
“Why?” I asked, grabbing his hand. I wanted to understand, but I didn’t understand how one button could be so important to a little boy.
“It was the only thing I could call my own. It was the only thing I had that they hadn’t given to me. It was something special . . . sacred. It’s the only thing I have of my life before Willow Springs, and I’ve kept it with me for years not as a reminder of the life I’d lived, but as a promise of the life I’ll never have to live again. A promise of moving on and having a better life. A promise of people to love and to love me.” Jesse rubbed the back of his neck. “Now that I just said that all out loud, it seems kind of silly.”
“Not silly, Jesse. Not silly at all. Maybe a little sad, but I get it. I totally get it.”
“So once this thing I’d loved in my former life left me . . . I was afraid of something I loved in my new life leaving me. I was afraid of losing you, Rowen, and the thing about fear and panic and possession is that they turn a person into exactly the person they were scared of becoming. I was afraid of losing you, but my fear of that was what ultimately drove you away.”
I shook my head, stunned. Stunned at the conversation, at the meaning behind the button, at the whole past couple of months. “I bet you’re happy to have this back then.” I held it out for him and waited.
And waited.
He studied my hand, the corners of his eyes wrinkling as he concentrated, and then his expression cleared. “Why don’t you put it back in those old boots of yours? I think they’d make good companions. I don’t need it anymore to remind me of the life I want to live.” Jesse wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me to him. “I’ve got you to remind me of that now.”
“You know that whole lot of making up I was saying you owed me?” I asked, grinning up at him. “You’re making a lot of progress in that department. A lot of progress.”
“Good to know.”
“Plus you earned yourself some mega brownie points with that picture I have hanging on my bedroom wall right now.”
Jesse’s mouth lifted. “There was just something about that picture that reminded me of you. I had to get it for you.”
“Despite the thousands of dollars I don’t even want to know you spent on it,” I mumbled.
“Money wasn’t an object.”
“Says the guy with no money left in his checking account . . .”
“The guy with no truck and, like you said, no money in his checking account to pay for a new one anytime soon.”
Light bulb moment. “Is that so?” I grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the parking lot.
“Rowen? Where are you dragging me? Not that I really care, but am I going to need a change of clothes or anything?”
“Nope. I’ll take care of your clothes later. Or at least I’ll take care of removing your clothes later.” I glanced back and winked at him. “But since you got me a present, it’s only right that I got you one too. Right?”
“I don’t think that’s the way it works.”
“Well, it’s the way it’s working right now.” Coming around a large pickup, I stopped, grabbed Jesse’s shoulders, and turned him ninety degrees.
“Rowen,” he said in a rare speechless moment. “How did you . . ?”
“I had it towed here.” I shouldered up beside Jesse as he continued to stare without blinking at Old Bessie.
“You had it towed here? From North Idaho?” He tore his eyes away from his truck long enough to gape at me.
“I knew a guy who knew a guy,” I answered with a dismissive wave.
“You knew a guy who knew a guy who was willing to tow a broken down, ancient truck to Seattle?”
“Yep. And then the guy I knew knew another guy who . . .” I ran to open the driver’s door, searched for the keys I’d stuffed beneath the seat, and cranked on the engine.
Jesse’s eyes went even wider. “It’s running?” He moved toward the hood. “Wait. Old Bessie’s never ran that good. At least not since I’ve owned her.” Unlatching the hood, he lifted it as I came around the front to join him.
Jesse was totally speechless. It was a side of him I hadn’t seen much. I’d gotten to know a lot of sides of him I’d never seen before the past couple of months. And you know what?
I loved every single one.
“See? Knowing a guy who knows a guy has its benefits.” I nudged him as we admired the shiny new engine and under-the-hood parts as I knowledgeably called them. The guy I’d known was Sid, and the guy he knew was his younger brother. He was a major gear-head who basically just charged me for the parts and a little bit of labor. I’d just gotten Old Bessie back and was planning on delivering it to Jesse when the moment was right.
The moment couldn’t have been more right.
“I need to know more of the people you know,” he said, still gaping at his truck.
“When he asked if I wanted him to clean up the exterior, I told him that I didn’t mind a little mess on the outside, as long as the important stuff’s in good working order.” I wrapped my arm around him and couldn’t stop smiling at that truck I’d hated at first sight, but I had grown to love. The inside, the outside, all sides of it.
“Thank you, Rowen. I don’t know if you understand how much this means to me, but . . .”
“I think I do. I think I have a very good idea what it means to you.”
Giving his head a shake, his expression changed. “Hey, do you think the apartment manager would mind if it stayed here a while?”
“I don’t think he’d even notice. But why? How long are you planning on staying?”
Jesse moved in front of me. “How long do you want me to stay?”
“Forever,” I said instantly. It might have been a selfish answer, but it was the honest one.
“That’s kind of what I had in mind, too.” When his hand dug into his pocket, I was clueless. When his hand came out, whatever was inside of it was too small to be seen. I was still clueless. But when he dropped back down onto both of his knees and held out that gold ring, I had a rush of clarity.
“You know me at my best, and you know me at my worst. You know my past and my dreams for the future. You know me. I know the same things about you and I can say with absolute certainty that I will l
ove you every minute of every day, Rowen. In this life, and our next, and our next if there’s such a thing as reincarnation. I was made to love you.” Jesse’s eyes lightened with every word, his face a plane of confidence. “Will you marry me?”
That was what it felt like. The moment when all of my past failures were worth it, when I knew all of my future ones would be, too. That was the moment when life makes sense.
“My answer to your question depends on your answer to mine,” I replied, trying to pretend I wasn’t totally reeling. Trying to pretend like I wasn’t about to grab on to Old Bessie for support.
Jesse didn’t even look surprised. He knew me well enough to know I wouldn’t be the girl to flap her hands, scream yes a million times, and unleash the floodgates. “What question is that?” He grinned up at me.
Pulling him up until he stood in front of me, the ring still in his hands, I met his eyes. “You know me at my best, and you know me at my worst. You know my past and my dreams for the future. You know me. So, Jesse Walker, will you marry me?”
One corner of his mouth twitched in amusement. “On one condition.” He kissed the tip of my nose. “If you’ll agree to marry me first.”
I laughed a few notes and couldn’t get my answer out fast enough. “Yes, Jesse. I’m yours. I guess we might as well make it official.”
I’d seen Jesse happy a million different times, but I’d never seen him happy like that. It was happiness in a way that staggered me. Happiness in its purest state. “And I’m yours. So why not make it official.”
It started raining right as I held out my left hand and Jesse slipped the ring on my finger. I didn’t take it as an omen or a sign of what was to come; I took it as a promise. No matter what kinds of storms waited for us in the future, we’d weather them together. Side by side.
“Jesse, there’s one more thing I wanted to tell you,” I said, needing to get everything off of my chest before we could properly celebrate. “The internship . . . I’m not going to—”
“Take it,” he said immediately. “You know and I know that you need to take that internship, Rowen. You have to take it.”
“But this summer . . . We’re engaged now. I want to spend the summer with you.” The internship was a phenomenal opportunity, but it was a job. It wasn’t a person; it wasn’t someone I loved. I was proving where my priorities were. At last.
“And I plan on spending the summer with you too. We’re engaged after all,” Jesse said with a smile. When he glanced at my ring finger, his smile went bigger.
My forehead lined. “How is that supposed to work if you want me to take the internship?”
Jesse pulled me close. “How’s that roommate search going?”
“What? Wait. No. No,” I said as all the pieces fit together. “Jesse, your dad needs you on the ranch. Summers especially. You can’t just up and leave in the middle of it to be with me.”
“Actually, I can’t think of a better reason to up and leave anything than to be with you.”
“Jesse—”
He shook his head. “I’ve already talked it over with my dad and mom. They’re on board with it, and I thought you’d be too . . .”
“I do want you to move in with me, of course I do, but Jesse . . . are you sure this is what you really want?”
“I know we can make it through anything, Rowen. The past couple of months have proven that to me. I know we could make it if we were far away from each other. I trust that. I have faith in that. The thing is . . . I don’t want to do it. I want to be near you. Every day. Every night. Why should I settle for you from afar when I can have you near me every morning I wake up?” His forehead pressed into mine. “Relationships are about compromise and sacrifice. I don’t want you to have to compromise this internship for me. Or me for the internship. This is my turn to sacrifice something. This is something I want to sacrifice.” Drops of rain slid between us, down our faces, and our clothes were becoming wet, but I felt nothing but warmth. “The ranch will always be there. The ranch will wait. I don’t want you to have to. Okay?”
I had so many points to argue, so many things that made that such a selfish option, but when Jesse looked at me like that after saying what he just had, I could only manage one word. And it wasn’t no.
“Okay,” I said, feeling a smile moving into place. I didn’t only have my boyfriend back—correction, my fiancé back—I would get to see him all the time. Every day. Every night.
Life and its proclivities for one-eighties . . .
Kissing me first, Jesse ran to turn Old Bessie off before coming back to scoop me into his arms. “I think you were wrong. I did need a change of clothes for this trip.”
I laughed as he ran for the apartment. It didn’t matter; we were both already drenched. “You won’t need any clothes for a while. You’ve still got some making up to do.” I winked up at him suggestively, and Jesse’s pace picked up. “By the way, how in the world did you get here? Since I know it wasn’t thanks to Old Bessie.”
He smiled as he continued sprinting through the rain. “I took a Greyhound bus.”
That right there was what I called a full circle moment.
Just outside the apartment, Jesse lowered me and backed me against the door. His hands braced against the door on either side of my head as his eyes locked on mine. “Thank you for saving me, Rowen. Thank you for coming and saving me.”
I lifted my hand to his face and traced each fervent wrinkle until it disappeared. “I didn’t save you, Jesse. I just helped you remember how to save yourself.”
“You helped me remember why it was worth saving myself,” he said gently, right before covering his lips with mine. We stayed up against that door for a while, kissing and making up for lost time. We kissed until I felt like I couldn’t kiss anymore. And then we kissed some more.
There are high points, and there are high points. That was mine, having a man like Jesse Walker to love and love me back, and knowing that no matter what came our way, we’d be ready for it.
The rest was up to us.
Thank you for reading NEAR and FAR by bestselling author, Nicole Williams.
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You can connect with her on Facebook: Nicole Williams (Official Author Page)
Twitter: nwilliamsbooks
Blog: nicoleawilliams.blogspot.com
Other Works by Nicole:
CRASH, CLASH, and CRUSH (HarperCollins)
LOST & FOUND
UP IN FLAMES (Simon & Schuster UK)
GREAT EXPLOITATIONS SAGA
THE EDEN TRILOGY
THE PATRICK CHRONICLES
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
About the Author
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
> Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
About the Author
Nicole Williams, Near and Far
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