Chapter 19

Misty waited until she and Janie returned to their cabin before she showed her best friend the text. "How do I respond to that?" She paced away from her phone, glad to be out of the heat. She'd been sick for about a week, and she sank onto the couch, feeling as weak now as she had been while in the throes of her sinus infection.

Being sick in the summer was the worst curse God could give her—oh, besides the mega-rich cowboy who'd just asked her to move to Three Rivers permanently to be with him.

"I told you already," Janie said. "He's in love with you."

"He's not," Misty said with a sigh. "Link says stuff like that out loud, Janie. When he's in love with me, he'll tell me."

"Are you sure he won't just send a text that says, Remember that time I told you I loved you for the first time?"

Misty smiled through her irritation. She and Link did have some games they played with one another. He knew he was special to her; that game was designed to say so without saying so. And this one about how they said the things they wanted to happen like they'd already happened?

She loved it. She loved thinking about what she wanted with Link and trying to project or manifest those things into existence. She'd been praying too, specifically to know what to do about Link. What to do about her job. What to do with her life.

She was thirty years old, and she'd thought she had everything figured out already.

No dating.

An amazing job she loved.

Good friends.

A big city.

Lincoln Glover had ruined it all. He'd ruined her.

"Can I have my phone, please?" She held out her hand, and Janie brought over her device.

"What are you going to say?"

"I'm going to tell him he's not special because he has millions of dollars in the bank." Misty typed out exactly that and sent it. I don't want you thinking you're special because you have a lot of money.

I don't think that, he said. Just like you're not special because you have a great job and a fun life in Dallas.

The little bit of air she'd managed to take into her lungs went right back out again. It was as if Link held all the oxygen molecules in the world, and she could only get them from him. He'd become very important to her. Very important indeed.

"You're thinking of moving here to be with him, aren't you?" Janie asked in a tiny, timid whisper.

Misty couldn't speak, so she simply nodded. Her phone chimed again, and she couldn't stop herself from looking at it.

I want you to be mine, Link said. I want to be yours. I know we're still in the early stages, and I can be patient. I guess I'm just fishing for the same thing I wanted when we started seeing each other again a couple of months ago—is this still serious for you? And if so, does that mean you'll consider moving here permanently?

Another text came in as she re-read the first one.

I don't need you to tell me you'll move here for certain. I just need to know it's a possibility. And I'm going to stop now, because I hate that we're texting about this and not talking face-to-face. We can talk more about it tonight at my place.

Misty read both messages again, then read them out loud to Janie. Her face glowed like she'd set up a rim light to make a video. "That cowboy is in love with you," she said again. "And you have to decide if you're willing to love him back…or not."

"He's asking a lot of me," Misty whispered miserably. "He's asking me to rearrange my whole life to be here, to be with him."

"Yeah, to be his," Janie said with a sigh. "It's so romantic." She got to her feet and turned toward the hall. "Hey, I have a date with that guy Stephen tonight. Misty." She faced her again. "Think of your Future Self. Would she want you to give up your job and apartment in the city to be here and belong with that sexy, tall, gorgeous, rich cowboy? What's the sacrifice, really?"

With a kind smile, she left the living room, left Misty to her own thoughts and feelings. What's the sacrifice, really?

Every single thing Misty had put in place over the past two decades, that was the sacrifice. She'd have to burn her whole life to the ground and trust that she could rise from the ashes a better, different person than she'd been before. And what if Link didn't like that woman? What if she wasn't who he really wanted?

What if he abandoned her like everyone else had?

Link sat on the front porch at the Top Cottage, his guitar across his lap, when Misty arrived for dinner. He'd said he'd come pick her up, but she felt silly having him do that. Their eyes met through the windshield, and Link lifted his chin in a very cowboy nod of hello.

Misty smiled and ducked her head, her hair falling down between them. She'd let it grow out this summer without dying it again, and the strawberry had definitely remixed with the blonde. When she and Link spent time outside together, he lightly tapped all over her face with a glorious smile on his face.

He'd started lighting kisses across her freckles too, claiming he absolutely loved them. Meanwhile, Misty kept trying to cover them up with foundation, and he kept telling her how amazingly gorgeous they were.

She reached for the food she'd driven to town to get for tonight's dinner, her heartbeat thumping like a bass beat in a dance club. If her life had a soundtrack, right now it would be playing a medley of tense stringed instruments, and everyone would be on-edge, waiting to see what would happen next.

"Can't prolong this anymore," she muttered to herself as she picked up the authentic Texas barbecue, with all the sides she knew Link loved, and got out of her car. She hadn't answered his texts, because he'd been right. She didn't want to have a conversation about their future with typed letters.

She wanted to see his face and hear his voice when he said things like, I want you to be mine.

She shivered just imagining him saying that to her. Had her mother ever had someone say that to her? Did she feel this same sort of string of excitement bubbling through her? Had she hoped for a future filled with love, happiness, and joy?

Children, and family dinners, and slow Sunday afternoons after church? Misty couldn't even believe she'd thought about church on Sundays, but she had. "I love church on Sundays," she murmured to herself as she started down the sidewalk that led to the wide, spanning porch at the Top Cottage.

Link hummed along with the music his fingers made, and because Misty had sat beside him during a Sabbath Day meeting, she knew what his singing voice sounded like. Deep, rich, and dripping with honey.

He stopped as she got closer, but his fingers continued to pick over the strings of his guitar. "Hey." He didn't smile or make any move to get up and take her into his arms.

Misty set down the bags of food, seeing as how Link wasn't in a hurry to eat, and settled onto the step beside him. The bridge of the guitar stuck out across her chest, but she leaned into Link's strong arm and shoulder anyway.

"Hey," she finally said back.

He didn't play loud, and it set the stage for this new scene she'd entered. "I didn't mean to make things awkward between us," he said. "I sincerely thought you knew I had a lot of money."

"I suppose I did," Misty whispered. "I guess I'd never given it to you. It was always the ranch that was rich."

Link nodded. "Just another thing for me to work through about not really being a Glover."

"I hate that for you." She cuddled into his side, glad when he finally stopped playing and set his guitar aside. He stared out toward the road she'd driven down, to the trees on the other side of it. His hands hung down between his knees, the way they had that evening they'd sat overlooking the town of Three Rivers, talking about her fractured past.

"You're a Glover through and through," she said. "They don't just give anyone a junior foreman position, you know."

"I'm not special because I'm the junior foreman," he said.

"No." Misty drew in a deep breath, about to take their game into a brand-new direction. "But you're special because you're a Glover."

He put his arm around her and pulled her against him. "Thank you for saying that."

Misty felt the world open up, the way one of those pop-up cards did. She'd been living as a flattened version of herself, but with Lincoln Glover, all the flaps and pieces could expand into something intricate and beautiful.

"You're special to me," he murmured.

Misty's emotions swirled and surged. Her throat felt like one of those tiny coffee-stirring straws. "I don't know how to talk the way you do."

"You just open your mouth," he said. "And let God fill it with the right words." He kneaded her closer and pressed a kiss to her hair. "No one has ever told me I'm good at talking."

"Better than me."

"You've always done just fine with me, Misty," he said. "It's just the two of us here. I'm not going to judge anything you say."

She laced all ten of her fingers through just a single hand of his and squeezed. "I'm falling in love with you," she murmured.

"I'm going to take that to mean things are still serious."

"They are for me."

"Good," he said. He nodded toward the food. "Smells good. Should we go inside and eat?"

She nodded, and Link somehow knew what she wanted though they both faced the landscape opposite the cabin. He stood and took her hand in his to pull her up. His eyes hooked into hers, and while Misty wanted to look away, she couldn't.

"I'm just going to open my mouth, and I don't know what will come out."

"Oh, this sounds like a new game for us," she said.

Link gave her half a smile that stayed for half a second. "The Lord's been telling me to be patient for quite some time now. It's perfectly exhausting, if I'm being honest. I don't want to be patient. I feel things for you Misty, that I've not felt for anyone, ever, before. I'm hungry for you. I want you here without an end date, because if I'm not in love with you, I'm really dang close."

Misty nodded, tears squeezing out of the corners of her eyes.

"I'm not going to ask you to move here," he said.

"You already have." Maybe not in those words, but Misty knew what Link wanted.

"I don't think you're ready for any of this," he said. "I don't feel ready either, so maybe God has been telling me the right thing, and I've just made a huge mistake by opening my big mouth."

Misty smiled at him. "Again, nothing anyone has ever said about you."

He smiled more fully this time. "I feel out of words, so it must be a good time to stop." Link bent and picked up the bag with their dinner. "Let's go inside."

Misty went with him, her mind whirring around all he'd said. They didn't speak as he pulled the Styrofoam containers out and got down plates. Misty removed silverware from the drawer, and she took the plate he'd prepared for her.

"You've been standing there like you've been taxidermied," Link said. "I'm done for now, okay? I apologize for bringing it all up."

Misty looked at him, feeling a bit more life come into her limbs. "You don't need to apologize," she said. "I just think you're right." She followed him over to the couch, where he set down his plate of food so he could use the remote to start their movie.

"I'm right about what?" he asked.

"I'm not ready for this yet," she said as she sat down on the other end of the couch. He looked over to her again, and Misty decided to be as brave as him.

She opened her mouth and allowed God to fill it.

"Link, there's so much I still need to do in order to be with someone as amazing as you."

"I'm not amazing."

"I mean, your hair's a little long, but otherwise, you're about perfect."

"Stop it." He stabbed a piece of brisket and glared at her now. "I'm impatient, and stubborn, and ungrateful for all I've been given." He looked back to the TV. "I know I'm not special."

Misty wanted to argue with him, but she just forked up a cheese cube from the pea salad.

"Are we ready?" he asked.

"I have one more thing to say."

He gestured with the remote, and it felt like an ocean existed between them, though it was a single couch cushion and nothing more.

"Two things."

"Misty."

She grinned at his irritated tone for a reason she didn't understand. "First, I could cut your hair. I'm pretty good at it. I've done Ralf's while we've been here in Three Rivers."

Link grunted, his mouth full of his dinner. Misty wasn't sure why he'd decided to grow out his hair, or what it meant to him, but she catalogued that as something she could ask him later.

"Second, I am seriously considering moving here," she said next. "Permanently."

He looked at her again, and she smiled over to him. "I don't want you to think you're special or anything. If I choose to move here, it'll be for me. Not for you."

"I don't think I'm special," he whispered.

"Good," she said. "Now, can we watch the movie? And can I sit beside you, or are you going to shun me for the whole date?"

"No," he said. "You can't sit by me."

Hurt stung through Misty, reverberating like a gong in waves that blistered her stomach, her ribs, her fingers and toes.

Then Link slid over and handed her his plate as he practically crawled into her lap. "I'm going to sit by you."