He took a breath, and she realized how nervous he was. “I want you in my life, because I love you.”

  Tears filled her eyes, but she still couldn’t get her voice to work.

  “One thing I’ve learned over the past couple of months. Three months. Whatever. Is that I need to be more patient, and that starts with myself. I want to be this perfect man for you. I want to protect you from hard things, and bad things, and sad things. All I wanted when I came to the shop was to be here for you. I didn’t mean to ask the wrong questions or seem like I was being too critical.”

  Another deep breath. “I just wanted to maybe shoulder some of the huge burden you were carrying. I did a real bad job at that, but I’m going to try again. I mean, if you’ll let me.” He cleared his throat. “I’m going to be patient with myself as I change, and I’m going to be patient with us, and I’m going to be patient with Elvis.”

  Gretchen broke, her eyes finally closing and releasing the tears she’d kept inside by pure will.

  “I am, Gretchen,” he said softly. “If you’ll just give me another chance, I’ll show you that I can be kind enough, and quiet enough, and patient enough for you. I can. I know I can.”

  She shook her head, the image of him blurry through her tears. She blinked and wiped at her face, squared her shoulders, and took a step toward him. His countenance had fallen, and she wasn’t sure why.

  “You better not, Will Cooper,” she said, her voice as flinty as she could make it.

  He lifted his eyes back to hers. “Excuse me?”

  She advanced toward him, and a vein of fear crossed his expression. That gave Gretchen power, and she seized onto it and used it to fuel her next words. “You better not,” she said. “I don’t want a different version of you.” Her nerves shook, but she plowed forward. “I love your temper, and I love your mouth, and I love that you just say what you want. It took me a while, but I realized you were trying to support me in the way you knew how, and I’m really sorry I made you feel like that wasn’t good enough.”

  “Don’t apologize to me,” he said, that grumpy cowboy she loved shining right through. He clenched his jaw and shook his head. “Please, don’t.”

  “Then don’t you apologize to me,” she shot back. She reached him, and with only a couple of feet between them, Gretchen could see the amazing flecks of color in his eyes. “I don’t want a watered-down version of the man I fell in love with. I just want the real Will Cooper, and it’s okay that you’re loud, and opinionated, and that you sometimes lose your cool when you have to wait for a pizza for two hours.”

  Those pesky tears filled her eyes again. “I’m sorry about the pizza. I’m sorry I asked you to go. That wasn’t me asking you to change.”

  Will reached out with one hand, sort of lobbing it toward hers. She grabbed onto him, wishing they’d clung to each other when things had gotten really hard. A sob worked its way toward the surface, but she wasn’t done talking yet. “I hate this place,” she whispered.

  He looked right into her eyes. “No, you don’t. You love Sweet Water Taffy.”

  She shook her head. “Not without you. I hate coming here if I can’t talk to you about it. I hate leaving here, knowing I won’t hear your voice later. I hate it. I hate that I let this stupid candy shop come between us, and I hate that instead of letting you help me the Will-Cooper way, I pushed you away.”

  “You didn’t,” he said.

  “I did,” she insisted. “And blast you, Will Cooper, you let me.”

  Anguish crossed his face, and then he wrapped her up in those arms she missed so much and held her right against his chest while she cried. “Someday,” he whispered. “Somehow, I’m going to make this okay.”

  Gretchen pulled back her tears once again and looked at him. “You just did. Today.”

  Hope shone through the clouds in his eyes. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  He pressed his lips to her forehead, which wasn’t where she wanted them at all. “Can we go back to that bit…I thought I heard you say…maybe it was something like… I don’t want a watered-down version of the man I fell in love with.” He raised his eyebrows, and Gretchen smiled for the first time since she’d gotten the call from Jon that Sweet Water Taffy was on fire.

  A real smile. One filled with hope, and joy, and William Cooper.

  “What about it?” she challenged.

  “Do you mean that?”

  “Did you?” she asked. “When you said you’d fallen in love with me?”

  “I did,” he said. “Mean it, I mean. I do.” A smile spread across his face, reaching clear up into his eyes. “I love you, Gretchen. I won’t be happy with anyone but you.”

  “And I won’t be happy with anyone but you,” she said. “You, Will Cooper, just as you are now. Not whoever it is you were saying you were going to become.”

  He searched her face, but she didn’t know what he was trying to find. “I’m worried you won’t like him for long. That he’s not good enough for you.”

  “Will,” Gretchen said. “I liked you from the very moment I laid eyes on you. There you were, in the drugstore, and you seemed so…I don’t know. Upset. I thought you were upset. I thought maybe I could brighten your day with a caramel apple. Then I smashed the whole tray into your chest, because, well, because you smelled so good, and your eyes were so mesmerizing.”

  “Stop it,” he said, his smile faltering.

  “Don’t you dare change for me,” Gretchen said firmly. “You change if you want, but you do it because it’s what you want. Not because you think I want someone besides the grumpy cowboy I met in that drugstore.”

  “How could you possibly want him?” Will asked, and she detected true surprise in his voice.

  “Because he’s perfect for me,” Gretchen said. “And he loves me, flaws and all. So I’ll love him, flaws and all.”

  Will chuckled and shook his head. “You’re my favorite person.”

  “Oh, I am not,” she said, pressing further into him.

  “No?”

  “No, that’s your mama, who I still haven’t met, by the way.” She lifted her eyebrows, clearly asking him when he was going to take her to the farm to meet everyone.

  “Mm, we can fix that.” He kneaded her even closer to him, and Gretchen stumbled as she tried to get her shoes between his boots. Their whole relationship had been filled with stumbles, and she embraced this one as they smiled at one another. “It’s Rissa’s night to cook. It’s a good day to come.”

  He slid his lips along her neck, and Gretchen roared to life. “One more thing,” she said, her voice hardly her own as airy as it had become with the reintroduction of his lips into her life.

  “Yeah? What’s that?”

  “Stop kissing me everywhere but in the right spot.” She tipped up and matched her mouth to his, the flames between them fueled by passion, love, and acceptance. Oh, how Gretchen missed kissing Will, and she hoped she’d never have to go another day of her life kissless.

  26

  Will couldn’t have planned a better kiss. This time, Gretchen had him pressed against the wall in the candy kitchen, but he didn’t mind a bit. He’d missed her far too much to focus on anything but her. Anything to let her know he wouldn’t disappear again. He wouldn’t walk away when she was stressed or when things got hard, even if she asked him to.

  He broke the kiss and whispered, “I love you,” before forming his mouth to hers again.

  She kissed him back in ways that said, I love you too, Will, but when she pulled away and said, “I love you too, Will,” it sure was nice to hear. Beyond nice.

  He smiled at her and touched his lips to her cheek. “I can’t kiss you here?” He moved his mouth to her ear, and she shivered in his arms. “Oh, this feels like a bad spot.”

  “Stop it,” she said with a giggle.

  Will sobered and looked at her. “You help your daddy on Tuesdays. Do you think he’d like to come to dinner at the farm too? He’d be welcome.”

  Her eyes widened, then filled with those tears again. Will’s heart couldn’t take more crying, because he knew every tear was his fault. “Don’t cry, baby,” he said sweetly, wiping her eyes for her. “Please, I hate it when you cry.”

  Gretchen smiled, and she was the loveliest creature in the whole world. “Don’t be so amazing then.”

  “I can go get your daddy. I took the afternoon off on the farm.”

  That sobered her up. “You did? And you didn’t ask me to skip work and go with you?”

  “That didn’t turn out so hot last time,” he said. “Or maybe it was too hot.” He shook his head and told himself to stop being cute. “Lee wanted me to switch out this game he bought, so I did that, and I’ve been thinkin’ about calling you or showing up at your house with your favorites, but then I just couldn’t drive by this place again without talking to you.”

  “Again?” Gretchen teased. “How many times have you been by?”

  “Just the one, to take the game back,” Will said. “And it was torture. Honestly, Gretchen, my life has been pretty terrible without you.”

  She smiled at him and took his face in her hands. When she did that, and coupled it with a smile, he felt seen and cherished at the same time. “I love you, Will Cooper.”

  He grinned back at her. “Are you going to call me Will Cooper from now on? Both names every time?” She’d done it a lot before kissing him.

  She burst out laughing and shook her head. “No.”

  “Shoot,” he said. “I kinda like it. Sounds real sexy.” He kissed her again, giggles and all, because it sure felt nice to be loved, and to love another person, and to not have to be perfect to do either.

  “Hello,” Will called into the farmhouse. “We’re here.” He kept a real steady hand on Reginald Bellows, who leaned on his cane on the right side and towed along his oxygen tank with his left hand.

  “Right over that little bump,” Will said. “You got it.” Reggie went in the house first, muttering about how of course he knew how to enter a house.

  Will smiled behind him and followed him into the farmhouse. Daddy came into the formal living room and foyer, his face all lit up. “Howdy,” he boomed. “Welcome to the farm.”

  “I’m not deaf,” Reginald said, and that made Will laugh. If Gretchen were here, she’d probably die from embarrassment and then chastise her father. Will had left her to do her caramel apples, and she’d promised to boogie out to the farm as soon as she could.

  “Daddy,” Will said through his chuckles. “This is Reginald Bellows. He’s Gretchen’s daddy. Reggie, this is my father, Wayne Cooper.”

  “It’s so nice to have you here,” Daddy said, still smiling. He had taken the volume of his voice down a notch, which was just more evidence that all the Coopers could change at any given point in their lives. He took Reggie’s arm as Will released him. “Come sit with me and Chrissy on the back porch. There’s a beaver in the pond building his hideout.”

  Reggie said something in his low, old-man voice that didn’t register in Will’s ears. He watched the two older men shuffle through the kitchen and past the long dining room table where the Coopers gathered for dinner every evening.

  “Lord, help us tonight,” Will murmured.

  Daddy and Reggie went outside, and Mama turned her head toward them. She tried to get up and couldn’t, which sent Will’s heart to the back of his throat. Daddy couldn’t manage them both, and Will jogged through the kitchen and outside.

  “Mama,” he said, arriving a bit breathless, though he’d definitely run much longer distances. “Let me help you.” Together, he got her to her feet, where she faced Reggie, plenty of her Texas charm flowing from her.

  “How wonderful you came,” she said, almost sounding like a queen. “Will has been telling us about you for weeks."

  "My mama," Will said. "Chrissy. Mama, this is Reggie.”

  He sure seemed to like her, because it was impossible not to love Mama the moment you met her. Will had seen it time and time again, especially before she got sick. Somehow, her losing her hair and not being able to get up only endeared her to others faster, and Reggie took her hand and kissed it before they all sat down.

  With their heavy sighs lifting up into the air, they faced the little pond off the back of the deck. No one said anything, and Will couldn’t wait to get old so he wouldn’t be expected to talk.

  “Oh, there he is,” Mama said, pointing. “See the ripples, Reggie? Will?”

  “I see ‘em, Mama,” Will said, watching the water ripple toward the shore. In that moment, he realized the pond he was looking at was the very one he’d dreamed about several nights ago. A month? Who knew when.

  But he’d seen this pond. There were no trees, like in the dream, and he walked to the edge of the deck and leaned over the railing. No deck chairs for him and Gretchen to sit in and watch the beaver build his den.

  “Will,” Mama said, and he turned back to her. She gestured for him to come sit down. “It’s your day off, son. Come tell us how Gretchen is doing.”

  He swallowed and shot a look toward Reggie. He wore the same disgruntled look on his face that he had when Will had shown up at the little house in the country. Will had asked him if he felt well enough to get in the truck and ride for twenty minutes and then put up with a very loud family dinner.

  Reggie hadn’t hesitated at all. He’d said, “I need my shoes,” and together, he and Will had located them and put them on.

  “She’s doing pretty good,” Will said. “I mean, I don’t know. I was there for maybe twenty minutes, and most of that was me yelling about her taking me as I am, her crying, a lot of apologizing, and then quite a bit of kissing.”

  He grinned at his mother as he sat beside her. She and Daddy sat on a swing bench that Daddy kept moving with his toe. Reggie sat beside Daddy in a zero-gravity chair, and Will had one on Mama’s right.

  He leaned it back, still smiling up into the sky. Well, he would if the back of the house didn’t have a huge roof that hung over the deck. That way, Mama could still sit outside if it was raining.

  “Oh,” Reggie said, blurting out the word. Will sank back to the ground, looking past his parents to find Queenie nosing Reggie’s hand. Or she had been. He’d pulled it back and was wiping it on his pants.

  “Queenie,” Will said, jumping to his feet. “Leave ‘im alone. Come sit by Mama.”

  “She can stay,” Reggie said, reaching out to pat the golden retriever now. “She probably just smells Howl. I once had a dog named Eastwood. He went everywhere with me.”

  “Even into the Army?” Will asked, returning to his chair.

  “I got ‘im from the Army,” Reggie said as if Will should’ve known that already. “Retired war dog. Came home with me when I retired too.”

  “That’s wonderful,” Mama said, and she was willing to let Queenie sit by Reggie and get scrubbed. It sure seemed like Reggie needed the dog, and Will smiled at them too.

  “Is that why Max named his cat Elvis?” Will asked, leaning his chair back again. He got it into the best napping position and locked it there.

  “Elvis?” Reggie chuckled. “No, Joan named that silly cat Elvis because she loved Elvis.”

  “Oh.” Will didn’t know what else to say. Max and his wife were separated, as far as he knew, and Gretchen was taking care of Max’s cat, because he had his hands full with three kids and no wife.

  “Max didn’t want to keep him after Joan left,” Reggie said, just stating facts. “Gretchen took the cat, and she doesn’t even like cats.”

  “Gretchen helps everyone,” Will said absently. He wanted to be the one to help her, and he wondered how he could do better at that. Bringing her father here surely would help, he hoped.

  “He could come live here,” Daddy said, surprising Will. He actually turned his head and cracked his eyes to look at his father. “We always need mousers in the barns.”

  “He’s an indoor cat, Dad,” Will said. “You should see what Gretchen feeds him. It’s like cut up salmon and mashed potatoes and peas.”

  Both Mama and Daddy looked at Will, about equal expressions of surprise there. “You’re kidding,” Mama said.

  “Mama,” Will said back. “What did you feed Queenie this morning?”

  “That’s different,” Mama said, squaring her shoulders and looking back out to the beaver den. “She needs her joint supplement.”

  “Yeah,” Will said dryly. “She needs it stuffed inside a peanut butter and banana sandwich.”

  “Used to feed Eastwood raw steak,” Reggie barked out. “That dog loved steak.”

  Will started laughing, and when his dad joined in, he felt freer and happier than he had in a long, long, long time.

  Now, he just needed Gretchen to show up so he could introduce her around to everyone in the family. He’d already sent them a stern text about being on their best behavior that night, to which Travis had replied with a laughing emoji. Lee had promised he would if Will wouldn’t say anything about taking the game to town for him, and Ford wouldn’t be there tonight so there’d be no oily dogs and no muddy boys.

  Mama was always nice, and Daddy was getting better. Clarissa and Spencer weren’t a problem, and Clarissa had given him permission to bring both Gretchen and Reggie to dinner. She was cooking, so Will only thought it fair to let her know there’d be two more mouths to feed.

  His mind drifted, and he imagined the Sunday family dinners with everyone there. Mama and Daddy, Clarissa and Spence. Trav and Shay, and him and Gretchen. Lee had a brunette at his side, and even Cherry had come home to celebrate…something.

  Will didn’t know what. He just knew he was happy in the vision, and he had Gretchen at his side, and all he needed was her, and all she needed was him.

  27

  Gretchen smelled the evidence of something brown, something baked, and something bite-worthy as soon as she got out of her van. She saw the handsome, grumpy cowboy coming toward her, and she promptly forgot everything else.