“You know I love you, Robyn, but you’re being a complete hothead about this whole thing. So what if Ben was engaged before? So what if he didn’t tell you? Did you ever think that maybe, it just didn’t matter to him anymore because he was finally with the woman he really did want to be with? Or that maybe he was scared you would react exactly how you did, and he’d lose you before he had a chance to show you he loved you?”
Robyn just held the picture and stared down at the kids under the tree. What did Vicki know? She had never been in love.
“So I’m just supposed to pretend he didn’t mention being engaged before, or that he’d already chosen a woman he wanted to spend his life with? And, if she hadn’t broken it off, he would never have ended up here, making me believe he wanted to be with me?”
“Things happen for a reason, Robyn. I truly believe that. And I believe he found out before it was too late that the woman he was meant to be with, was the one he’d lost touch with all those years ago. Don’t you think it’s a bit funny how everything worked out? The house goes up for sale after how many years of being a rental, right around the time when he’s had a chance to move past the broken engagement. He came to see the house, and you, one more time. He was led back here, Robyn. The same way my hands were led to the back corner of that closet. Don’t throw it away because your pride is a bit hurt that maybe he’d thought he’d found the right woman before you. What matters is what happened after, and when he came back here.”
Robyn didn’t know what to say. Her hands shook as she held the picture between her fingers. “Even if I did want to try fixing things, I’m too late. I wasn’t very nice to him and wouldn’t even let him have a chance to explain. He likely thinks I’m crazy.”
Vicki reached over and slapped her leg gently. “Well, we all do, Robyn.” She was grinning when Robyn turned to glare at her with her mouth open. “But he loves you. I’m sure he can get past your crazy.”
Robyn rolled her eyes as she laughed with her sister. “Thanks.” She looked down at the picture one more time, realizing how much everything Vicki had said was true.
“You know, if I do decide to give him another chance, and we get married, you’ll be homeless. Unless you want to live with newlyweds.”
Vicki laughed and shook her head. “Nope. I’ve already talked to Brooke. They’re moving into their house next week, so her apartment over the clinic will be mine. I never believed for a second you and Ben wouldn’t end up together.”
She looked down at the picture once more, realizing the truth in her sister’s words. She had nothing to lose by giving Ben a chance to explain. But what if she was too late and he didn’t even want to bother?
She jumped to her feet, with Vicki standing up beside her. “Can you let Mom know I’m not going to make it to family game night tonight?”
Vicki laughed from behind her as she raced to the door. “Thanks, Robyn. You know I’m going to have to deal with all the questions from everyone.”
But Robyn didn’t care. She wanted to see Ben one more time to see if there was a chance for them to fix things. If his grandma had believed their futures were tied together, and had brought him back here to her somehow, she owed it to the other woman to at least try.
As she flung open the door to race out to her car, she ran straight into the hard chest of someone about to knock on the door. His hands reached out to steady her as she fell backward.
“Ben!”
Chapter Twenty
She stepped back and brought her hands up to her chest, trying to get her racing heart back under control. “What are you doing here, Ben?”
As soon as she said it, she realized how cold it sounded. Especially when she’d actually been about to go to him.
He stood completely still in the open doorway as he watched her closely. “Well, I’ve spent the past two weeks going over and over everything in my head and trying to figure out how I could have done things differently. I’ve beaten myself up so many times in my mind, I’m sure I actually have bruises. Today, I just started driving and before I’d even realized it, I was coming into Quinn Valley.”
She took a deep breath and stood back to let him in the door. “You may as well come in then.” Why was she still acting so distant and angry when all she really wanted to do was throw herself into his arms and tell him nothing else mattered?
He walked inside and looked around. “I see you’re all moved in. Everything looks good.”
In all the time she’d known Ben, things had never been so awkward between them. She wondered if they’d ever be able to get past it enough to talk things over and figure out what the future held for them.
“Thanks. The house is a bit bigger than the small apartment we moved from, so it’s going to take some time to get the furniture to fill it up.” She stood nervously in front of him, unsure how to break the icy tension in the room.
Thankfully, Vicki came bouncing into the room, and stopped dead when she saw them both standing there. Her mouth opened into an “o” and she turned to look at Robyn. “So, I guess you never made it very far. I’ll still let Mom and Dad know you won’t be coming.” She looked at Ben and smiled. “It’s nice to see you, Ben. I’m just heading over to our parent’s for game night, so you guys have the house to yourselves.”
Thanks for being subtle, Vicki.
As they watched her sister go out the door, the silence filled the room like they were both trying to think what to say.
“Ben, I…”
“Listen, Robyn…”
They both spoke at the same time, lifting some of the tension as they smiled and laughed nervously.
“Robyn, let me say what I came all this way to say. I know you don’t want to talk about it, and you feel like I lied to you, which in a way, I guess I did. So I want you to know how sorry I am about that. I never did it intentionally. Well, maybe a little. I didn’t want you to ever think you were a rebound, or a second choice. I was hoping I’d have the time to show you how much I cared about you before you ever found out about Lisa.” He pushed his hand through his hair and looked like he was struggling to find the words.
She wanted to tell him it was okay, and he was forgiven, but somehow, she thought he needed to finish everything he wanted to say.
“Lisa was never the woman who would have made me happy, and I know that now. When she broke off our engagement, I was hurt. But nothing like what I felt when you told me to leave that day.” His throat moved as he swallowed and slowly made his way closer to her. His chest rose with every breath he took, and the heat from his body wrapped around her.
“You have never been a second choice, Robyn. You’ve always been the only choice, and the one I wanted to be with. Do you honestly think a thirteen-year-old boy would agree to sign a marriage contract with a girl he didn’t like?” He reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled something out. She gasped as she recognized the same picture she was still holding in her hand.
“Where did you get that?”
“Your grandma gave it to me. I’ve looked at it so many times since I left, and every time I wondered how two people who mattered so much to the other could have ever let that slip away.”
She slowly lifted her hand and showed him her own picture. “Vicki found this in the back of the closet in what would have been the guest room when your grandma lived here. Read the back of it.”
He took it from her and gave a short laugh as he looked between the pictures. When he turned it over and read the words, her heart was pounding in her ears. He slowly lifted his eyes to hers.
“My grandma was right, Robyn, even if I might have forgotten it for a few years. I do love you. I always have.”
Her mouth went dry and everything she wanted to say was stuck. He set the pictures on the end table beside him and reached out to take her hands in his. “I didn’t want you to marry me because you were the next best option. I wanted to marry you because I know in my heart, you’re the only one I ever wanted to marry. There’s a reaso
n I came back here when I did, and that was because I needed to be reminded of where my heart had always been. And the moment I saw you walk out on the porch that first day, it came back to me. I want to marry you, because you’re the only girl who has ever held my heart. I guess I was just hoping I could convince you to marry me before you realized you could do a whole lot better than to end up with me.” He smiled sadly as he tried to make light of it all.
Robyn shook her head and squeezed his hands that were held between them. She was finally able to speak. “Ben, there is no one else in this world I could ever imagine ending up with. It might have taken me a bit longer to admit it to myself, but I know you’re the only one I could love with my whole heart. I’m sorry for getting so upset over something so silly, but I guess my pride was hurting, so I wanted to hurt you back.”
He let go of one hand and brought it up to cup it next to her cheek. “Did you just say you loved me?” His voice rumbled in his chest as he stepped closer and put his other arm around her waist to pull her against him.
She smiled up at him as she wrapped her own around his shoulders. “I did. And I was just on my way to Lewiston to tell you that.”
He grinned down at her and wrapped his fingers into her hair. “I’ll never get tired of hearing you say that.”
She stood up on her tiptoes and reached up to pull his head down to hers. “Good, because I’ll never stop saying it. I love you, Ben Tilney. And I always will.”
As his lips found hers, she knew without him needing to speak, how much he loved her.
Their futures had been planned out for them all those years ago without them even realizing it. They’d found their way back to each other and she knew it was exactly where her heart was supposed to be.
Epilogue
“Stanley, get down! Joel, will you get over here and control your dog before he eats everything on the table.”
Robyn laughed as she watched her mother trying to shoo the large dog away from the food table they had set out in the backyard. She’d been worried that she would never have enough room back here for the entire Quinn clan, but Ben had insisted there was plenty of space for everyone. They’d decided to throw a beginning of summer barbecue as a housewarming party, now that she was finished with the renovations and they’d invited everyone. She hadn’t actually expected them all to show up, but surprisingly every single Quinn was here.
They’d also invited Ben’s parents and aunts, uncles and cousins, but they only added up to about ten extra people. And Robyn was sure they were likely ready to run for the hills at the overwhelming amount of craziness happening around them.
As though on cue, Travis let out a loud whoop of excitement. “I got a point! You’re going down now!”
Robyn laughed at the look of annoyance on the young girl’s face who was playing bean bag toss against him. Claire, Haylee’s thirteen-year-old sister, was still beating Travis soundly. And obviously wasn’t too concerned about his one point he’d just gotten as she rolled her eyes and shook her head at him before throwing again.
“Where do you want me to set these sopaipillas?” Ciran walked over to the table with his arms full of food. “And don’t worry, Stanley, I didn’t forget yours.” He grinned at the dog who was now following right on his heels.
Her mom led Ciran into the house, saying she didn’t want any of those around that dog. As they walked away, Ben came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. “How many Quinns can you fit in one backyard at a time? Makes my family seem pathetically inadequate.”
Ben still hadn’t moved here fully, but he came on the weekends and had completed all the work on the house. He was making sure Bill was prepared to take over the part of the business in Lewiston before he moved here permanently.
She leaned back into his embrace and let him kiss her ear. “I can’t wait until we can do this every day.”
He laughed, his breath tickling her skin around her neck. “What? Stand here in the yard and watch Travis try to beat a teenage girl at a game of bean bag toss?”
“No! I mean just stand here like this in each other’s arms, in our own yard, knowing you don’t have to leave and go back to Lewiston.”
He held her for a moment longer, then let go and reached around for her hand. “Come on. I want to show you something.”
He was pulling so hard, she almost tripped over Stanley as he raced past with his taco in his mouth. She laughed as she tried to keep up. They went around the side and into the front of the house, where thankfully it was much quieter. Now it was just the two of them, and he led her over by the tree.
Her eyes pulled together in confusion as she looked down and saw the tin container they’d dug out of the ground over a month ago. “What are you doing with this?”
He crouched down, bringing her with him. “Well, I thought we should bury it again. This time we can put stuff in from now and open it with our kids someday.”
Her heart jumped at how nonchalantly he mentioned having kids with her. It proved to her that he was seriously in it for the long haul.
“What can we put in it this time? I don’t have anything.”
He opened it up and she saw a few things already inside. There was one of the pictures of the two of them burying it all those years ago, while the other one was in a frame now sitting on the fireplace in her home.
“I wanted to put the painting I’d done on our second date in here, but it wouldn’t fit. So I just took a picture of it, and plan to burn the original in our first bonfire.”
Robyn laughed as she looked at the picture of his painting, which sadly didn’t look at all like it had supposed to. Hers was hanging in the hallway because it had turned out beautifully.
“What else is in here?” She moved things around, noticing screws and nails, a piece of the orange cupboards they’d torn out of the house, her original hair scrunchy that was no longer elasticated enough to hold her hair, and a piece of paper at the bottom. She pulled it out and read it.
“Dated today, on June tenth, two-thousand and nineteen, Robyn Quinn and Benjamin Tilney make this oath.”
Her eyes flew up and she grinned excitedly. “I didn’t even realize it was the exact same date as the original, except fourteen years later!”
He nodded proudly. “Yes, it is. Why do you think I was so insistent we have this barbecue today? It’s our marriage contract anniversary.”
She couldn’t believe he’d remembered that. Her eyes went back down to the paper.
“We promise to love each other no matter what. For the rest of our lives, we will take care of and be there for the other person. No one and nothing will ever come between us, not even silly arguments or Robyn being too bossy.”
She raised an eyebrow as she looked at him in annoyance. “Seriously? You were starting out so romantic, using the same words rephrased to fit with now, and you have to throw that in there too?”
As she looked at him grinning widely, under this tree, she had a flashback to that boy who had been here with her the first time. He’d always been by her side.
“Just keep reading.”
“If it should happen that by today’s date, if we aren’t married, we solemnly swear that we will marry each other. We know that we are already best friends, and always have been. We can build a life together filled with love, kids, and homemade oatmeal chocolate chip cookies every day.”
She glanced at him again. “Seriously?”
But she kept reading, wondering what else she was possibly going to be agreeing to if she signed it.
“By signing this paper, today, we agree that with our family and friends around us, we will get married, right here, right now. No more waiting. Because Ben loves Robyn more than anything and doesn’t want to wait another second.”
Her breath caught as she realized what he was saying. Slowly she lifted her eyes that were becoming blurred from the happy tears she was fighting.
There he sat in front of her, on his bended knee, holding a ring in a box. “
This was my grandma’s ring. I know she would have wanted you to have it.” He took it out and reached out for her hand. “Will you marry me, Robyn? Right now?”
She didn’t know what to say as he pushed the ring onto her finger. It was a beautiful blue sapphire surrounded by diamonds. All she could do was nod her head because she was afraid if she tried to speak, she would break down in tears.
He handed her a pen and held the paper on his knee for her to sign, then he took it and signed it too. Carefully, he folded the paper and placed it inside the tin before lowering it into the hole he’d already dug.
As he pushed the dirt over top, he looked at her and smiled. “Now it’s been signed and buried, so there’s no going back on it.”
He took her hand and they stood back up in front of the tree. “You have no idea how happy you’ve made me, Robyn. Now let’s go get married.”
“But…I don’t have anything ready. I don’t have a dress, or flowers, or anything…” She realized she’d already said yes, but how could she just do it now, without being prepared?
All her Pinterest boards she’d saved over the years for her perfectly planned wedding flashed before her eyes.
But as he led her into the backyard, and she saw their families all standing around waiting eagerly, obviously having already been let in on the plan, she realized everything she needed for her dream wedding was standing right there in front of her.
“Are we ready?” Her new neighbor, Reverend Coleman walked over to them with a wide smile on his face. He was already dressed to perform the ceremony.
She smiled and looked over at Ben. “I’ve never been more ready. This is everything I’ve ever wanted.”
And she knew in her heart how true it was.
* * *
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Remembering Romance: Quinn Valley Ranch Book 17 Page 9
