Iris paced around her living room, stopping every few feet to growl in the general direction of her phone. It’d been hours since she’d hung up on Declan, and instead of calming down, she found she was just getting more riled up.

Without warning, her mind flashed back to their first date since she returned to Long Valley, where she’d wanted to pace around while waiting for him to show up, but hadn’t dared. She smiled to herself, happy at least that she’d progressed to the point that she dared to pace her living room without a cane, without worrying about taking a tumble. Her balance was coming along quite splendidly, according to the doctor, and even according to her own high internal standards. 

Someday, she might be back to normal. Maybe.

But what was not coming along was her relationship with Declan. Stetson had proposed to Jennifer after knowing her for a week, and Wyatt had made a move on Abby damn quickly, too.

Whereas Declan had had years now – their entire lives, actually – and still wasn’t ready to make a move.

It was enough to make a girl want to wring some necks. Specifically, necks in the possession of Declan Miller.

A knock at her front door pulled her out of her thoughts, and her heart instantly jumped into her throat. It could be Declan, finally ready to tell her what the hell was going on in that head of his, or it could be one of her parents wanting to chat, or just a friend stopping by.

Please, God, let it be…

She pulled the door open.

Declan stood there. 

Oh thank God. 

But in his hands, he was holding up… 

“Pigs for Dummies?” Completely confused, she read the title out loud, and then moved her eyes up to Declan’s, his dark brown eyes studying her face carefully. When he didn’t say anything, she held the door wide open and gestured to him with a sweep of her hand. “C’mon in,” she said, the sweet spring air following him into the house. She started to close the door but decided on second thought to leave it open. 

It was lovely outside, and she needed some of that loveliness right now.

“Cookie, I’m sorry,” Declan said softly, laying the Dummies book down on her rocking chair and turning to take her hands into his. He brought them up to his mouth and placed a kiss on her knuckles. “You’re right. About everything.”

He blew out a breath and said quietly, “I need to tell you something, and you may hate me for keeping this from you all this time, but you have to know before you make any choices about your future.”

She nodded slowly, keeping her eyes pinned on him. Whatever it was, it was huge. Declan’s face didn’t look like this because he wanted to confess he turned in a library book three weeks late. She wasn’t going to like it, that much was clear.

Had he had a fling while he was up at the U of I, and had a secret love child stashed away up there? Was he cursed with some dread disease and was going to die in six months? Did he dream about starting a rock band and wanted to run away to LA?

Please don’t let it be LA. She couldn’t handle living in Los Angeles…

Turns out, she could imagine a lot of awful scenarios if left to her own devices, and she quickly began to wish that he’d hurry up and tell her what had him tied up in such knots, so she could only worry about one awful scenario instead of all of them.

“I am dyslexic.”

The words were a bombshell in the quiet of the house, but even as part of Iris’ mind spun with shock, the other part was tallying things up – tiny, isolated events that hadn’t made sense until just then. 

Him begging her to read his Spanish vocabulary out loud instead of making him do it. Refusing to put together flashcards, saying that they never helped him much. Studying the menu at a new restaurant carefully, and then ordering the same dish as her. Asking her what her class schedule was going to be, and then “coincidentally” having virtually the same class load as her.

Like the spinning of a lock on a safe, the last item clicked into place, and Iris looked back up at him. “You are so damn smart,” she breathed, staring at him with admiration.

“What?!” he stuttered. She could tell he’d been bracing himself for a reaction – any reaction – except for that one.

“Your coping skills are out of this world, you know that? Dammit, Declan, I cannot believe that as your tutor for four years, I never knew. Oh!” she yelped as the memory washed over her. “Lordy, no wonder you didn’t want to help me study my medical codes!” she exclaimed, laughing and clapping her hand over her mouth as she re-imagined that scenario from his point of view. “You ran out of here like your ass was on fire, and I was so damn confused. Meanwhile, you were so worried…you thought I’d think you were stupid, didn’t you?”

“Iris, I am stupid,” he said in that explaining-the-facts-of-life-to-a-small-child voice that she hated. She rather thought he was going to reach his hand out and pat her condescendingly on the head.

She beat him to it, and whacked him upside the head instead. “Oww!” he howled, rubbing the spot and staring at her in shock. “What was that for?”

“For being an idiot,” she informed him. “Declan, you’re not stupid. You’re an idiot, but you’re not stupid.”

He tilted his head to the side and said dryly, “Well gosh, now I feel better.”

She ignored him.

“Dyslexia is mostly found to be a genetic disease,” she told him. “So—”

“I was afraid of that,” he breathed, cutting her off, his eyes wide. “Oh God, Iris, I can’t have kids. I can’t make them stupid like me.”

She hit him upside the head again.

“Declan!” she hollered. “You’re going to listen to me if I have to hogtie you to a chair with a gag in your mouth to make it happen.”

“Hogtie?” he repeated, a grin breaking out across his face, despite the seriousness of the situation. “At a time like this, you’re making puns? I know you want me to raise pigs, but I think this is a little extreme.”

She ignored his attempts at levity. She was not going to let him sidetrack her. “Were you ever officially diagnosed with dyslexia?”

He shook his head slowly, his smile fading from his face. “You’re only the second person – no, third person I’ve ever told about this,” he admitted.

She wondered for a moment who the other people were, and then decided to leave it alone for the moment. They had bigger fish to fry.

“There’s a lot they can do for people with dyslexia,” she said softly, reaching out and stroking his cheek. “The younger they realize that there’s a problem, the more they can do. Unfortunately, because boys tend to struggle with sitting still in class and school in general, learning disabilities are sometimes mistaken as simply ‘boys being boys’ and are not treated, when in fact, the boys are struggling with understanding the work being put in front of them. No one likes being bored.”

He nodded. “Elementary school was okay, because there was recess and art class and PE, but by time we got into junior high…I hated school. I got through it by being the nicest kid in class. The teachers all loved me – except Mrs. Westingsmith, of course. She never forgave me for those frogs – and so I think some of them passed me out of pure pity. They didn’t want to be the cause of a ‘nice boy like me’ being held back.”

“Yet another example of your coping skills, Dec. You made up for not being able to read by becoming the best behaved boy in class. The teachers loved you. That meant they were more likely to give you special attention, even in a classroom full of students who needed help, and even if they couldn’t drill reading into your head, they still passed you because they liked you.

“Which isn’t a ringing endorsement of our educational system, that’s for sure, but Declan, it is a ringing endorsement of your coping skills.”

She took his hand and walked him over to the couch and sat him down, staring at him intently. She felt like if she could just drill her eyes straight into his, he could truly understand what she was about to tell him, and take it to heart. 

“They’ve done studies of twins, and even with one twin having dyslexia, the chances of the other twin having it too are only about 60% or so. Dyslexia is right in there with brain injuries – the scientists know more about what they don’t know, than what they do know. The more they learn, the more they realize what they still have left to learn.

“The important part that you need to worry about, Declan, is that it isn’t a life sentence. It isn’t any indication of your intelligence level. It’s simply your brain pathways not connecting correctly. You didn’t screw up. You’re not stupid. And you don’t have to hide it. It simply is what it is.”

“I’ve always hated that saying,” he said in a tremulous whisper. 

“Me too,” she admitted with a grin. “With a passion. Knowing that something was out of my control? Worst feeling ever.” She sobered up and asked quietly, “So your whole song and dance about Millers being row crop farmers, not pig farmers…you were intimidated by the idea of learning something new?”

He nodded, his chocolate brown eyes growing even darker. “My dad taught me how to grow crops. I’ve been trained for this career my whole life. And if a new question pops up, I ask Austin or a seed salesman or my brothers. I don’t have to learn anything new, not from the ground up, that is. It’s…terrifying to think about learning about something so completely different.”

“But you want to.” She said it as a statement, not a question, but he nodded anyway.

“Pigs are so damn smart. Way smarter than I’ll—”

She whacked him upside the head.

“They’re really smart animals, just like me,” he finished dryly. 

She grinned at him. “You’re getting better by the minute. Any day now, you’ll actually realize that you’re one of the smartest men I know.” He shot her a doubtful look and she winked. “After all, you had the smarts to fall in love with me.”

He laughed and his arms shot out to pull her close against him. She tumbled against his plaid button-up shirt-covered chest, breathing in the scent that was masculine and amazing and all Declan.

“I’d love to help you learn about pigs,” she said, muffled against his strong chest. “I could sit and read Pigs for Dummies out loud to you while you cooked dinner. This seems like a fair division of labor to me!” She could feel his laughter vibrate through his chest.

“I should’ve known that getting out of cooking was going to end up in this conversation somehow,” he groused jokingly. He held her tight against him, stroking his hands through her hair lightly.

“It was so tough, growing up dyslexic,” he said softly into the quiet room. “I don’t know if I could bear to put a child through that.”

“Well,” she said, pulling back a little and looking him straight in the eye, “first off, we’ll know to look for the signs, instead of just letting the kid flounder. Second, although your kids will be genetically more likely to be dyslexic than if they’re born to parents without dyslexia, it really isn’t a for-sure thing. All of us have positives and negatives that we’re going to pass on to our kids. I mean, just think – some poor kid is going to be ‘blessed’ with my sense of direction! They’re gonna get lost at every recess.”

He laughed quietly at that, and she grinned back at him. Her heart swelled so big, she wasn’t sure it’d stay contained in her chest. “Declan Miller, I love you. All of you. Your thoughtfulness, your work ethic, your moral code, your huge heart. And your brains. I don’t know that I’ve ever met someone as good as you at dealing with the shitty hand life gave you, and still continuing on with a smile on your face.”

He let out a roar of laughter and she jerked back in surprise. “What?” she asked, cocking her head to the side in confusion.

“You…” he gasped. Finally, he sat up straight and reached out to cup her face in his hands. “Iris, I could say exactly the same thing about you – word for word.” She opened up her mouth to argue – after all, her injuries only happened in the last year; she hadn’t been cursed with them her whole life like he had – but he placed a finger against her lips to stop her. “I know you don’t see you the way I do, or hell, the way the rest of the world does. But please believe me when I say that you are truly something special, Iris Blue McLain.”

He fumbled around in his pocket for a moment, until he finally found something and pulled it out.

A small, felt-covered box.

Oh God, oh God, oh God…

He scooted off the couch and onto the floor, dropping to one knee and looking up at her. “I bought this ring a long time ago.” Breathe, Iris, just breathe… “Back when we were at college together, actually. I know it seems like if I’d had this ring for that long, I could come up with a more elaborate proposal than this, but Iris, I’ve finally realized that none of that matters. All that matters in this world is that you love me. Iris, will you marry me?”

She threw herself forward, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him again and again, crying tears of joy as she whispered, “Yes, yes, yes,” between every kiss.

Finally, she was home. She was where she wanted to be. 

She was in Declan’s arms. And that was all that mattered.