I still love you.

Shane hadn’t realized how liberating those three little words could be. How powerful they were. Everything inside him softened and the anger that had come back this past week melted away.

She stood before him in simple cutoffs and tank top the color of butter, and she was the most heavenly sight he’d ever seen.

“Of course,” he managed to push through his throat. And though only a truck length separated them, it felt like leagues to him. He took a step and the next thing he knew Robin landed in his arms, her breath heating the fabric along his collar, and her tears tracking down her face.

“I called Sunnyside,” he said, closing his eyes in pure bliss right there on the front lawn. “They wouldn’t hire you. And Levi wouldn’t call me back.”

She pulled away slightly, just enough to look into his face. Cinna whined and Arthur came closer too. “You called Sunnyside Farms?”

“I was trying to bring you back to me.”

“Did you talk to Dwayne too?”

“No,” he said. “Kurt mentioned you’d already come back to the ranch.” He shuffled his feet as she aligned their hands. She didn’t head for the cabin, but for the lane that led back to the entrance. “I was real mad you came to talk to him and you didn’t text me or anything.”

More negative emotions released with the admission. He was learning that he couldn’t hold onto things, that if he spoke them out loud he didn’t have to experience them over and over again.

“And I wasn’t sure you believed me about Levi sayin’ he should hire a full time farrier, so I called him too.” Shane gave a half-shrug, wondering how this Saturday had been chosen as the one to change his life. God obviously heard and answered prayers, and he snuck a look at Robin. “So what did Levi say?”

“He’s givin’ me three days a week at the stables.” She lifted her chin toward the sky. “And I got Patsy at Sugar and Spice to let me come do classes for her camps every Tuesday, and Dwayne’s agreed to two days.”

Worry crashed through Shane when he should be grateful. “Robin, that’s six days a week.”

“I always work six days a week. And hey, no Sundays, so we can go to church.”

Though he had been going every week since she’d left, he said, “I don’t get every Sunday off.”

She paused and Shane kept his eyes on the horizon. “It sorta feels like you’re not happy I worked things out.”

“What? No.” He faced her and ran his hands down the sides of her face. “Of course I am.” Her beauty made him ache, but it was so much different than the brokenhearted pain he’d been dealing with for weeks.

“You haven’t said I love you. You haven’t asked where I’ll live.”

“Kurt said you asked about pullin’ up here again. I guess I just assumed.”

Robin stepped into his arms and pressed her cheek against his chest. The world seemed right when she stood in his arms like this, both dogs sniffing something along the side of the road, and the sky so blue overhead.

“I’m not living here,” she said, and Shane pulled away.

“So tell me where you’ll be.”

“Levi offered me a home site on his orchard as part of my compensation.”

Surprise bolted through Shane, though he wasn’t sure why. Levi Rhodes was very wealthy, running the huge boarding stable as well as his family’s thriving peach orchards.

“That’s great,” he said. It was only fifteen minutes to the orchards, and that was a heck of a lot closer than Round Rock.

“I have to pay my own utilities, but that’s okay. I should be able to afford it.”

So many things marched through Shane’s mind. He landed on, “Will you keep the tiny house? Or are you going to build something on Levi’s land?”

“I’m keeping the tiny house,” she said. “I don’t think it was an invitation to build there.”

“Mm hm.” They started walking again, and the serene Saturday seemed at odds with the clashing questions inside Shane.

“What about us?” he asked.

“What about us?”

“Do you have room for me in the tiny house?” He took a deep breath, everything about to come spilling out. “You know I have nothing to offer you, right? Just my job here. My loud-mouthed brothers who eat too much. If we get married, I’ll have to move in with you.” He sighed, glad his thoughts were between them now. “I personally think I’ll fit in the house with you, although Cinna adds a fourth member.”

Robin blinked up at him. “If we get married?”

So that was what she’d latched onto. He could see the hurt right there in her eyes. “I want to marry you,” he said, his emotions coloring his voice. “But you know I’m not rich like Levi, right? It might take me a while to save up to buy you a ring.”

“I don’t care about a fancy ring,” she said. “I wouldn’t even be able to wear it while I work.”

“What about when we have kids?” he asked. There were so many things they hadn’t quite talked about in their thirty-five days together. “Do you even want kids?”

She swallowed and nodded. “A whole house full of them.”

“With your house, that would be one, and it would have to sleep on the couch,” he said, smiling. He leaned down, the urge to kiss her powerful. “We have a lot more to talk about, but I want you to know how much I love you, Robin.”

His lips trailed along the bare skin from her shoulder to her jaw. Her hands came to his shoulders, claiming him, and he enjoyed the sensation of belonging to her. Then he claimed her mouth, and all his fears for the future evaporated.

They’d make it work. Whatever they had to do, they’d do. Shane knew, because kissing Robin was the most magical and most beautiful thing he’d ever done.

Eleven long days later, Shane woke before dawn as usual. He made coffee in the kitchen as usual. He let Cinna out as usual.

But today, everything in his life would change. Today, big things were happening around the ranch. Today, Robin was set to move back to Grape Seed Falls.

She’d been up in Three Rivers, working for Dwayne’s cousin on a much larger cattle ranch. An equine therapy facility sat on the property too, and she’d gushed about the horses there and how easy they were to work with.

Not only that, but a champion barrel racer had established a breeding and training operation at the ranch too, which meant “more horses!” Robin had told him. In their late-night conversations while she’d been gone, she wondered if she could trade some of her days working for Dwayne for working for Squire Ackerman.

She’d told Shane all about the sprawling ranch with two homesteads, all the barns and facilities and trailers. “And he employs thirty-two cowboys, Shane.”

He wasn’t sure if Robin was suggesting they both move to Three Rivers and put roots down there. When he’d asked her point blank, she’d said, “I just think it’s a good relationship to maintain, and there are opportunities for both of us on a ranch like his.”

But Shane didn’t want to leave Hill Country. Three Rivers was too far from his mother and brothers, and he really liked working for Dwayne. But Squire and his family were helping with Robin’s move today, and Shane would be meeting them. If Robin wanted to maintain a good relationship with the Ackermans, Shane could do his part.

So he got his morning chores done as quickly as possible and loaded Cinna into the ranch truck to get on over to Levi’s orchard. He’d arrive before anyone else, but he didn’t mind. There was something peaceful about the breeze whispering through the peach trees, the distant bleating of Levi’s goats, and the piece of land where Robin would be parking her tiny house that seemed like it was in the middle of nowhere and yet connected to everything.

He parked off to the side, noting the new, white gravel for just such things. There was ample room for a few vehicles, and a cement pad four times larger than what Robin needed for her house.

This was a foundation for a home, and Shane walked the perimeter of it, wondering if he and Robin would ever be able to buy a permanent house or not. As they’d talked through having children, and if she’d keep working when they did, over the past ten days, a lot of changes had been brought up.

For one, once he moved off the ranch, he wouldn't have access to the truck he’d just driven over. Two, their income would be reduced if she didn’t work as much. Three, there were just so many unknowns that it was hard to talk about and plan for. After all, they couldn’t predict when they’d even get married, let alone start a family.

Shane sat on the edge of the cement pad, his thoughts rotating slowly in his mind. A sense that not everything had to be planned moved through him, and he seized onto it. Robin’s nature wasn’t to plan; she wanted the tiny house so she could experience an adventure any old time she wanted to.

Their conversations had been hard for her, Shane knew, but he’d been glad she’d been willing to have them. He could have faith that everything would work out when it was supposed to.

So when two trucks finally turned down the dirt road toward him, one of them Robin’s big white behemoth with the blue tiny house behind it, Shane stood, happier than he’d been before.

And it hadn’t taken talking to his father or chatting with a counselor over the Talk To Me app. All it had taken was a little bit of patience, a lot of prayer, and the love of Robin Cook.