bottle of Coke from the fridge in her office. He held out the pills, and Tam took them. She swallowed it all with the cola she loved, and she grinned at Blaine. “Thanks.”
He smiled back and took the Coke bottle from her. “How long are we lookin’ at?” He surveyed the saddle tree, and so did Tam.
“We’re gonna run,” Cara said. “The jeweler is open now.”
“Okay.” Tam left her tools and walked Cara and Chris outside. The sun shone down merrily, and she hugged them both and thanked them for coming.
Cara grabbed her a second time and said, “I see the way Blaine looks at you. He’s definitely going to ask you soon.”
“You think so?” Tam pulled away and looked into her sister’s eyes.
“He’s probably just making a plan for how to do it.”
Tam nodded, but she knew Blaine wasn’t making a plan for an elaborate proposal. He hated stuff like that, and truth be told, so did she. Blaine was probably so far inside his head, he was trying to figure out if he should ask her or if he shouldn’t. That would take a while, and Tam told herself to be patient.
“Have fun at the jeweler,” she said. “Text me pictures, okay?”
“I will,” Cara said with a squeal as she ran to the passenger door of Chris’s truck. Tam wondered what it would be like to be a decade younger and still so hopeful. Tam felt like she was viewing the world through jade-colored glasses. She watched Cara and Chris leave, and she went back inside.
“I’m almost done,” she said. “I need thirty more minutes.”
“Okay,” Blaine said, looking up from his phone. “Trey’s got a crew going over there now, so we’ll just go with the second wave, after lunch.”
“Oh, are you going to buy me lunch?” Tam grinned at him, and Blaine grinned right on back.
“Tell me what you want,” he said. “I’ll make it happen.”
“I know you will.” Tam stepped right into his arms, tipped her head back, and kissed him. This was the hello she’d wanted to give him when he’d first arrived, and he took her face into his hands and kissed her back.
“Blaine,” she whispered.
“Mm?” He swayed with her, his forehead resting against hers. “What are you thinking about us?”
“A lot of things,” he said, a completely maddening and vague answer. “You?”
“I’m thinking my little sister went to the jewelry store with her boyfriend so they could look at diamonds, and I’m thinking I’d like you to take me to do that.” Tam expected Blaine to pull away and search her face, but he didn’t. He ran his hands down her back to her waist, where he tucked one hand in her back pocket and the other through the loops on her apron.
“I can do that,” he said.
Tam stepped back and looked up at him. “Really?”
“If that’s what you want.”
“No,” Tam said. “It’s not about what I want. It’s about what we want.”
Blaine smiled down at her. “Do I propose at the jewelry store?”
“No,” Tam said, something stinging in her chest.
“Let me make sure I get it right,” he said. “We go shopping together, so you can pick out the ring you want. Then I keep it until an undisclosed time, at which point, I ask you to marry me. You’ll squeal and say yes, and then you’ll start pulling out your folders that detail the wedding of your dreams.”
Tam smiled at him, the sting completely gone now. “Yeah, that’s about right,” she said. She sobered. “How long have you been thinking about this?”
“About what?”
“Marriage. Proposing.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “You?”
“Since you kissed me at Spur’s wedding,” she said, wrapping her fingers around the back of his neck. “That was a great kiss.”
Blaine chuckled and dropped his head. She wished he would say more, but he didn’t.
She stepped out of his arms, the familiar taste of disappointment on the back of her tongue. “You did get one part a bit wrong,” she said, picking up her tool to shave down the leather again. “I have folders with wedding plans, but I won’t be making them myself. I plan to lay them out and have a discussion with my fiancé. Then we’ll plan the wedding we both want.”
She didn’t look at him, her focus staying on the saddle as she trimmed the outside of it so it wouldn’t chafe the horse. She took the cut and shaved leather to the warm water tub and soaked the leather.
With it nice and pliable, she folded it