"When you came to my farm last September," he began, "I was certain I knew what the rest of my life was going to look like. I'd raise Lily. I'd work the farm. I'd make sure she grew up knowing her mother had loved her. And I'd do all of it alone, because I thought that was the safest way to keep the promises I'd made."
Victoria reached for his hand. He continued, his voice steadier now.
"You didn't save me from my life. You didn't fix everything with money or turn me into someone else. You came back. You listened. You let me be afraid without deciding I was weak."
He swallowed, holding her gaze. "And somewhere in all those days, I started wanting a future that included you. Not because I needed somebody to rescue us. Because I love who we are together."
Her eyes were bright. Ethan slipped a small ring box from his coat pocket. He had bought the ring with money he set aside from the farm's improving income, choosing something simple and beautiful rather than trying to imitate the jewelry Victoria could have purchased without thinking.
"Victoria Hayes," he said, "would you marry me? Not to solve any of our problems. Not because my daughter needs a replacement for her mother or because your father once had a truly terrible idea. Just because I want to spend the ordinary days with you. The good ones, the hard ones, and the ones when the tractor behaves like a sick dinosaur."
Victoria laughed through tears. "Yes," she said. "Yes, Ethan. I would."
He slid the ring onto her finger, and they held each other while the music drifted across the square. There were no cameras waiting to capture the moment, no announcement prepared for a corporate audience, no people hired to applaud. Only a few people who knew them noticed the embrace. June looked up from the cookie table, saw Victoria's hand, and immediately covered her mouth in an entirely unsuccessful attempt to appear surprised.
When they told Lily, she considered the news for approximately five seconds before asking who would help her with the flowers. Ethan explained that they hadn't planned a ceremony yet. Lily said they could use the marigolds by the farmhouse because Claire had liked them. Victoria agreed, moved by the instinctive generosity with which the child included both the past and the future.
The following weeks were busy. Ethan and Victoria talked through practical questions that would have seemed unromantic in a movie but mattered enormously in real life. Where would they live? How would Victoria divide time between the city and Cedar Ridge? What would happen to the farm if one of them became ill or the business suffered another difficult season? How would they protect Lily's privacy while allowing her to participate in the family they were building?