Page 74 of Will to Run
He hangs up and smiles as he tucks his phone back into his pocket.
“There, dinner is taken care of.”
“I’m sorry, thanks for doing that. What are we enjoying tonight after I screwed up the plan?”
“Stop, it doesn’t matter. Our chefs always cook something for our staff. It’s not quite the same caliber as the stuff the patrons get, but it’s still astoundingly good. We are getting Wagyu beef fried rice.”
“What?” My mouth drops open. “I’d order that as a two-hundred-dollar meal.”
“Yeah,” he laughs, “not too shabby.”
“I was going to make spaghetti with jarred sauce. Mario wins.”
“So that will be about thirty minutes. In the meantime, I want to show you something.”
“Oh, really? Is it in your pants?” I joke before I take in the excited look on his face, and know he’s not being silly.
“Yes. Always, yes,” he laughs. “But in this particular instance, it’s something else.”
Grabbing my hand, he leads me through the cabin to the back door. As I exit, I look out over the plains and squint, trying to figure out what I’m looking at. When I realize what it is, the scene unfolding in front of me takes my breath away.
“What?” the word stutters out. At least a hundred elk are traveling in a loose line over the terrain. There’s a quiet rolling thunder as this brown river weaves across the landscape. I’m awestruck as I take it in. Without taking my eyes off them, a barrage of questions gets lobbed Jaxon’s way. “What are they doing?”
“It’s the migration.”
“Where are they going?”
“They go to higher pastures as the weather turns.”
“There are so many,” I say, knowing full well this will be my next painting. “Do they move all day?”
“No, just dawn and dusk. Pretty cool, right?” he says.
Turning to him and catching his eye, I just nod my head. “It’s… gosh, it’s beautiful.”
“I love experiencing this beside you, Della. Even though I’ve seen these things my whole life, it’s a different kind of captivating with you.”
“Thank you for sharing your world with me, Jaxon. I would hope I would have lifted my head from my canvas, but I was pretty engrossed in what I was doing, so I might have missed this. Can we sit out here for a little while and watch?”
“Let me get us a drink,” he offers, and I agree because this feels too big to miss. When he returns with two glasses of wine, he sits on the swing and drags me to sit with him, not letting go of my hand.
“This almost feels sacred. Like, I will never forget this for the rest of my life.”
For a moment, his eyes settle on mine, and it looks like he’s wrestling with his words. “Maybe you can come back and visit for a few weeks every year. Sunrise and elk migration.”
The moment he says it, the breath is stolen from my lungs. No. I don’t want to come back every year. I am not sure I want to leave at all. But that kind of thinking isn’t fair; it’s not part of the plan.
But what plan? I have no freaking plan. I can’t put Jaxon on the hook like that. There hasn’t been a word spoken about me staying, and I’m not sure he wants me to. Do I even want to?
Who am I kidding?
If the man propositioned me to stay at this very moment, I wouldn’t think twice before saying yes, knowing full well how crazy that is.
“What are you thinking?” he asks.
“Just how wonderful it is,” I lie. “All of it. You included.” I turn to smile at him and rest my head on the back of the swing, studying his face in the twilight. Maybe I’ll paint his perfect features after the elk migration. He leans in to kiss me tenderly, and this time, my breath is stolen for a different reason. Out of all the places I could have landed, I am the luckiest person in the world to have landed here.
We sit mostly in silence as we drink our wine and watch the show. When our Wagyu beef fried rice arrives, I can’t believe this is considered a lesser meal. It’s the most delicious thing I’ve ever eaten.
