She’s My Kind Of Rain (Rawlings Ranch #1)

Chapter 35

35

DAISY - JULY 26, 2004

He chose me. I didn’t even ask, and he chose me. My heart floods with so many emotions, but the one that weighs the most is regret.

“I shouldn’t have ever let it get so far that either of us had to choose,” I manage to get out. “I should have seen this entire scenario coming a mile away—and honestly I did, but I just couldn’t avoid it—and I have wanted you since the moment you kissed me and I have loved you for nearly as long.”

Everything is building in my chest, and I feel like I can’t think clearly enough to explain how I feel, yet the words come pouring out of me like they have been lingering for a lifetime. “I can’t let you do this, Sawyer. I can’t let you choose me.”

His eyes fill with sadness, but I continue anyways, “You are so incredibly special…” I reposition myself so that I am sitting in his lap with my back against the armrest of the sofa and I hold his face in my hands, looking deep into his beautiful green eyes. “I don’t want the world not to hear your voice or miss out on what it feels like to be fully captivated by a song to the point that it’s palpable. I thought I had to be smack dab in the middle of music to feel something again. I thought that I would feel whole each time I met a new milestone, that I would feel complete at some point, and that helping make dreams come true would be my dream come true. But it’s not, not if it ends with you having to decide. I can’t spend my whole life thinking you will regret this.”

His brow furrows, and I pull him in, allowing all of my love for him to be delivered in a kiss. Our tongues caress one another and the butterflies he always makes me feel return to my stomach. I release his face and lean away from him to meet his gaze.

“You’re the music, Sawyer. You’re the missing piece I have been trying to find. You’re the missing piece of my soul I have been trying so desperately to fill.” He leans in and kisses me again, but I can no longer contain something that has been on my mind since our very first date. I can’t stand the idea of waiting one more moment to say it. “I love you and I choose you. I don’t want anything that doesn’t allow me to have you, and even more, I don’t want anything that doesn’t allow you to give the world your gift.”

“Daisy, you have spent your entire life getting to this point, don’t make a choice this big worrying about me regretting mine. The only thing I want is for you to be happy. The only thing I want is you.” Nothing about his tone or demeanor has even an ounce of hesitation. I can tell he means everything he says not only by his words but in everything he’s ever done to show me he cares. From the simple gesture of getting ice cream before it’s even noon—just because I might want to—to sharing details about himself and those he holds dear to his heart. They’re small things that some might feel are trivial or meaningless, but they mean the world to me.

I lean into his shoulder and we sit in silence, presumably both thinking through our choices and what the outcome of those decisions will mean. I let out a soft laugh, and I can feel Sawyer’s attention brought directly back to me as he leans his head down atop mine.

“A laugh is not what I expected to hear after seeing that cover this morning.” This time we both laugh, most likely because neither of us ever dreamed of an outcome where we ended up on the front of a tabloid.

“I mean, isn’t it all a bit funny? Like where are the cameras? Can the joke be over?” I huff. “But, really I was laughing because now I understand my Dad’s decision. It only took like twenty years, but right up until today, I always felt this small piece of me that said he had to settle. That he didn’t really get a choice.” I shake my head at what I now don’t believe to be true. “They couldn’t take the music no matter what the situation was. Not then and not now.” I cuddle into his shoulder a bit closer. “You’re an easy decision. Heck, it doesn’t really even feel like a choice at all. That’s probably how he felt too. There’s always another job or way to use our talents, but there will never be another you.”

He kisses my head, a silent confirmation of what I’ve said. “Is that your Dad’s guitar?”

I turn my head towards the guitar and smile. “Yes, the one and only.”

“Can I play it?” His question is so simple, but given that we both know what it’s like to hold an object of such high importance, I know he doesn’t mean the question lightly.

I get up and grab the guitar, handing it to him as he scooches a bit closer to the edge of the sofa. Taking a seat, I lean my head back and listen to him strum, realizing this is the first time it has been played since my father passed away and finding comfort in the fact that it’s Sawyer.

He starts to sing the song he wrote about us, and a smile finds its way to my face. I listen to the lyrics and find little pieces of us in every line. My joy deepens, realizing that with him my entire life feels like a love song, even right now while we navigate the hardest parts. I find peace in the notes, and while I’m there, I try to find the answer to our situation.

My eyes scan Sawyer’s back, watching his shoulders slowly pulse up and down as he sleeps. Waking up next to someone who means so much to me is a wild feeling that I truly wasn’t expecting to see so soon in my life. I think over everything that happened yesterday and how often when something seems to be going right how many other things seem to go wrong. I let out a deep sigh, wishing that by some chance we could just have it all, but I know we can’t. I don’t regret my decision, in fact, I am one hundred percent sure of it, but part of me still feels guilty that Sawyer’s talent won’t be shared with the world. And I know he says he didn’t spend his life searching for fame or even to be in the music industry, but that doesn’t mean that he wasn’t meant to be.

I let out another deep breath and decide that a shower might help clear my thoughts. I do my best not to disturb Sawyer as I inch my way out of bed, tiptoeing across my room and into the hall toward my bathroom.

After a few minutes of the water running down my body, tears start to pour from my eyes. I take a seat on the floor of the shower, pulling my knees to my chest and begin to sob. All of my emotions from everything that has transpired bubble to the surface—a mixture of good and bad moments all rolled into one, and the overwhelming feelings physically affecting me now that I actually let them set in.

I hear the bathroom door open and try my best to compose myself, but the sound of the shower curtain swishes before I can literally pick myself up off the floor.

Concern resides in Sawyer’s stare. “Are you okay?”

I look up at him, gliding my face across my forearm to uselessly dry my tears. “Yeah, everything just hit me all at once.”

He turns to look around the room and grabs a towel, then reaches for the faucet and turns it off.

He extends out a hand to help me stand, wrapping me in a towel and then his arms. The weight of his hug enveloping my body sets me off again, and I begin to cry, but this time it’s a feeling of relief, a feeling that I don’t have to do this life alone. And for that, I am grateful.