My Cowboy Date Bonus Scene
Aspen
The walls in the living room hold a series of framed photographs that span the twenty years I’ve been married to Wilder. A few people tried to tell me in the beginning when we were newlyweds that the shine would wear off of our relationship and the heat would fade.
But it hasn’t. My cowboy still treats me the same way he did when he was pursuing me. Like he can’t wait to hold me. To laugh with me and to love me all night.
“Mom!” Our son bellows from the front yard. He’s seventeen now and over six feet tall like his father. He’s won several awards in rodeo events, including one earlier today and though girls are constantly texting him, he keeps saying he’s waiting for the right one.
I touch the photo I’d taken of our fourteen-year-old daughter Jenny with her arms crossed, glaring at her brother because he’d dared tease her about her crush on his best friend.
“Mom!” Gavin calls again and I hear his boots hit the porch.
I turn from the photos to walk outside as he reaches for the door. “You don’t have to yell. What is it?”
“I’m leaving to pick up Jenny.”
I frown. “Your sister didn’t say she was going anywhere.”
“Dad said she could go to her friend’s house after the rodeo.”
“Where is Dad and you don’t usually give her a ride.”
Gavin grins, his smile a replica of his father’s. “I know but Dad said he’d spring for pizza if I did. He’s in the barn.”
“Alright, be careful.”
I head to the barn to find my husband, expecting him to be working on something but instead, he’s standing in the middle of the floor watching me walk in.
“What are you up to?”
“I’m arranging some time for my wife to relax without the kids around,” he says, directing me to the ladder leading up to the loft.
I raise an eyebrow. “How thoughtful of you.”
“I know. I’m that kind of guy. Up you go. I’m right behind you.”
I put a hand on his broad chest. “That’s okay, honey. I can relax by myself.”
He takes my hand in his. “You need me in that loft.”
When I still don’t move, he pats me on the ass. “C’mon. Up.”
“After twenty years together do you think I don’t recognize that look in your eyes?”
He twirls an imaginary mustache. “My nefarious deed has been foiled. You leave me no choice, then.”
I let out a squeal of laughter as he tosses me over his shoulder and climbs the ladder.
A thick quilt is spread out with a bottle of wine chilling in ice.
“We already celebrated our anniversary,” I say as he kneels and lowers me to the quilt.
“I know that, but I have something I wanted to give you when we couldn’t be interrupted.”
He stands and I think he’s about to take his clothes off, but he reaches into his pocket and takes out a ring box.
Then he kneels again and holds it out. “For the woman I’d marry again and again.”
I lean over to kiss him, then open the box. There’s a diamond anniversary band shining back at me. “Oh, Wilder. It’s beautiful.”
“You outshine every diamond, though.” He takes it out of the box and places it on my finger.
“What’s this?” I reach back in the box for the small paper beneath the ring. The words “part one” are written on it.
Knowing my husband’s sense of humor, there’s something funny to go with it. I lift the cushion the ring was on and underneath it is a condom with the words “part two” written on the outside.
I laugh. “Thinking you might get lucky?”
“I’m thinking the kids are both gone, thanks to me. It’s quiet, thanks to me. We have wine, thanks to me. Now all we need is the nookie, thanks to you.”
“Wilder! Did you really think I was going to want to mess around in the barn?”
“Yes.”
“You’re right.” I stand and begin stripping. “Get naked, cowboy. Knowing Gavin, he’ll rush back to try and keep the pizza as hot as possible.”
We meet in the middle and Wilder kisses me like it’s our first kiss. He does that a lot. Loves me like I’m the best and most important thing to ever happen to him.
We surge together as one, and afterward, I’m thinking how beautiful it is to be married to man like my husband. One who’s both a partner and a friend.
Twenty years came and went with us laughing and loving together in this marriage on this journey we’re traveling together.
And I know twenty more years down the road, I’m still going to feel the exact way that I feel about him right now. He’s my everything, this cowboy that I’d marry over and over again.
***
