"And then, Trevor said that I was gettin' old, just because I said that my back was sore. I tried tellin' him that I was sore from fallin' off Bud the other day, and that I had riding lessons before physical therapy, but he wasn't havin' it." Lacey chuckled as she told Slade about her physical therapy session the previous night. "It was really funny, just the way he said it." 

       "I believe it." Slade emerged from the kitchen, setting a plate of food in front of Lacey, who was sitting at the kitchen bar in his loft. "I still can't begin to tell you how proud I am of you for drivin' there all by yourself. I mean, Lace, do you realize how big of a deal that is?" Slade wrapped his arms around Lacey from behind, softly dropping a light kiss on her shoulder that was revealed by her gray tank top strap. 

       "Thanks, hon." Lacey smiled, taking a sip of her orange juice, quickly setting it down after swallowing, instead of taking a second sip, when Slade pressed his lips against her neck, his hands massaging Lacey's tense shoulders. 

     Slade always looked forward to the day after Lacey's physical therapy session since her shoulders were always so sore, meaning he was able to give her a back rub; it was something that he always enjoyed. The thought made him smile as he pressed his lips in a long kiss on her neck, right below her jaw bone. As he did so, he could feel her cheeks heat up with a blush, goosebumps breaking out over her whole body.

        "That feels really good." Lacey tilted her head to the side, closing her eyes, loving how good Slade was as giving back rubs. His kisses weren't bad, either...okay, if she was being honest, she loved the kisses as well. 

       "Oh, it does?" He played, momentarily pausing his kisses.

       "You know I love your back rubs." Lacey grinned, glancing over her shoulder at her fiance.

       "Is that all you love?" He asked, dropping a kiss on the soft skin directly behind Lacey's ear; her favorite spot to be kissed. 

        "No, I love when you kiss my neck, too." Lacey sighed; the morning after her physical therapy was always her favorite kind of mornings. 

        "Good." Slade pulled back quickly, just to tease Lacey; he could be mean like that. 

       Just as Lacey pivoted on the swivel top bar stool, to glare at Slade, he grabbed her glass of orange juice from her, a mischievous look on his face. 

      "What're you doin'? I wasn't done with that yet!" Lacey laughed. 

       "If you want it, you have to come get it." He grinned, taking a step back from Lacey, further into his living room.

       "Okay, cowboy, you're on." Lacey carefully lowered herself into her wheelchair, unlocking the brakes, and rolling herself forward, towards Slade, who stood between the couch and love seat, facing Lacey, who was directly behind the couch, watching Slade like a lion to it's prey. 

       At the blink of an eye, Slade ran to the right of the couch, making Lacey follow him. Before long, the couple were in a full out hide n seek game, chasing each other around Slade's apartment. Finally, Lacey was able to pin Slade in a corner, with nowhere to escape, thus winning their little game. 

      "You win. You win." Slade laughed, returning the glass of orange juice back on the bar counter, taking a seat next to Lacey. 

        After praying over their meal, Slade took a sip of his drink before saying to Lacey, "So, after breakfast I was fixin' to take you on a trail ride."

       "Are you askin' me, or tellin' me?" Lacey chuckled.

        "Well, I reckon I am tellin' you. I wanted to be able to give Bud and Jasper a break from work, and what better way to do that than to take them out on a trail ride?" Slade began getting nervous, knowing how hesitant Lacey was about trail rides, especially since she had her set-back with getting thrown from Bud earlier in the week.

        "I reckon that is alright. I agree with you, it will be good to give them a break." Lacey grinned, taking a bite of her delicious breakfast that Slade prepared for them. 

                                                                  ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

          "You all ready to head out?" Lacey asked Slade, sitting beside a fully tacked up Bud who was excited to go for a ride.  

           "Yeah, I just have to run upstairs really quick." Slade turned, jogging up the stairs in the barn, coming back down a few minutes later, a undecipherable expression on his chiseled, handsome face. "All set?" He shot Lacey a grin.

          "Yep. Are you sure I should leave my chair here?" Lacey asked, becoming slightly insecure and nervous.

         "I'm positive. Here, want help mounting?" Slade walked towards Lacey, Jasper in tow.

         "No, I'm just going to use the block in the arena, just to show you how much better I have gotten. Thank you though." Lacey smiled, grabbing Bud's reins and leading him out of the barn, Slade and Jasper following behind. 

         Once they were in the arena, Slade mounted Jasper effortlessly, watching as Lacey rolled onto the wooden mounting block, Bud walking beside it, standing still as a statue. Just like she had practiced time and time again, Lacey mounted Bud ever so carefully, praising him once she was on his back. 

        Across the arena, Slade cheered, clapping his hands at Lacey, over exaggerating how proud he was. 

        With a laugh, Lacey steered Bud over to Slade. "Thank you, thank you." Leaning close to Slade, Lacey asked for a kiss. After a quick peck, she led the way out of the arena, waiting for Slade.

       "Where did you want to ride?" 

       "How about over here?" Slade pointed to a clearing in the trees. 

       "Sounds good. Lead the way, cowboy." Lacey lifted her hand, letting it fall to her lap, slapping her leg. 

                                                                           ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

       "Thank you for agreeing to come with me on this ride." Slade smiled, reaching over to grab Lacey's hand, interlacing their fingers. They had been on their ride for just shy of a half hour. 

        "Of course. I am really glad you asked because this is a lot of fun, and very needed." 

       Letting out a breath, Slade said, "I know that all of this wasn't exactly what you meant or had in mind the other day when you said that we aren't like a normal couple, and you were upset that you couldn't do certain things, but I wanted to show you that we still can do those things, even if they aren't exactly how you envisioned it." 

        "Slade, honey, that is the sweetest thing. And you are so right about all of that. Thank you for proving it to me. I really appreciate it." She was grinning so big, and so lovingly that she didn't see where they were headed until Slade pulled his horse to a stop, motioning to the scene in front of them.

         "Here we are." Slade grinned, letting go of Lacey's hand to dismount, walking him and Jasper over to beside Lacey. 

       "Slade, what is all of this?" Lacey asked in awe at the sight of a couple thick picnic blankets, with a medium wooden picnic basket in the middle of it all. There was a vase filled with fresh red roses on top of the picnic basket. 

         "You said you always wanted us to go on a picnic, so I decided to take you on a picnic." Holding up his pointer finger to Lacey, he said, "One second." Handing Lacey Jasper's reins, Slade walked onto the blankets, setting up two folding chairs, facing each other, then grabbing a Bluetooth speaker out of the picnic basket, pulling out his phone, and playing a playlist. Immediately, Lacey recognized the song. With a smile, Slade walked back over to where Lacey was still sitting on the back of Bud. 

         "This is our song, Slade." Lacey grinned, feeling her cheeks heat up. 

         "I know." He grinned, reaching up to help Lacey off her horse. Walking the few feet, Slade helped Lacey sit into one of the folding chairs, her back to the horses that Slade had ground mounted. 

         Sitting in the seat across from Lacey, Slade pulled out a glass container. "Strawberry?" He asked, pulling out a fresh red strawberry from the container. 

         Lacey took a bite out of the juicy red fruit that Slade held out for her. She was still amazed at this whole date. This spot on the ranch was one of her favorites; she had no idea how Slade had figured that out. "Why did you do all of this for me?" Lacey asked, feeling head over heels.

        Grabbing both of her hands in his, Slade smiled. "Because I love you." Glancing over Lacey's shoulder, Slade cleared his throat. "I'll be right back." He stood up, jogging over to Jasper. 

         While he was gone, Lacey grabbed another piece of her favorite fruit. Taking a bite of the sweet strawberry, Lacey couldn't help but smile. Never in her life would she have believed that a guy would go out of his way to do all of this for her. 

          A few seconds later, Slade came back, seeming more nervous that she had ever seen him before. Before she could say anything, Slade dropped down to one knee, taking both of Lacey's hands in one of his own. "Lacey, I have known from the first time I saw that spunky side of you that you were the woman I wanted to be with for the rest of my life. Never once in my whole life did I actually believe that I would find someone willing to put up with me the way that you have. Every day, you thank me for helpin' you get over your fears and get back on the horse, helpin' you 'regain your freedom' that you thought you had lost, but I don't think I have ever told you that I think it is really the other way around. You have helped me more than you will ever know, Lace. Because of you, I have been able to move on from some things that happened in my past. You have taught me how to forgive, that nothin' is impossible. You have showed me how to strengthen my faith, but mainly, you have taught me how to love. And for that, I will eternally be grateful." At this point, Slade had started to tear up, as Lacey had already let a tear fall to her cheek at Slade's sweet words. From the second he dropped to one knee, Lacey saw where this was going. With a chuckle, Slade continued, "I know I am ramblin', but I just want to say that I know that I am not perfect, nor will I ever be, but I pray every day that I can be as perfect as humanely possible for you. I love you with all of my heart and soul, darlin', and I can't imagine doin' life with anyone else but you. I want you to be the woman that I grow old with." Letting out a chuckle, Slade cleared his throat, feeling the tears rise to the brink of his eyes. Letting go of Lacey's hands for a second, Slade reached beside her to grab a ring box. "Anyways, I know that I have said an awful lot of thangs, but I have meant every word of it. So, I reckon I just have one question for you." Ever so slowly, Slade opened the velvet square box, revealing Lacey's dream engagement ring. "Lacey Anne Ferry, do you still want to change your last name to Reid, and do me the honor of marrying me?" Slade's voice broke as he asked the question. 

        "Yes! Yes yes yes, of course I will still marry you!" Lacey squealed, holding her hand out for Slade to place the sparkling engagement ring on her finger. Once it was secure on her finger, and there to stay forever, Slade leaned forward, passionately kissing Lacey. In one fell swoop, Slade picked up Lacey from the chair, picking her up and spinning her around and around in a circle. 

       Laughing giddily, Slade didn't see the mound that had formed in the blanket. With that said, the toe of his square toed boots caught on the little bulge that had formed, and Slade tripped, falling to the ground, with Lacey still in his arms. The couple was too happy, and laughing too hard to care that they had fallen.

        Taking in a deep breath, Slade slowed his laughs to reach a hand out to Lacey's face. "I love you, Lace." 

        "I love you too." The smile never falling from her lips. "I just have one question. How on earth did you manage to do all of this?" 

        "Well," Slade sat up on his elbows. "I had a little bit of help." At that exact moment, cheering and clapping could be heard, making Lacey jump.

       Looking in the direction of the hollering, Lacey saw her best friend, Brooke, emerge from behind a large tree with a camera in her hand, and a huge smile on her face. 

         Slade's warm chuckle drew Lacey's gaze back to him. "Oh yeah, I hope you don't mind, but I asked Brooke to take some pictures for us. She recorded the whole thing on video so one day our kids can laugh about how long it took their dad to ask their mom to be his wife." 

       Lacey didn't have any other response except to shake her head and smile at her fiance, still in shock of the events that had unfolded in the past half hour. 

       "I don't know why you were so nervous, Slade, she already said she would marry you once, all you had to do was give her the ring, but the speech was very lovely." Brooke teased Slade.

       "Very good point, Brooke, I have no idea why I was so dadgum nervous." He chuckled. 

                                                                    ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

      For a solid hour or two after Slade had proposed to Lacey again, Brooke had taken a ton of pictures of them together, doing various poses and many different shots. Even the horses were incorporated in a lot of the pictures. 

       Once all of the pictures were taken, and the horses were turned out in the pasture until night checks, Slade and Lacey had decided to head back to Slade's loft to just relax and enjoy their newly "officially engaged" status. 

      Ever since Slade had slipped the ring on her finger, Lacey had not been able to take her eyes off of it. Every time she looked at it, she fell more and more in love with it; it was certainly even more beautiful than she remembered it being when they looked at it in the store. 

       Currently, the couple was sitting on Slade's couch together. Slade's left arm was wrapped around Lacey's shoulder, softly stroking her soft, long hair. With his other, Slade interlaced his fingers through Lacey as he stared at the TV screen. His mind, however, was not focused on the show at all; instead, all he could think about was how excited he was for his future together with Lacey.  

           "To think that this is goin' to be what we get to do every day for the rest of our lives..." Lacey let out a content sigh as she laid against Slade's chest, tuning out the sound of the television in the background. She loved being close enough to him that she could hear his heart beating.

        "I was just thinkin' the same thing." Slade smiled, sitting back so he could better see Lacey's beautiful face. He still couldn't believe that her face will be what he got to wake up to every day for the rest of his life. Man, he couldn't wait until they were married. "I love you, Lacey Ferry." 

        Lacey grinned as she felt Slade's heart speeding up when he said he loved her. "I love you, too, Slade Reid. Thank you for makin' my dreams come true." Lacey smiled as she tilted her head closer, closing her lips over Slade's in a kiss that promised a great start to the rest of their lives. 

                                                                      ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Author's Note: Hey, y'all, I just wanted to take the time to say THANK YOU all so so much for making this book my most popular one here on Wattpad. I never in a million years would have expected it to get as many views, comments, and votes as it did. I wouldn't still be publishing these chapters if it wasn't for y'all. 
Even though this is the last chapter of The Paralyzed Dream, I really hope that y'all enjoyed this chapter, and the book in general. Please let me know what y'all think of it, and please let me know if y'all have any suggestions on how to make it better. :)
Stay Tuned! I am fixing to publish some exciting news here shortly. Hope y'all enjoy, thanks again, and God bless!