“I can tell you my answer now,” she blurted. “It’s yes.”
He nodded, looking bewildered but pleased. “Okay, good. That’ll take the edge off the suspense.”
“Good,” she agreed.
A pause. “What kind of a ring do you want?”
“God, I don’t know. Something simple. Something silver. I don’t need a diamond.”
“How do you want me to propose?” he asked. “A year from now?”
“Exactly like this.”
“You sure? Because this is pretty sloppy and messed up, and I’m starting to think I should have just kept my mouth shut.”
“Nothing about you and me has ever looked quite like it was supposed to.”
“That’s true enough.”
“So I don’t care how you propose. I don’t even care if you ever do. I only want to be with you again, for real. To see if this can work.”
“C’mere.”
She let him tip the both of them onto their sides, facing, legs locking. She toyed with the buttons of his shirt and his palm was warm on her waist. And his eyes were there, right there.
“Move in with me,” he said.
She nodded. That much, she could promise. “Okay.”
“My apartment’s not your dream house, but we could make it into something special, something for now. Make a home out of it.”
“You okay with curtains?”
“I fucking love curtains.”
She laughed, rubbed his chest. “Good. It’s not a home without curtains.”
“It’s not a home at all, yet. But it will be, if you’ll show me what that looks like.”
“Gladly.” And she kissed him, slow and soft, watching a smile bloom on those lips as she pulled away.
“It’s going to be a long, rough spring,” he whispered. “With everything that’s just happened, and with everything that’s going to be changing around the bar. But let’s make our place somewhere calm to escape to at the end of the day, okay?”
“I’d like that.”
“And we’ll throw ourselves a little party, just you and me and Mercy. It doesn’t feel like a time to celebrate, but it seems like we ought to do something to mark the fact that I’ve got a future, and that you’re in control of things with your ex. A lot’s fucked-up right now, but those are two good things. Too good to just let go by.”
“I’d like that, too.”
He brought his face close, rubbing their noses together, brushing his mouth softly against hers. “Maybe it doesn’t need saying, or maybe I should have said it before I fucking proposed, but I love you. You and the baby, both. You need to know that.”
She pursed her quivering lips and nodded. “You didn’t need to say. You’ve told me a hundred times, with your actions.”
“Well, now I’m telling you out loud.”
She swallowed, found her breath. “I love you, too.” Every ounce of him. Every cuss, every awful mistake. People were made of both light and dark, and you didn’t get to love the good without first forgiving the bad. She knew that now.
“How about we get the cars packed back up?” he asked. “Seeing as how you’ve decided to move, yet again.”
She smiled, wide and pure and open. “We can do that.”
“All right, then.” He stood from the bed and offered a hand, pulling her to her feet. “Let’s get you home, honey.”
Start at the beginning of the scorching-hot Desert Dogs series by Cara McKenna.
LAY IT DOWN
Available in print and e-book from Signet Eclipse.
The motel was on the so-called good side of the tracks, the western side, closer to the mountains. The bad side was where most of the locals lived, and it was also home to the grimier businesses—the quarry, some limping little retail operations, Benji’s, a couple garages, the dump, the dueling liquor stores. The nice side boasted the tech company and its employees’ homes, a half-decent grocery store, the Sheriff’s Department, and the Volunteer Firefighters’ headquarters. Alex had been a member of the latter, once upon a simpler time.