Chapter Thirty-eight – I’m Gonna Love You
Sadie
I’M GONNA LOVE YOU
Performed by Cody Johnson and Carrie Underwood
I’d shown up at the bar , expecting it to be empty, expecting to be able to use my muscles to quiet the thoughts in my head. Instead, I’d found Ted, Patti, and Tillie, along with several other Main Street business owners, already at work, setting things to right. It had ripped at my numbness, gratitude and love for an entire town attempting to slip past it.
When more people kept showing up, some to gossip and some for our normal Thursday-night specials, and every single one of them rolled up their sleeves to help, I’d had to duck into the bathroom to pull myself together. My blessed numbness had been threatened, but I caught it and pulled it back. Instead, I concentrated on ways I could pay them back. I wished I had something to give the community more than just a place to drink beer and catch up on the latest gossip.
When I’d gone back out and seen that the office and bar were sparkly clean, I’d sent Ted up front to start handing out glasses of beer and bourbon and turned my attention to the delivery that had arrived while I’d been at the hospital. I was just taking a stack of empty boxes out to the trash when the music cut off in the middle of the song Grady had been singing. I tossed the cardboard into the dumpster, but when I came back in, and the bar was still silent, worry shoved past the numbness.
I burst out of the hallway, demanding to know what was going on, but I knew the answer before Ted’s gaze drifted in his direction.
Because I felt him. Felt every single fiber of his being vibrating toward me.
Rafe Marquess sat at my bar with a glass of my bourbon in his hand and the heat of his stare scorching me. Marking me. Reminding me of what it felt like to be taken by him. To be made his.
The numbness that the kindness of our town had threatened to break through tore back further until it felt like I might just lose it altogether. Until it might leave me falling apart with too many emotions instead of too few.
When Rafe rose and started toward me, he looked like a mountain lion stalking his prey, and I didn’t know what he’d do when he caught me. Would he punish me for failing him and his daughter or devour me with kisses? Either way, he had something planned for me, and I wasn’t sure I’d survive it. Wasn’t even sure I wanted to if it meant he’d walk out of this town when he was through with goodbye on his lips.
“Did you do this?” I demanded with a wave toward the empty stage and was awed to find my voice sounded sure and steady when I was really shaking from head to toe.
“Don’t get your panties in a wad, Tennessee.” Rafe tossed my own words from that first night at the piano bar back at me as he crossed the room to me. “I needed silence to think. To find a way to put everything back to rights.”
My foolish heart slammed hard against my rib cage with a wave of unexpected hope I tried to shove back into the box it had escaped.
Eyes watched us with the same anticipation of a new season of their favorite reality show. The town would have more to gossip about tomorrow morning at Tillie’s than just the blood that had been cleaned from my office.
When Rafe was close enough to make out my face in the darkness of the bar, he let out a guttural sound of protest, and rage filled those chocolate depths.
“Goddamn him,” he hissed, fingers gently stroking my bruised, swollen cheek. His voice turned dark and deadly. “I’ll kill him for marking you. For touching my daughter.”
“Life in prison will be worse than death for him. An apt punishment.”
Next thing I knew, he’d hauled me to his chest and wrapped his arms around me. He held me so tight I thought I’d be wedged permanently to him. For two seconds, I savored his warmth, the smell of him, the zapping energy that burst into life whenever we touched.
But when he said, “Thank you for saving my daughter’s life,” and every syllable was loaded with deep gratitude, I froze.
Gratitude was the last thing I deserved. “She saved herself. I was just there to watch,” I told him, fighting the horrible feelings of ineptitude and regret that tried to drag me under.
Rafe leaned back, searching my face, my eyes, my soul. “She told me what happened, Sadie. She told me how you kept your cool, how you kept putting yourself between her and danger, and how you pulled the trigger when it counted most. I want to strangle you for risking yourself and kiss you for doing so in order to protect Fallon.”
Every word he spoke held a volume of tortured emotions I recognized. He blamed himself. Which was ridiculous…wasn’t it? But then again, was his guilt any more ridiculous than mine? Could either of us really have done something different to change what had happened?
The last vestiges of the numbness that had tried to protect me splintered and disappeared, leaving behind a raw spot that burned from the inside out. I’d spent three years kicking myself for what I saw as my failures with Mila, and I would have added years more to it after the failure of today. But maybe holding on to it was just keeping me from fully healing. Maybe the damage that was clinging to my soul had nothing to do with Chainsaw or Adam. Maybe I’d done this to myself because I wasn’t willing to forgive myself for simply being human.
My lungs seized, my heart stopped, and the world tilted as emotions flowed over and around me like a pint being filled. It was going to foam over any second if I didn’t tip it right, if I didn’t shut off the tap at just the exact moment. I’d lose control. Lose it all.
I needed air. Space. I struggled against Rafe’s arms, but he only held on tighter.
“Don’t run,” he demanded. “Scream. Yell. Throw my idiotic behavior in my face. But don’t run.”
“I can’t… I need to breathe,” I said, pushing against his chest.
He dropped his mouth close to my ear, lowering his voice so the rest of the room couldn’t hear him as he said, “I’m not letting you go, Tennessee. You’re mine. Did you forget so quickly what that means? I’ll happily remind you. Happily show you right here and right now in a way that will make the faces of the town gossips blush.”
Those words, his tone, sent molten heat through my veins, pooling low in my stomach. Feelings I thought I’d never have again, not after he’d sent me away. Not after I’d failed to protect his daughter and reminded myself of how much failing hurt. I’d almost convinced myself he’d been right to say goodbye. I’d been prepared for it, been prepared for him to sweep in, take Fallon, and disappear from my life.
But now, tucked up next to him, everything I’d wanted when I’d left California came flooding in behind the guilt and hurt, but it brought fear as well. It was different than what I’d felt facing Adam and Theresa. This was fear of the lonely, empty hole that would reside in my heart if he sent me away again. Feeling it, feeling that hollowness on the edges of my peripheral, reminded me I was angry with him for having shoved me out of his life with such ease.
I glared up at him and shoved a finger into his chest. “You told me it was over. You forced me out of your life. If anyone has forgotten the words we said, the things we did, it’s you.”
“How else could I get you to go?” He shook his head, remorse drifting through those brown depths. “I was wrong. I thought sending you both away was the best way to protect you. But nothing will ever be right when we’re not together. I left you wide open, practically dared them to come after you. From the moment you boarded the plane, I was trying to find a way to apologize, to earn your trust back, to prove I’d never be an idiot again. You belong at my side. I belong at yours. End of story.”
Every muscle in my body went lax, love crashing through me at the sweetness of his words. It soothed the regret and failure and hurt that had burned through me. He loved me. I loved him. Was that enough to overcome everything else? “You ignored me for four days. Never once called me or picked up when I called you.”
Instead of sounding sure and angry, it came out sounding like a pout, even to my own ears, and he smirked. Those goddamn gorgeous lips tilted up in that way that made my heart skip beats and my insides ache in a beautiful instead of ugly way.
“I did. Because I knew if I heard your voice, I’d come running after you. But I’m man enough to admit when I was wrong. Damn wrong. I love you, and you love me. Your mama said everything else is just icing on the cake or rotten eggs, and she’s right. This…” His arms tightened around me, and his lips brushed my forehead. “Us… It’s all that matters.”
Finally, I fully gave in, surrounding him with my arms and fisting the dress shirt that fit the Rafe I knew just as much as the T-shirt and jeans he’d worn at the ranch did. Rafe had so many sides, so many facets, it was like looking at a diamond and never knowing which side sparkled more, but they all came together to form the stunning whole that was him.
The warmth of his embrace allowed me to finally let the kaleidoscope of events from today that had merged with that awful time by the creek break away until I could see it clearly. Fallon had saved herself and me, but I’d stepped up and done the same. Like years ago, I’d gotten Mila away from Chainsaw, just as much as she’d saved me. Maybe that was what loving someone was all about. Not one person taking more responsibility than the other, but sharing it, protecting each other.
That was what Rafe had tried to do by sending me away. He’d loved me enough to let me go.
I’d take him back, take his apology, and try to push away his guilt at doing so because I loved him enough to want him free of those dark emotions. But it took too long for those images and thoughts to work through me, and he took my nonresponse as hesitancy.
He lowered his voice into a soft, sensual dare. “Ante up, Sadie. Play the game. I’m all in. I’ll put everything I own, everything I have, in the pot. Great-grandpa Alasdair won the ranch by keeping his hand and raising the stakes, but I’ll easily fold, easily give you everything I have as long as you promise to keep all of it. As long as you keep me.”
I stood on my toes, shoved my hands in his hair, and dragged his mouth to mine.
Thunder roared through my ears. My heart exploded. I was back where I belonged, blended with him in that place where the world faded away and there was just him and me and the white haze of love and lust. For two seconds, he let me control the kiss, let me make my mark on him, and then he was in the lead again. He slanted his mouth to take me in deeper and dove inside with a tongue that demanded acquiescence as he took back possession of my soul.
Whistles flew around us. And through them, from next to his new partner, Willy shouted, “Thatta way to do it, Sadie!”
I laughed against Rafe’s lips. He drew back, sparks flying in his eyes as he said, “I hear you have a house here in town.”
“Yep, we can actually walk there from here.” I grabbed his hand and dragged him toward the hall as I hollered over my shoulder, “Bar’s closed, Ted. Send everyone home. I have other business to take care of.”
Ted’s laughter joined that of everyone else’s in the bar. The parking lot was full, and I was turning down easy money, but I didn’t care. None of it mattered. Only Rafe. His mouth. His hands. The “I love you” he’d given me. The forever his words insinuated. The us I wanted more than anything else in my life.
***
I came awake with sunshine glimmering behind my closed lids and fingers slowly skimming my hip. When I opened my eyes, it was to see Rafe glaring down at the line his hand was making.
“Rafe?” My voice was clogged with emotions that only grew when he looked up, and I saw tears threatening to spill over his dark lashes.
“I’m sorry. So goddamn sorry. You’re marked. Your face. The leg you fought so hard to heal…” He choked on the rest of his words.
When we’d landed in bed last night, we hadn’t bothered with the lights. He hadn’t seen the bruising on my body as we’d lost ourselves to each other in the dark. We’d devoured each other sloppily and hungrily with no control on either side. Only instinct had reigned. Savage and raw and utterly human. Driving need focused on only one thing—claiming each other. When he’d driven into me, it had been with more whispered promises in my ear. When I’d welcomed him home, it had been with words of love.
The pain in my body from the bruising in my ribs and back and hip had been nothing. It was worth it to claim him. That pain guided us past years of heartache and loss and remorse to the love we’d earned, so when I’d finally cried out, trembling and gasping for air, it had been only from the pleasure of having ridden up and over the summit with him inside me.
But now, in the morning light, every dark bruise on my hip and back from slamming into the desk and floor, every kick I’d taken to my ribs, and every hit to my face was on display. My body hurt, but not as much as it hurt to see him torturing himself all over again.
I cupped his face, adding my own strokes to the ones he’d continued to gently coast over my wounded body.
“It’s nothing permanent, Slick. The bruises will be gone in a handful of days. But this…” I leaned up and kissed him softly. “Us… We’ll still be here. And you were right. That’s all that matters.”
“You’ll never face anything like this again. Never. And certainly not without me fighting at your side.” The vow wound its way into my heart almost as much as the I love you he’d sent my way the night before.
“I’d thought I’d have a logical plan to present to you by the time you came to pick up Fallon on all the ways our lives worked rather than how they didn’t—” He cut me off with a finger to my mouth.
“We both have families and businesses that need us,” he said calmly, as if he wasn’t at all worried. “We’ll simply divide our time between Willow Creek and Rivers. But we do it together, Tennessee. You and me. Side by side.”
“Just like that? You’ll snap your fingers, and it’ll just happen like you say.”
He huffed out a chuckle I was relieved to hear after the anger and heartache of moments before. “Sadie, I have more money than I could spend in multiple lifetimes. I have a plane we can use to fly back and forth as often as we like. The carbon footprint it’ll leave behind won’t be pretty, but we’ll figure out a way to offset it. Hell, I’ll plant a tree for every mile we travel if I have to. The point is, we can easily come and go. I’ll have to be at the ranch quite a bit while we’ve got the renovations going, and I want to ensure Lauren has the support she needs during the transition. But after, we’ll spend more time here, finalizing plans for the performing arts center.”
My heart stopped for several long beats before it pounded into action again. “What?”
“I’ve already hired a firm to do a feasibility study, and depending on your designs, I’ve got an architect in mind.”
I shook my head. “No. That’s a beautiful idea, Rafe, but even if I had the money, I don’t need it. I thought it was the only way to leave a positive mark behind, a legacy with Carolyn’s name tied to it. But now, I’ve realized that leaving behind love, leaving behind people who will know what and who I was, is much more important than a building or a business or even a bank account stuffed to the gills.”
“It’s taken me these last two weeks to realize Marquess Enterprises was never really my dream either. It emerged from pure stubborn assholeness. I wanted to prove to my dead father and my brother that I didn’t need them or the ranch to achieve success. I wanted to rub it in their faces. But now that my brother’s gone, I realize I couldn’t give two shits about rubbing it in his face. I only wished I’d spent more time with him. I won’t make that mistake again with the people I love. I’ll hire a chief executive officer to keep the business going but only so it allows me the money and means to do what I really want, which is to spend time with you and Fallon, making your dreams a reality.”
I cupped his cheeks, meeting his gaze with a steady one, and asked quietly, “Who’s going to make sure your dreams come true?”
“You are my dream, Tennessee. Home and family. That’s all I want.”
I closed my eyes, the words hitting so deep inside me that I knew they’d be there forever, twined into my veins, lodged into my soul.
“I love you.” I said it softly, a promise in each syllable.
“I won’t let it go, won’t let you go, ever again,” he said.
I nodded and then rolled him over on his back, straddled him, and set out to prove just what those words meant to me.
***
When my eyelids fluttered open the second time, Rafe’s fingers were on me again, but this time, he was dancing something cold and smooth along the exposed skin. When he saw I was awake, he ran the object over the swell of my breast, up my neck, and coasted it over my lips. It took me several long heartbeats to realize it was a ring, and not just any ring, but my great-grandmother’s ring. The one Mama had given to Ryder, who’d offered it to his ex before she’d disappeared with it and their child. The ring had been returned to us because of Gia, and I was confused as to how and why Rafe had it now.
I tugged at his hand. “Where did you get this?”
“Your mama.”
I frowned.
“She said the ring found its way home after many trials and tribulations—or something like that. All I really heard was that she wanted it to be yours when I made you mine.”
“She did?” My breath caught. She’d seen my love for Rafe, but she would never have given him the ring if she hadn’t seen he loved me back. What exactly had happened when he’d gone to the ranch? I suddenly wished I’d been there. Seen it. Heard what they’d talked about that had made Mama so sure this, the love blooming in the room between Rafe and me, was true and real.
“Marry me, Tennessee. Make a few Hatley-Marquess-Harringtons with me who will have to choose which name to go by once they’re old enough to do so. Spend the rest of our days wandering hills and valleys, listening to waterfalls as the moon sets and the sun rises. Give me all your todays and tomorrows, and I’ll give you mine.”
I leaned in and kissed him, softly, embedding my love for him into every press of our lips. “I like the sound of that an awful lot, Slick.”
That full, wide grin with the dimple appeared on his face as he lifted my hand and slid the ring onto my finger where it fit almost perfectly. I swore I heard the gleeful laughter of the wee folk and, over it, the sigh of the wind and the moon and the sun as they whispered that everything had finally and truly been set right.
Rafe’s lips skimmed mine, almost sweetly, before pushing me on my back and hovering over me with a gleam in his eye full of as much mischief as passion. “You like the sound of it enough to start making one right now?” When my brows creased in confusion, he smiled. “Let’s make a baby, Sadie. Right now. Today. Let’s make one so we know we started our family the same day we started our new lives.”
I laughed. “I don’t think that’s quite how it works, Rafe. You can’t just decide it’ll happen today, even if we did try.”
He leaned in, warm breath coating my ear and making me shiver delightfully as he whispered, “Wanna make a bet?”
***
You can’t see me, but I’m dancing with wee-folk glee at how Sadie and Rafe’s happily ever after came together. I hope you are too, but if you didn’t get enough of them, you can catch a glimpse of what happens when they’re in the midst of opening the performing arts center, and Sadie’s water breaks in the BONUS EPILOGUE .
And if you still need more single-dad, small-town, romantic-suspense stories, and you’ve read all the Hatleys, why don’t you check out AFTER ALL THE WRECKAGE . Keep reading right here, right now to catch the first few chapters.
After All the Wreckage Sample