CHAPTER NINE
NOLA
“I love you too, Mama. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Hanging up the phone, I collapse back in the lounge chair in the corner of mine and Fergus’s bedroom. As I wait for him to come out of our closet to tell me where we’re going on this mystery date he won’t tell me about, I called my parents just to check in.
My parents and brother Tony run a horse rescue sanctuary about ninety minutes northwest of Houston, and that’s where I grew up. I haven’t been home in a couple months, even before I moved in with Fergus, but I talk to one or both of my parents several times a week. While I have not told them about being abducted and tied up, because that would send everyone into a tailspin, they do know who Fergus is and what he does.
They have met him two times before, both at Remi and Tadhg’s wedding as well as baby Máire’s baptism, but they were both shocked when I informed them of our new relationship status.
I expected a lecture from my Dad about how Fergus wasn’t the right man for me because of his criminal life, but I got the exact opposite. Chet Taylor is a rough and tumble horse man, and I think I’ve only seen him shed a tear a handful of times in my whole life, but I saw him swipe his cheek as he tried to hide it by turning his face away from the phone screen as we were video chatting.
“As long as you’re happy and safe, Nola. Your mama and I are happy for you.”
“Just don’t wait too long to bring that handsome fella home to visit, Nola-girl.” My mama, Sarah, added. “Maybe we can even get him up on a horse so you two can go riding together. I know Duke misses you.”
Duke is my horse . . . kind of.
He’s a twelve year old Palamino who was brought to the ranch after being rescued from a farmer who was neglecting and abusing his animals. I happened to be at the ranch the day he arrived, and we clicked from the second I clipped the lead to his halter and coerced him off the trailer with the carrot stick in my other hand. Now that he’s healthy and strong again, I try to visit as often as I can, and Duke and I go for a trail ride every chance we can.
Now that Mama put the idea in my head, I’d love to get Fergus on a horse soon. Just imagining him up in a saddle, a cowboy hat tucked low over his brows as we rode around the land I grew up on—yummy.
“Are you ready for our date, mo fhíorghra?” Opening the closet door a crack, Fergus sticks his head out and wakes me from my cowboy inspired daydream.
“We’ve been on dates before,” I reply with a chuckle as I get to my feet and head in his direction to investigate why he’s hiding his body from me.
“Those don’t count. I had planned to do this last weekend, but then everything happened—“
“None of that was your fault, Fergus,” I tell him for probably the twentieth time this week.
“I still—“
“No. We already talked about this. Yes, your life was dangerous, but I knew that even before we met. I signed up for anything and everything that comes along with you because it is all worth it to be yours.”
“I love you, mo fhíorghra.”
“I love you, too.” I stand on my tiptoes and give him a kiss. “Now come out of that closet and let me get dressed so we can leave.”
“I’ve already got your outfit covered.”
“Oh really?” I ask with a laugh, hands on my hips. “Do you even know how to do that?”
“Nola, my love,” he starts as he finally opens the door and joins me in the bedroom. “I’ve taken enough of your clothes off of you that I think I can pick out a few things to put on you that you’ll like.”
It takes a few seconds for the fog to clear my brain from the ultra-sexy talk about talking off my clothes, for me to fully take in the even sexier outfit he has on himself. Whooowee . . . my man makes a mighty fine cowboy alright.
Black thigh-hugging jeans—check.
Plain black t-shirt stretched across his mile wide shoulder and chiseled chest—check.
And his signature black cowboy boots finishing off the look—check and check.
“Damn cowboy,” I drawl as I check him out from head to toe. “Do we really have to leave? I don’t want anyone else seeing you in that get up.”
“Yes, we’re leaving.” Fergus pulls me into his arms, and I grab two handfuls of his denim covered backside. “But I’m taking you somewhere private, so you won’t have to share me.”
“Goodie,” I reply and pucker for a quick kiss. “Now tell me what to wear so we can get this show on the road.”
“Your outfit is laid out on the island,” he taps my butt once and gently pushes me into the closet. “Leave your hair down for me please. And no crazy makeup needed. You’re perfect as you are.”
“Yes, sir.” I give him a mock salute as I reach for the white lace panties waiting for me.
After I fasten my bra, I slip on a brand new clover green t-shirt, shimmy into some crisp slim boot cut blue jeans, and pull a pair of brown Lucchese boots that look a lot like Fergus’s onto my feet.
Not that I doubted him for longer than a second, but everything he picked for me is something I would’ve bought myself. Maybe I need him to shop for me more often.
After I convince Fergus to take a selfie with me in our snazzy duds so I can send it to Remi and my mama, we’re in the back of the SUV with Padraig driving us north.
Fergus tries to keep our destination a secret, but it doesn’t take me long to figure it out on my own because I recognize every road we turn on. We’re going to my family’s ranch!
I try to get him to tell me why we’re going there, but he refuses to give me even a single clue. When I pull my phone out of my purse to call my mama and let her know we’re on our way, Fergus gently takes it from my hand, kissing the inside of my now completely healed rope burned wrist, and tells me that she already knows we’re coming. She didn’t tell me that when I talked to her not even an hour ago. Sneaky woman.
Since he seems pretty set in his ways about keeping the reason for our trip to my childhood home hush hush, I decide to let him have this secret for himself just a little while longer. I just sit back, relax, and enjoy the peaceful quietness of the ride.
When we pull up the ranch’s long driveway, I roll down the window and wave to my parents as we roll past the house and head a little further back and stop in front of the biggest barn on the property. Fergus holds out a hand to help me out of the SUV, then tugs on my fingers to get me to follow him inside the barn. We’re met with the snickering of the couple horses closed in their stables, along with my favorite smell on the entire planet—other than my Fergus and his cigars that smell like cinnamon and vanilla—the smell of a horse barn in fall. A mix of hay, dust, and wood shavings, mixed with just a hint of animal sweat . . . there’s nothing quite like it.
“What are we doing here, Fergie?” I ask as he leads me down the center aisle, stopping right in front of Duke. I can’t resist his handsome face and give his nose a kiss and some scratches.
“What would you say,” he pulls me away when Duke tucks his head back into his stall, “if I told you we’re having lunch up in the loft?”
A squeal of glee leaves my lips as I jump into his arms and pepper his cheeks with kisses. “I’d say, you’re the best boyfriend ever!”
“Did I pick a good date, mo fhíorghra?”
“You picked the perfect date, mo fhíorghra.”
I love learning little Irish words and phrases from Fergus. I hope to one day be able to speak it fluently with him, and maybe even teach our future children the language of my love’s birthplace.
As we climb the ladder into the loft, Fergus stays close behind me, saying he wants to make sure I don’t fall. I’ve climbed this ladder a thousand times by myself, and at a lot quicker pace than he’s letting me move now, but he won’t relent. “Please be careful. It’s only been a week—“
When we reach the top, I silence him with a kiss. “No more take about that. We’re here to have a good day.”
“Yes, boss.” What a cheeky devil I have found.
Looking around the loft, a flash of memories flood my mind in seconds. I don’t know how Fergus knows about this place, but this surprise is the best.
“Do I even want to know how you arranged this date, and got all of this up here before we arrived?”
As Fergus pulls me down to the black and green checkered quilt laid out on the hay scattered wood plank floor, he tugs a picnic basket closer to us. “I might have had some help.”
“Like who?” I ask as I sit up on my knees and open the double lidded basket to see what’s on the menu. But as soon as I see the food inside, I know exactly who helped him with this ruse.
“I asked Remi for your Mama and Dad’s number,” I was right! “and when I told them my plan, they were all in to help set this up for us.”
My mama’s crispy fried chicken is still warm and the smell of oil and seasonings fill the loft. Alongside a container of potato wedges, coleslaw, and made from scratch biscuits, I am in heaven.
“This is the best date I’ve ever had.” I turn scoot as close to Fergus as I can, my knees press into his thigh. I lean in to kiss him, but he takes over in a flash.
His kiss isn’t romantic, not in the way you’d think. It’s not soft or sweet or gentle, it’s brash and erratic and hungry. He steals my breath and my body shivers with the need bursting from him.
Fergus threads his right hand into my hair, tugging a handful at my roots, directing me where he needs me, holding me in place so I have no choice but to grab hold of his shoulders and just let him lead.
When he finally lets our lips break apart, I suck in a lungful of air and feel a little dizzy. “You are a damn fine kisser, Mr. O’Carroll.”
“There’s lots more where that came from.” He pecks my nose and nudges me in the direction of the picnic basket that I’ve almost forgotten all about. “There’s one more thing in there that’s not food that I need you to pull out before we get to eating lunch.”
“What is it?” I ask as I rifle around the containers, looking for whatever mystery item he’s talking about. “I’m not seein’—“ and then I see it.
And my world spins up and slows down all at the same time. This really can’t be happening . . . can it?
“Nola,” Fergus’s voice is soft and quiet, a volume he doesn’t use very often. “Look at me love.”
I grab hold of the small and square, velvet soft box and pull it out of the basket, then hold it up between us. “What’s this?”
“Why don’t you open it and see?”
I pinch the top of the box and flip it open, but what I find inside is not what I was expecting. My heart drops a little and I know my face is showing confusion and sadness.
“A key?” I fall back on my butt as I pull a single silver key hanging from a green, four leaf clover, metal keychain from the box and dangle it between us. “What’s this for?”
“Our house,” Fergus replies with a soft smile.
“Your house?” I’m so confused. I’m still trying to figure out which way is up, because as soon as I saw the box, I thought this afternoon was headed in a much different direction.
“No, Nola.” He tugs on the keyring, then lifts me into his lap. He’s sitting flat on the floor, legs together and out straight. He then arranges me so my butt is on his thighs and my legs are bracketing his hips. “Our house. I want you to live with me forever, mo fhíorghra.”
“But I already moved in with you. Didn’t I?”
“You did. But the key is only the first part of your gift.” Fergus shifts my left leg a little bit so he can reach into the right front pocket of his jeans. “This is the real reason we’re here.” And he holds up a green heart shaped gemstone silver claddagh ring, pinched between his thumb and index finger.
“That looks just like Remi’s,” I gasp.
“It does,” he says with a smile as he grabs hold of my left hand, “but this one was Nana Máire’s. Tadhg got one made for Remi, but she gave this one to me when I was younger.”
“It’s beautiful, Fergus. Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me quite yet,”
Looking up, I look at him in question. “Why not?”
“Before I ask you the most important question of our lives and slip this ring onto your finger, I need to tell you a story.”
“Okay?”
Fergus lifts the ring up between us again, fidgeting it a little bit back and forth so the sun coming in through the hayloft doors catches the gem, sending a rainbow of sparkles across the wall beside us.
“Like I said, this ring belonged to Nana Máire. She got it from her husband, my grandfather, right after my Da Sean was born. She says while it was the only happy day of their marriage, because from what I’ve heard and remember, he was an awful man, she wanted me to find someone to give this to that I loved. She wanted my generation, Tadhg and myself, to marry for love. She wanted us to break the tradition of arranged and loveless marriages and to be happy. And you, Nola Beatrice Taylor, make me the happiest man on this damn spinning rock we call Earth. I love you and I want to slide this ring on your finger, with the heart facing out so everyone knows that you are mine until I can turn it around so the heart faces in on the day we say ‘I do’. I want us to give this ring many years of new and happy memories as we live together in our home and build our family.” He stops, takes a big breath and slowly lets it out. “So what I’m really trying to say under all this other babble is this . . . Nola, will you make me a very, very happy man and be my bean chéile?”
“I would be honored to be your wife.” I press my hands to his cheeks, then rest my forehead against his and kiss him gently. “That will make you my fear chéile, right?”
“Now where did you learn that from?” Fergus lets out a giant belly laugh as he lurches forward, flipping us all around until I’m laying flat on my back and he’s braced above me like the fierce protector he is.
“I know a few other Irish people, ya know.” Smiling up, I hold up my left hand for him to slide the ring on my finger.
And then he attacks.