Chapter 34 Axel #3
Aiden's smile widens, not intimidated in the slightest. "I'll do that. Maybe you can give me the local's tour of Virginia Dale. I've been away so long, I could use a refresher."
"I'm sure your brother can handle that," Rowan counters smoothly. "I run a business, not a welcome committee."
"Ouch," I murmur to Sadie. "She's not pulling any punches."
"She never does," Sadie whispers back, but there's something speculative in her expression as she watches them.
Aiden doesn't miss a beat. "Fair enough. Though I've always found business and pleasure can sometimes overlap… in the right circumstances."
The tension between them crackles like static electricity. It's not anger, it's something else entirely, something that makes me suddenly very aware I'm watching the start of something I'm not sure I want to witness.
Rowan's eyes narrow slightly. "Not in my experience."
"Then you've been doing business with the wrong people," Aiden replies, his voice dropping to that quiet, confident tone I've seen women respond to my entire life.
But Rowan isn't most women. She sets her glass down with a decisive clink.
"If you'll excuse me," she says, "I promised Poppy we'd look at that pony your aunt bought her."
She turns to us, completely dismissing Aiden. "Mind if I steal her for a minute?"
"Go ahead," Sadie says, transferring Poppy to her sister's arms.
Rowan walks away without a backward glance, her spine straight, her stride purposeful. But there's a tension in her shoulders I've never seen before, like she's deliberately forcing herself not to look back.
Aiden doesn't move, just watches her go, that half smile still playing at his lips. When he finally turns back to us, there's something in his eyes that makes my stomach drop.
"Your sister," he says to Sadie, "is fascinating."
"She's also off-limits," I warn, recognizing that look all too well. It's the same one he wore before climbing El Capitan, the expression of a man who's just found a challenge worth pursuing.
"I don't recall asking for your permission, little brother," Aiden replies, his eyes still tracking Rowan across the room.
"She'll eat you alive," I tell him, only half joking.
His smile turns wolfish. "I'm counting on it."
Sadie looks between us, amusement warring with concern on her face. "Should I be worried?"
"Absolutely," I confirm, watching as Aiden excuses himself to get another drink, his path deliberately taking him past where Rowan is showing Poppy the stuffed pony.
"I've seen that look before. He's not going to back down."
"Neither will Rowan," Sadie says with certainty.
I slip my arm around her waist, pulling her close as we watch Aiden make a casual comment to Rowan, who responds without looking up. Even from across the room, I can see the way her shoulders tense, the deliberate distance she maintains between them.
"This could get messy," I murmur against Sadie's hair.
She leans into me, a soft laugh escaping her. "Or interesting."
I press a kiss to her temple, watching as Aiden says something that actually makes Rowan look up, surprise briefly crossing her face before she schools her expression back to careful neutrality.
"Ten bucks says she shuts him down at least three more times today," I offer.
Sadie's smile turns knowing. "Twenty says he asks her out before the party's over."
"You're on."
But as I watch them across the room, Rowan pointedly turning her attention back to Poppy, Aiden's gaze never leaving her face, I have a feeling we're both right. And somehow, I don't think this is the last we'll see of whatever just sparked between them.
God help us all.
As the evening winds down, I step out onto the back porch for a moment of quiet. The crisp autumn air fills my lungs, a welcome relief after the cheerful chaos inside. The sun is setting over the ranch, painting the sky in brilliant oranges and pinks that stretch across the Colorado horizon.
I spot Sadie before she notices me, leaning against the porch railing, her face turned toward the sunset. Poppy is sound asleep against her shoulder, tiny fist curled against her mother's neck. The sight of them silhouetted against the fading light stops me in my tracks.
This is my family. Mine to protect, to cherish, to build a life with.
I approach quietly, not wanting to disturb Poppy. When I rest my hand on the small of Sadie's back, she leans into the touch without turning, like her body already knows mine by instinct.
"Needed some air?" I ask softly, moving to stand beside her.
She nods, her eyes still on the horizon. "It was getting a little loud in there. Poppy crashed about ten minutes ago."
I stroke one finger gently over Poppy's cheek, marveling at the perfect softness of her skin. Her dark lashes rest against her cheeks, her breathing deep and even in the absolute trust of childhood sleep.
"Want me to take her?" I offer.
"In a minute," Sadie says, and I understand. There's something sacred about holding a sleeping child, something that grounds you in the present moment like nothing else.
We stand in comfortable silence, watching the last sliver of sun disappear behind the mountains. When she finally turns to look at me, there's something new in her eyes, a softness, a certainty I haven't seen before.
"Your family is…" she starts, searching for the right word.
"Overwhelming?" I suggest with a gentle smile.
"Amazing," she corrects, shifting Poppy slightly in her arms. "I've never felt so… welcomed. So immediately accepted."
I tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, my thumb lingering on her cheek. "That's just who they are. Once they decide you're family, that's it. No questions, no conditions."
"I'm still getting used to that," she admits. "For so long, it was just me and Rowan against the world. Then just me and Poppy, running, hiding." She takes a shaky breath. "Now, suddenly there's this whole network of people who act like we've always belonged with them."
"You have," I tell her, my voice low and certain. "You just hadn't found us yet."
Her eyes shine with unshed tears, but they're the good kind, the healing kind. "I keep waiting for it to feel overwhelming in a bad way, but it doesn't. It feels…"
"Safe," I finish for her.
"Yes." She looks down at Poppy, then back at me. "Safe."
I wrap my arm around her shoulders, pulling her gently against my side. She comes willingly, fitting herself into the space beside me like she was designed to be there.
"I talked to Rowan earlier," she says after a moment. "About our plans."
My pulse quickens slightly. "And?"
Sadie looks up at me, a small smile playing at her lips. "She's going to watch the café while we move our stuff into your house. This weekend."
The simple words have me instantly smiling like a damn fool. I've been waiting, hoping, not wanting to push. And now she's saying it so casually, like it's the most natural thing in the world.
"You're sure?" I ask, needing to hear it again.
"Completely." Her smile widens. "It's time, Axel. Past time. I don't want to waste another day not waking up with you, not going to sleep with you, not building our life together."
I bend to kiss her, careful not to disturb Poppy. The kiss is gentle but full of promise, of mornings and evenings to come, of a lifetime of moments just like this one.
"I've been ready since the day I met you," I confess against her lips.
She laughs softly. "Liar. I was a mess when you met me."
"The most beautiful mess I'd ever seen," I counter, earning another laugh.
Poppy stirs slightly, making those little sleep sounds that never fail to melt my heart.
Without thinking, I hold out my arms, and Sadie transfers her to me with the easy coordination we've developed over months of co-parenting.
Poppy settles against my chest, her warm weight so familiar now, so essential.
Sadie turns back to the view, leaning her head against my shoulder as the first stars appear in the deepening blue sky. Her engagement ring catches the porch light, sending tiny prisms dancing across Poppy's sleeping form.
I think about the journey that brought us here, from that first day in the brewery, Sadie wound tight with fear and suspicion, to this moment of quiet certainty on my family's porch. From her running from danger to running toward safety. From isolation to belonging.
"What are you thinking about?" she asks, her voice soft in the gathering dusk.
"How far we've come," I tell her honestly. "How lucky I am that you trusted me enough to stop running."
She's quiet for a moment, her hand finding mine between us.
"I was so scared for so long," she admits.
"Every day was just about survival, keeping Poppy safe, staying one step ahead, never letting anyone close enough to hurt us.
" Her fingers tighten around mine. "I never imagined I could have this.
A family. A home. A future that isn't defined by what I'm running from. "
"You have all of that now," I promise her. "Forever."
"Forever," she echoes, and I hear the certainty in her voice, the same certainty that's settled in my own bones.
Poppy sighs in her sleep, one tiny hand curling into my shirt.
Inside the house, I can hear laughter, the clatter of dishes being cleared, the warm hum of family.
But out here, in this perfect bubble of quiet, it's just us, Sadie, Poppy, and me.
The family we've built, the life we've chosen together.
In a few days, they'll be moving into my house, our house now. Their clothes will hang next to mine, Poppy's toys will scatter across the floors, Sadie's coffee mugs will fill the cabinets. The spaces that once echoed with my solitude will overflow with their presence, their laughter, their love.
I press a kiss to Poppy's curls, then to Sadie's temple, breathing them in, memorizing this moment. This is what peace feels like, I realize. This absolute certainty that I am exactly where I'm meant to be, with exactly who I'm meant to be with.
Sadie turns in my arms, careful not to disturb Poppy, and looks up at me with those eyes that I fell for from the very first day.
"I love you," she says simply.
"I love you too," I reply, the words feeling both enormous and utterly inadequate for what I feel for this woman.
The night settles around us, stars emerging one by one above the ranch. Inside, family waits. Ahead, our future stretches out, bright, certain, ours for the taking.
She's home. They're home. After all the running, all the fear, all the careful distance, they're finally where they belong, with me, with the Slades, in this town that welcomed them when they needed it most.
Forever starts now. And I'm going to make sure every day of it is worth the journey that brought us here.
Have you read That Feeling? Book 1 in The Slade Brothers: Second Generation
I've broken wild horses that were easier to tame than Brooklyn Dyer.
The moment she conquered my mechanical bull in those tight jeans and that ridiculous tourist cowboy hat, I knew she was trouble.
The kind of trouble you spend all night praying never ends and a decade trying to forget.