Chapter 20
ELLIE
“What?” I wasn’t sure if I heard Trig properly. “Marry you?”
He grinned. “Yeah, sugar. If you’re married to me, Trout can’t have you.”
“He’s not going to like that.”
“Good. He shouldn’t be marrying you in the first place.”
“He threatened me. If I’m married to you, you’ll be in danger, too. Your whole family.”
“Did you see my brothers yesterday? You think Trout can do anything to us?”
“Yeah, but your parents…”
“Colt’s the sheriff. He’ll find what he needs to put them both away. But that’s not your problem any longer.”
“It is. He’s after me.”
Trig shook his head. “You handed this problem to me and I’m going to take care of it.”
“By marrying me?”
“I told you you’re mine.”
“But… but we just met and you’re going to get sick of me. Why would you want to–”
“Sick of you?”
I nodded. “My mother is always drunk and with a different sleazy guy whenever I see her, which isn’t too often anymore and–”
He frowned. “What the hell do you mean, sleazy guy?”
“–my father never wanted me. When I thought he did, it turns out he wagered me in a hand of poker. He sold me to Conrad Trout and if he doesn’t deliver...”
I fiddled with a button on Trig’s shirt so I didn’t have to look him in the eye.
“Father doesn’t really want me. Conrad Trout doesn’t want me. He wants a woman thirty years younger who’ll submit to all kinds of dark and perverted stuff in the bedroom.”
“He told you that?”
“Yeah.”
He tipped my chin up with his fingers. “You, Ellis Mann or Ellie Rainwater, or whatever your name is, you’re wanted. By me. By my entire family. I’m not going to get sick of you. Ever.”
“But–”
“No buts, unless it involves my handprint on yours. And don’t think I won’t bring back up the sleazy guys your mother dates. I want to know all about them. Later.”
I bit my lip. For the first time, I felt wanted.
This was it. What I really wanted. Where I was wanted. In Trig’s arms. In his house. His bed. His family.
“You… really want to marry me?”
He tipped my chin up. “What have I been saying since you first woke up in my bed?”
“That I belong to you.”
He nodded. “Yeah, sugar. One look and I knew you were everything I’ve been waiting for.”
Maybe Ann had been right. One look and she and Charlie knew they belonged together. All these years and nine kids later, they were still in love.
Love.
“I… I hoped to marry for love,” I admitted.
Trig sighed, then flipped me over his lap.
“Trig! What are you–”
He had Lainey’s borrowed leggings down below the curve of my butt and a swat landed on my right butt cheek.
“You listening, sugar?” he asked, leaning down close to my ear. His hand rested on my stinging skin.
I nodded. Squirming was no good.
“I think I need to make things a little clearer. You think this is all about you, about you giving up everything. That you’re my possession. That you’re mine.”
“That’s what you said!”
He spanked me again. “Yeah, but it also means I’m yours. I belong to you. I might walk away from the rodeo circuit, but I’m not giving up everything, I’m getting everything I’ve always wanted.”
“Trig.” Tears filled my eyes.
“I love you, Ellie. From the first. I was yours then and there. It just seems to be a hell of a hard time making you see that.”
“I love you, too,” I admitted.
Before I could take a breath, my pants were back in place and I was back on his lap. His hands cupped my cheeks and he was kissing me.
“We’re getting married,” he said, then kissed me some more.
“Yes,” I said, smiling and kissing him back.
“Lainey!” he shouted.
“No sex on my couch!” she shouted back, even though she was coming into the room. Thank God my butt wasn’t sticking out.
“We’re getting married. Today.”
She whooped.
“Call Ma and get it organized. You have two hours.”