Chapter 17 #2
“I’d already bought the house,” he continues. His voice is so rough. Full of so much raw emotion. “It was a fixer-upper, but I planned to have it ready by the time you finished school for good and moved home.”
“Brooks.” My voice breaks on his name, and he scoops me against him, clinging to me almost desperately. “Fuck.”
“I was going to surprise you and take you to the house. I had flowers and balloons all over the place, thanks to the help of my mom and the rest of the family. Then we were going to have a little party at the ranch,” he says, peppering the top of my head with kisses.
No.
God, that’s all I’ve ever wanted.
“You begged me to stay.” I’m crying against his chest, unable to hold in the sobs, grieving what we both lost. “You told me that you needed me, and I was too blinded, too fucking overwhelmed—”
“Hey, shh.”
“No, you should hate me.” I step out of his arms and walk across the room to the wide windows that look out over the backyard. There’s a concrete patio out there, where I would put a pergola and furniture and God. “You should still hate me, Brooks. Shit, I hate me.”
“No, stop it.” His hand grips my upper arm, and he turns me to him, then cups my face. “I’m so fucking over being angry, Jules. It consumed me for more than a decade. Besides, we were both at fault for how things went down.”
My face crumples again, and I close my eyes.
“I have you back with me, and I’m not going to feed into the anger or the frustration anymore. I’m just not. It was eating me alive. For whatever reason, it just wasn’t the right time for us, baby.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Hey.” He tips my chin up and makes me look him in the eyes. I absolutely hate seeing the tears in his beautiful hazel eyes. “I am not telling you this to make you hurt, Wildfire. I don’t want you to hurt any more than you already have.”
“It’s fucking agony,” I reply, my lips quivering as every muscle in my body shakes with rage and despair. “I could have been your wife for all of these years. We could have had babies, and an amazing family, and—”
“No more.” He shakes his head and leans in to rest his forehead to mine. He has to lean down so far, it would be laughable if I weren’t losing my mind with regret and sadness. “We can still have those things, baby.”
“We lost so much time.”
“And we have plenty ahead of us.” He wipes his thumbs under my eyes, clearing away the tears. “We need to stop dwelling on what we lost and focus on the fact that we found each other again, and this is just the beginning of an amazing life together.”
His voice holds so much conviction.
“You need to understand that I’m never letting you go again, Juliet.
Never. You’re mine. If you want to live in the house that I bought for you fifteen years ago, that’s great with me.
If you want me to gut and renovate this one for you, perfect.
Let’s do it. I don’t care where we live as long as we’re there together, sleeping in our bed, with you in my arms. Because I’ve already endured this life without you, and I refuse to spend another minute in that fucking purgatory. ”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I promise him, wrapping my arms around his neck.
He easily lifts me into his arms, and I wrap my legs around his waist before he deposits me on the countertop.
“I don’t care where we live, either. I just need to be with you because you’re the love of my life, Brooks.
You’re the only one who makes sense, the only person I need. ”
“Jesus, I needed to hear you say that.” He buries his face in my neck, and I push my fingers into his thick, dark hair. “I love you, baby. It’s always been you. Hell, I’d marry you today.”
I smirk at that, letting the love pouring from him fill my heart and smooth out all of the rough edges.
He’s holding me so tenderly, it’s a balm to my bruised heart. I don’t know how long we stay like this. It could be minutes or an hour, but finally, he moves back just a little and wipes the last of my tears away.
“Do you want to see the rest of the house?” he murmurs, still caressing me, soothing me.
“Please. Give me a tour.”
I hop down, and with his hand holding mine tightly, as if he’s worried I might slip away—spoiler alert: never happening—he leads me through the rest of the first floor, showing me a laundry room, a guest bedroom, the living room, and then leads me to the study.
“I thought this would make a nice library for you. Install built-in bookcases, a cozy chair and table. It wouldn’t be as grand as Billie’s because Connor’s a fancy fuck, but it could work.”
I’m blinking up at him in surprise. “I think I just fell in love with you.”
Brooks barks out a laugh. “It took me mentioning a library to do that?”
“I mean, it didn’t hurt. You’d be okay with me taking over a whole room?”
“The whole house is yours, Juliet. Do whatever the fuck you want.”
“You would have to live here, too, you know.”
“I have what I want.” He kisses the top of my head and leads me to the staircase. “I have you. Let’s go up. The second floor needs more work than the first does.”
“Is that even possible?”
He winces. “Yeah, it’s possible. Old house, remember? If this is too much of a project for you, and you’d rather we sold both houses and bought something newer—”
“Do I look like a woman who’s afraid of a DIY project, Mr. Blackwell?”
“No, you lived in an attic. Remember?” His voice is growly, and he narrows his eyes at me. “A fucking attic, Juliet.”
“Hey, it served the purpose.”
“Yeah, the purpose of punishing yourself.”
We reach the top of the stairs, and I turn to him, my mouth dropping in surprise. “I wasn’t—”
“Yeah, you were.” His mouth is set in grim lines as he watches me. “We both know it, Wildfire.”
I swallow hard. Is that what I was doing? Maybe, without realizing it.
“Okay, there are four bedrooms up here,” he says, and starts pointing them out. “One bathroom for the three smaller bedrooms to share. The primary bedroom has an en suite.”
I follow him through, poking my head into all of the rooms.
“They’re pretty small,” I murmur quietly, taking it all in. It’s true, the bedrooms are small. “But they’d be fine for kids’ rooms. Or an office. What about your home gym?”
“I have a garage out back,” he says with a shrug. “And I usually go to the firehouse to work out anyway. Bridger has given all of us access to the gym there. I don’t need a room in the house for that. We could share an office here, since we both have offices at our businesses.”
I’m nodding, feeling excitement bubble up in my stomach as I start to see it all in my head.
“I want to see the primary.”
“Right this way.” He gestures to the open door, and I walk past him, soaking up his warmth. This bedroom is at least twice the size of the others on this floor.
“I suspect that a previous owner opened a wall to another smaller room to make this bigger,” he says, as if he can read my mind. He’s leaning on the doorjamb as I walk around. His arms are folded, showing off his incredible biceps. “My eyes are up here, Wildfire.”
I smirk, then chuckle as I look around. “I like it. I’d paint it something soft, like a yellow or green. Pretty curtains on the windows. A rug in the middle of the floor, after said floors get refinished. It would be really pretty.”
“The bathroom’s through there.” He points at another doorway, and I step over and then freeze.
The ceiling has caved in over the clawfoot tub.
“Water damage,” he says behind me, taking my shoulders in his hands. “The leak has been fixed, but the bathroom needs to be gutted.”
“I see that. Fucking water damage is the bane of my existence.”
He wraps his arms around me from behind and lowers his lips to my ear. “What do you think? You don’t have to know today. This house isn’t going anywhere.”
I bite my lip, afraid to hope and trust that this could be real.
But he’s right here, behind me, holding me tight, and it is real.
“I love the house across the street.” I turn and loop my arms around his middle. “It’s a great house.”
“You’re right. It is a great house.” He kisses my forehead. “What’s going on in that gorgeous brain of yours?”
I work my lip through my teeth as I ponder this.
“I’ll be perfectly happy living across the street while we fix this one up.
It’s so handy that we’re right there. And then, later, we can decide if we want to keep it and rent it out or sell it.
But I think I want to keep it. Because I’m greedy as fuck, Brooks. ”
His lips spread into a smile as he takes my face in his hands and lowers his lips to mine.
“This sounds like an excellent plan. And I love that you’re saying we so much. It sounds fucking amazing.”
“Yeah, I like it, too. And Brooks?”
“Yes, baby?”
“That kitchen is the first thing to go.”