Chapter 37
Cooper
By the end of our first date, I knew she was the one.
She didn’t know it then, but she does now.
Last night only cemented everything I already knew. I want her to be the mother of my children. I want her to be a mom to Naomi, and the woman I wake up to for the rest of my life.
Instead of calling to bring her car back, I got Fletcher to help me pull it out of the ditch this morning, and I drove it back myself. The short trip back to Mae’s turned into a few hours because we practically mauled each other the moment I stepped through the door.
Now I’m lying here staring at her, and I don’t want to get up and get back to work. I want to stay here.
I shift, and she arches her back, stretching.
“Thank you,” Mae says.
I snort. “I should be the one thanking you,” I say, pushing some of her hair back.
She smiles with her eyes closed. “I meant for getting my car.”
“I know what you meant, baby.”
She giggles and opens her eyes. “I believe in learning by doing.”
I shake my head because she must have studied or something, because she used her hands and mouth to play me like a fiddle.
Her curly hair sprawls across the pillow and my shoulder, tickling my nose. I love how she thinks it’s messy, but all I see is beauty. I drag my finger over her forehead, sloping the bridge of her pert nose.
“I could say the same thing,” she says. “We … fit together,” she whispers.
“I think it means we were meant for each other.”
Her mouth twists, and she looks away. “I need to get up.”
“Why?” I ask.
“I’m going shopping with June, Gracie, and Tatum. I think we’re doing lunch too.”
“Will you come to my place for dinner afterwards?” I ask her, ignoring the twist in my gut.
I love her and I have to wait for her to catch up. I have to keep trying to help her see that she’s it for me, and I will do whatever it takes to keep her.
“Cooper,” she whispers.
“Mae.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” she asks.
I purse my lips as if I’m seriously reconsidering. “I’m full of excellent ideas. You should know this by now.”
She rolls her eyes, but I see the smile all over her face.
“Okay, I’ll come if the girls don’t want to do anything else,” she says.
“Hopefully they don’t,” I mumble into her neck.
“Don’t you need to get back to the ranch?” she asks.
“Want me gone already? Sorry, I’m going to be a lot harder to get rid of, stubborn.”
Mae snuggles deeper into my side, throwing her leg over mine. “No, I don’t, and I have to admit this was a pleasant surprise. But I also recognize that we have things in life we need to do.”
“It’s the worst,” I mumble looking down at her gazing up at me with her cheek on my chest. I want to say the words sitting on my tongue.
But there is a little part of me that’s scared of her answer.
It’s not necessarily the rejection of the thing.
It’s the reality that she might not want me the same way, and I read it all wrong.
I said I’d marry her in the middle of a storm, and she smiled.
I sense a lot of deep-seated fears in her, and as a man, I want to fix them or carry them however she needs.
Unfortunately, I can’t do any of that for her.
But I can be the encouragement, the patience she needs while she gets there because I want her — forever.