CHAPTER THIRTY #2
She placed her hand on the back of my head, smoothing her palm over my hair. “You don't have to thank me for anything, baby. You were lost, you needed someone to find you, and I did what anybody else would've done—”
“No,” I said, shaking my head, holding her tighter. “Nobody else did. You found me.”
“And I never would've stopped looking,” she whispered, a promise.
“I know,” I replied. “And that's why I need to make you my wife.”
“To make sure someone's always out there to find you if you get lost?” she teased.
“Exactly,” I said with a chuckle, climbing to my feet and taking the box from her hand.
I took the ring, then her hand, and slipped it onto her finger.
“Hey! I didn't say yes yet,” she said, giggling as I grabbed her by the waist and threw her over my shoulder.
She kicked her feet in the air, sending those old, nasty slippers flying.
“Go ahead and say yes,” I replied on the way to our bedroom. “You got time.”
“Time for what?”
“Time for me to rip these clothes off of you,” I said, tossing her onto our bed and pulling my shirt over my head in one fluid motion.
She scrambled up toward our pillows, sitting with her back against the headboard, her knees bent, a coy look in her eyes.
It took no time at all to drop my jeans and kick off my boots, to crawl over the mattress and grab her ankles, pulling her toward me until she lay flat on her back with her legs spread apart, wide enough to accommodate the breadth of my hips.
I lay over her and tugged the elastic from her hair to cause a waterfall of curls to fall around her smiling, rosy-cheeked face.
She wrapped her arms around my neck, lost herself in my eyes, and whispered, “Yes, Noah. It was always going to be yes.”
***
AGE TWENTY-FOUR
Mayor Connie Fischer led the way through the old house, pointing out various points of interest. Arched doorways, crown molding, pocket doors—and, believe me, I was interested in all of them. It was exactly what we wanted and then some.
But while Connie pointed out the bits of architectural character, original to when the house had first been built in the late 1800s, I was making a mental note of all the things wrong with the old place.
Water damage on the bathroom ceiling.
Warped hardwood floors on the first floor.
Ancient appliances that would need replacing before they could be used.
The dollar amount grew higher and higher, piling up on top of the low listing price. Looking at the place now, I understood why it was so low—a steal, honestly—but there was so much to do just to make it livable, never mind turning it into the home of our dreams.
“There are three bedrooms upstairs,” Connie said, gesturing toward the staircase.
I glanced at the wooden risers, noticing right away a couple of splintered boards.
Add that to the list, I thought with a grumbled sigh.
“If you want to head up and check them out, I’ll wait down here and make a phone call.”
Meghan wrapped her arm around mine, thanked the mayor, and steered the way toward the narrow, steep staircase.
“Like climbing a mountain,” I muttered to her back. “Watch your step, Meg. These stairs are freaking me out.”
“Oh, it’s fine,” she insisted, and I knew she was rolling her eyes at me. “My dad and grandparents’ live in old houses like this. I’m used to it.”
“Yeah, my parents do too. But the stairs over there don’t feel like you’re walking up the side of a fuckin’ cliff.”
She laughed, reaching the landing. “So dramatic.”
I huffed and puffed my way to meet her at the top of the stairs. “Shit. If I had known I’d spend the afternoon rock climbing, I would’ve skipped the gym.”
Her curls bounced against her shoulders as she shook her head, wandering to the first of the bedrooms.
“This isn’t a bad size,” she commented as I peered in over her shoulder.
“Yeah, if you don’t mind sleeping in a closet,” I muttered, sweeping my gaze over the small, albeit well-lit, bedroom.
“It’s fine for a kid’s room,” she replied, looking up to meet my eye.
“I guess.”
I turned away to check out the bedroom beside it to find it to be just slightly bigger than the last. The floorboards looked better up here than they did downstairs though, and the ceilings were a surprisingly good height, even for a house this old.
That’s something at least, I thought, opening a closet door.
“Oh, that’s actually nice,” Meg commented, glancing inside.
I nodded. “It’s not bad, no.”
Then I led the way toward the third bedroom.
It was the seventh house we had looked at in the last month. Connie had shown us a few places just outside of town, a handful in towns several miles away, and then one of the trailers in the community I used to live in.
I had shot that last one down right away before Connie could even unlock the door.
There was no way I could live there again. Not after everything that had happened.
We had started to accept that we were unlikely to find a place in River Canyon, and admittedly, I’d taken it better than Meg did.
I didn’t mind a bit of distance or separation, and besides, a ten-minute drive wasn’t a long one.
But Meg didn’t want to leave this place.
She didn’t want to live far from her father or her job or the community who had raised her, and just when she thought we’d have to settle for something farther away, Connie called with this listing that had yet to be put on the market.
Meg hadn’t even looked at it before deciding it needed to be ours.
She was already in love with it, based on its location alone—a perfect distance from both her parents and mine.
I didn’t want to snuff out her dreams, but as I wandered into the biggest of the three bedrooms and saw how big it wasn’t, I sighed, shaking my head, just as she walked in with a wistful sigh.
“Look at this view!” she squealed, hurrying toward the large window, looking out to a yard full of ancient, unkempt trees and wildflowers. “God, that yard is beautiful. We could put a swing set over there, maybe lay some pavers—”
I smoothed a hand over my chin, standing beside her to peer through the old glass pane and into the yard, wondering why the hell I was seeing the things she wasn’t.
“Babe …”
“Do you think we could fit a pool back there? It’s kinda small, and I know, with town code and all, it probably won’t work. But that would be nice, wouldn’t it?”
I sighed, pressing my hand to her lower back. “Babe, maybe we should keep look—”
“You don’t love this house?” she asked, seemingly startled by the revelation.
It guilted me to laugh, but I couldn’t help myself. “Meghan, are you kidding? This place is—”
“It’s beautiful,” she insisted, and I agreed with a nod.
“Yes, it is. Or it could be at least. But, baby, the amount of work it needs is …” I swung my gaze toward the broken fence surrounding the yard’s perimeter and huffed sardonically. “Honestly, it’s insane. We don’t have this type of money.”
She was immediately defensive, crossing her arms over her chest as she proceeded to pout. “But I love it,” she said. “I can see us living here.”
“I know,” I sympathized, glancing over my shoulder and back into the room.
And then I envisioned our bed taking up the space. Her clothes in the closet, my dresser against the wall. I thought about the moon’s beams, spearing through the windowpane to lay over our forms as we made love in the darkness, a kid or two asleep down the hall.
I imagined us laying our hands all over this house, adding our personal touches beside the existing ones we already loved.
I imagined her dad walking over for barbecues, her little sisters hanging out in the backyard with my little brother while Dad and I shot the shit in the detached garage.
I imagined inviting Jay over to play video games in the living room.
I imagined walking through the door to find Meg on the couch, our baby in her arms, and I had a hard time believing anywhere else could make me feel so much like … home.
My eyes went to the window once more, and I looked beyond the trees and past the broken fence, and asked, “Is that my parents’ house?”
“Oh my God,” Meg said, laughing a bit. “It is.”
I’d share a fence with Dad. I could hop the fence and see him whenever I wanted.
And then I realized that Meg had been right all along, since the very beginning of this hunt for a house.
I didn’t want to be anywhere else.
“Maybe we can negotiate,” I finally said, nodding.
Meg turned to look up at me, a smile spreading across her face to reach her eyes, bringing the blue to life and making them sparkle like the ring on her finger.
“Are you serious?” she asked, wrapping her arms around my waist.
“It’s going to be the biggest pain in my ass,” I said, holding her as tightly as she held me. “But I want to live in this house.”
“I want to raise our kids here,” she said, tipping her head back.
I turned from the view of the yard to drift my gaze from her eyes to her lips. “Hey, if we’re really quick and really, really quiet, I bet we could try to make one right now …”
“Connie would kill us,” Meg said, though her eyes glittered with mischief.
I dipped my head, closing the distance between her mouth and mine, in a room that somehow already felt like ours, as I whispered, “I dare her to try.”