Chapter 19 #3
He pulled back, his eyes widening. “What’s okay?” he asked, frowning.
“Everything.” She shrugged. “The wedding and my studio, babies and puppies, and friends and growing old and making a life. Here with you.”
He frowned at her, as if unable to believe what she was saying. “Are you being serious right now?”
Poppy grinned and looped her arms around his neck. “Very. But I still expect you to propose again, preferably with a multi-stone, multicolored ring.” She waved a hand in the air. “If you want to know exactly what it looks like, I’ll sketch it for you.”
“Not that it will be a surprise or anything,” he said, his tone droll.
She shrugged. “I want what I want.” Gripping his sides, she leaned back a little, and her eyes slammed into his. It was time to get serious, to be as open and vulnerable as he’d been.
Poppy tipped her head and tried to smile.
“It’s always been you, Thom. As a kid, you were always the first person I wanted to see, the one person I couldn’t wait to be with.
Whenever I was with you, I felt like I had someone bigger and stronger and smarter standing behind me, a barrier between me and the world. ”
She bit the inside of her cheek. “And when I saw you here, in this house, I was relieved because there was someone to fight my battles for me, to tell me what to do and where to go. But as we got together, and as I grew stronger and figured out who I wanted to be and how I wanted to live, I realized that asking you to be responsible for me and my emotions wasn’t fair.
I moved out because I want to prove to myself that I can rely on myself, that I can live on my own, make my own decisions, only be responsible for myself. ”
Now came the hard part, and she knew he’d push back. “I love you. I’ve always loved you, but I don’t love blindly anymore. And I won’t love you blindly.”
His face fell, and she waved her hands in the air, a silent request for him not to jump to conclusions.
“But I will love you intentionally, with my eyes and heart wide open. I’m not that little girl anymore or the confused bride who needs to shelter under your wing.
I want to stand in the storm with you, by your side.
” She caught an emotion she couldn’t identify in his eyes and twisted his shirt in her fist. “I’m making a mess of this, aren’t I? ”
Before he could answer, she spoke again, before she lost her courage. “Also, I’m not moving back in just yet.”
“You’re not?”
She shook her head. “Not yet. I mean, I will, but not—”
“—yet,” he interjected. “Why not?”
He didn’t sound pissed, but she couldn’t be sure. “Because I still feel like I need to live on my own for a while longer, to be independent. I know it doesn’t make sense, because I love you and I think you love me—”
“I very much love you—”
“But I just need—”
“Time and space.” Thom nodded. Then he shrugged. “Okay. But can I ask for something in return?”
Well, huh, that was easier than she expected. What was he up to because she didn’t trust that look in his eyes. What was he cooking up? “Go on,” she said.
“We spend our evenings together, some nights we spend together, others not. We play that by ear…”
That sounded good to her, but Poppy knew he wasn’t finished. “Why do I feel that’s the carrot before the stick?”
He kissed her nose. “Because you’re a smart woman.” He kissed her mouth, handing her a delicious, drugging kiss that had her eyes crossing and her toes curling. When he kissed her like that, she doubted there was anything she could refuse him. Ever.
“I’ll keep the ghosts, but you have to take custody of Felony,” he murmured quickly before diving in for another kiss.
It took a moment for his words to register, and when they did, they clanged deep within her brain.
She slapped her hand on his chest and met his eyes, utterly blindsided.
“Nuh uh, I can’t. I’m at home all day, and he’ll want to be with me, and he’s a fart machine.
The garden at the cottage where I’m staying is too small, and he’ll cause mayhem in the neighborhood. ”
Thom stepped back and spread out his hands. “Then bring him and work here, in this room. It’s your favorite place to work, it always has been. Fel can have run of the house, as per usual, but when you go home, you take him, too.”
“He’s your dog, Thom!” Poppy protested.
“Sweetheart, he hasn’t been mine since he peed on your wedding dress. He’s nuts about you, and he’s always, at best, tolerated me. So, I’m gracefully transferring ownership of him to you.”
“Gracefully, my ass,” Poppy muttered. “Why does he have to be my falling-in-love-with-you gift?”
“Along with him comes me, this house, the lake, and this office,” Thom cajoled.
He bent his head to speak in her ear. “It comes with morning sex, afternoon sex, evening sex, anytime sex. Morning kisses, coffee delivery, the occasional home-cooked meal, frequent takeout, someone who believes in you utterly and forever, someone who’ll love you through good times and bad.
You just have to take on my psycho dog, who’s as much in love with you as I am. ”
Hmm, when he put it like that. Poppy lifted her chin so that he could kiss her neck. “I’ll think about it,” she told him, not wanting to be a pushover and cave immediately.
“You do that,” he told her, picking her up and lifting her into him. Poppy locked her legs around his hips and draped her arms over his shoulders. She grinned at him. “Well, can you grab his harness and leash then? I’ll take him home now.”
“The only place you are going now, sweetheart, is to my bed. Any objections?”
She pretended to think as Thom walked her out the door. “We didn’t finish placing the stickers on the map,” she told him.
“We have a lifetime to do that, Poppy. Right now, I need to love you. You okay with that?”
She nodded. So very, very okay. He carried her down the stairs and outside the door to Thom’s bedroom, Felony sat on his haunches growling, the hackles on his back rising.
As Thom opened the bedroom door, over his shoulder she caught sight of the three ghosts.
She glared at them, pointing her index and middle fingers at her eyes and then at them.
“Privacy, ladies,” she told them. “This is our time.”
The redhead cocked her head, nodded, and grinned, then all three winked out.
“Do I want to know?” Thom asked, shaking his head but smiling.
“Probably not,” Poppy told him as he walked her into his bedroom and then into the rest of what she knew, with quiet certainty, would be an extraordinary life.