Chapter 50
CHAPTER FIFTY
Kenny
T his woman would likely never fail to surprise me.
I might’ve wished for something like this, but it did not compute.
“I’m sorry… what?” I truly didn’t fully understand what she was saying.
She grinned, shifting so she straddled my waist and cupped my face. “I love you, Kenny Carmichael, and I want to be with you. I’m tired of doing this job and tired of toiling in isolation. I don’t know exactly what comes next, but these last few months have given me a picture and it’s so beautiful.”
I could barely let her finish before surging forward and kissing her beautiful face. Good grief, had she really just said that to me? Was I hallucinating somewhere over the ocean and I’d end up arriving here to find a different version of this story ?
If so, please flight attendant ma’am or sir, do not wake me.
“I love you, too. So freaking much,” I said between kisses. I pulled back. “I wanted to tell you, but?—”
Her index finger pressed against my lips. “I know you have things to say to me, but I’m going to talk first, okay?”
My heart flipped because I did not mind bossy, in charge Liz, but I also loved that she wanted to say her piece. And I wanted to hear it.
“Alright then. Please proceed.” I settled my hands on her waist and promised myself I would keep them there and resist the temptation to touch her anywhere else until she was done.
She grinned, then cleared her throat and regained her composure. “I haven’t been happy in a long time—probably years, if I’m honest. You showed me not only what dating someone wonderful could be like, but also what life in a community looked like. And along with wanting you, kind of desperately…”
She gripped my shirt and tugged at it.
You will not kiss her again until she’s done talking. No. Don’t do it. This is what you’ve been training for!
She grinned, no doubt seeing the heat flash in my eyes.
“I also wanted that place. Those mountains. I want to call my sister while living in the same time zone and meet her for lunch on a workday. See my dad laughing and being a freaking grandpa to his stepkids’ children. I want the Silver Ridge Romance Readers official membership designation, and I want to know every store owner by name.”
This woman… I broke my rules and hugged her tight, wanting to cradle her close and tuck her near me until the end of time .
Okay, well, actually I had a few other things in mind, but that was a good start.
She inched away but left her hands on my shoulders, pressed a kiss to my mouth, then leaned back.
“What I don’t totally understand is what we do next.”
I hummed. “I have some very specific ideas of what we do next.”
She grinned again and I chuckled, then settled back against the couch. “I resign my job as the European post right after we go back to Silverton and tell Kit the good news.”
She laughed softly. “I feel like there might be a few other people I need to talk to about this.”
“Fair. But Kit will need a personal debrief.”
She nodded with a fakely serious expression. “Absolutely.”
There was so much hope bursting through me, I could hardly breathe through it. “Bruce already said you could have a job at Saint any time and I know that’s true. I have no idea if you’re interested in that line of work, but I think you’d be an incredible part of the team. No—I know it.”
Her hands traced over my pecs, sending cascades of sensation down my body. I caught her wrists, fully aware my ability to concentrate on this very important conversation wouldn’t survive if she kept that up.
“I do. I’ll take a few weeks to make the transition and really think about it, but I loved working with you and everyone else. And even though I’m sorry they went through what they did, the Jack and Evie job was kind of amazing.”
I chuckled. “I get it. Like, I never want someone to be kidnapped or in danger, but I will never get tired of being the person to help someone who really needs it. ”
Her gaze softened. “That is one of so many things I love about you.” She leaned in for another kiss.
I accepted it happily, but a twinge of worry poked at me. “So… you’re sure you want to walk away from this? I mean, hear me when I say I’m ecstatic, and I also get this is not about me , but I hate the thought of you making this move and regretting it.”
“Thank you for being mindful of that. I’m not without some anxiousness, but I also know that coming back here was filled with dread instead of joy. I kept telling myself that wasn’t part of the equation—people don’t just ‘follow their joy.’ I mean, some people do, but I didn’t. I don’t. That’s just not the kind of person I am.”
She ran a hand through my hair, and I closed my eyes, soaking in the sensation of her nails on my scalp and the affection she was giving me so freely.
When I opened them, she spoke again.
“This change isn’t just about joy for me. It’s about possibility. I know what the next ten years of this job looks like because I’ve been living it for well over a decade. It’s predictable in nature even if not location, exactly. And many people truly love it and miss it when it’s gone. For me, I didn’t see any other options once I got this far in, and there’s this lie we tell ourselves, a kind of sunk-cost fallacy where I’ve spent so many years here so I can’t possibly stop now when, in just ten more years, I can be done. But in ten years, I’ll be forty-five. Do I want to wait that long to have a home I get to keep and a partner and to live near my family? Even if you were willing to live in Europe indefinitely, my family wouldn’t be here. I’ve fooled myself into thinking that was okay, but it’s not. And I’m not going to sacrifice those things for this job, no matter how valuable, anymore. I get to choose where I make a difference and how I live, and I know what I want now.”
I loved so much about what she’d just said and there was absolutely a Kenny Carmichael doing back handsprings through an endless field at her insinuation that I would be her partner for years.
Yes please! Me! Me! Meeeeee!
“That makes sense,” I said, attempting to maintain my composure. “I could’ve stayed in. Did you know that?”
Her brows rose. “After the wolves came for your fingers?”
I squeezed her waist and grinned. “Yes. After the wolves came. You don’t get automatically discharged for that kind of thing. There are soldiers with more severe amputations and limb differences who choose to remain in if their rehab goes well.”
“What made you leave?”
“Family. I’d planned to retire from EMU and there I was, twenty-seven and barely a decade into my service missing two fingers and dealing with the aftermath of that accident, and I heard whispers that Wilder Saint was retiring and moving to some dinky little mountain town to start a business. Rumor had it he wanted as many former EMU people as would come.”
Her soft smile grew and her beauty felt like a lightning bolt to my chest. “And you ended up being one of them.”
I nodded. “When I found out Bruce and Tristan were going, it was a big deal. Then when I heard Adam and Beast were, I really couldn’t even pretend like I wanted to stay without them. They’d been my mentors and were fundamental to my time there—to who I was as a man. So I sat down with Cookie and Stone, and we all agreed we’d come. Stone promised and once I had that locked in, I had no reason to stay except the service. I loved my time in the Army and especially in the EMU and there are plenty of things I miss about it, but I don’t regret leaving. I don’t regret making the choice to have a life I love with people I love.”
She swallowed hard. “And yet, you were leaving them…”
I sighed. “For you. Yes. Because they’re my family, but you… Liz, you’re my whole heart. You’re my future, I hope, and without you, it just wasn’t going to work.”
The kiss that followed was so consuming, we didn’t talk anymore. We didn’t talk for a long, long time after that.