Chapter 29
CHAPTER
TWENTY-NINE
Mira
I pull into our driveway and park next to Hartley’s truck just as the sun starts to set. The sky is beautiful, showing off in purples and pinks. It reminds me of my wedding flowers.
The porch light glows warmly against the darkening sky as I take the steps to the house.
I don’t rush inside like I want to. I’m dying to tell Hartley how I feel, but it’s important, too, to sit with my feelings a little bit. If I’d have learned that lesson sooner, Hart and I could’ve been together much sooner and much longer.
Hartley turns as I walk in, pulling a pizza from the oven. “Hey, darlin’.”
Of course he doesn’t have a shirt on.
Stay focused, Mira.
“Hope you don’t mind a heat-up Piper’s Pizza,” he says, taking off the oven mitts. “I was rummaging around in the freezer for an ice pack and found the pizza hidden in the back.”
“An ice pack? Why? Did you get hurt?”
“No,” he says, coming around the island. “Bobby busted his hand.” He rolls his eyes. “It was Brooks’s fault. Need I say more?”
I laugh, wrapping my arms around his waist and breathing in his body oils and soap. “Nope. No, you don’t.”
He kisses me. “How was Lolly’s? Did you find the pictures?”
I pull him to the couch and have him sit, then I crawl into his lap. He wastes no time wrapping his arms around me and pulling me into his chest.
“There were no pictures,” I say, pressing my finger against his tattoo.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, there were no pictures. It was a ruse. A Lolly adventure that was part manipulation.” I kiss his sternum. “But in typical Lolly fashion, I won in the end.”
He hums. “Sounds like it turned out well.”
I settle against him, listening to his steady heartbeat beneath my cheek.
Once upon a time, I was afraid to love this man. Even more painfully, I was afraid to accept his love. I convinced myself that we were better off without each other because I was afraid of losing him. By doing that, I never had him.
Now, though, I do. And I’m never letting him go.
I sit up and straddle him. His eyes grow dark, and he grips my hips, assuming I want fucked. And I do. But not yet. Because he deserves to know how I feel about him once and for all.
“Before we get to that,” I say, pressing myself against his already-hardening cock, “I want to talk.”
His brows lift. “Okay. Let’s talk.” He kisses my forehead. “What do you want to talk about?”
“You.”
“Me?” he asks, surprised.
“Yes, you.” I roll my eyes. “Well, and me. But we go together like …” I try to think of a good analogy. Peas and carrots are so overused. “Chocolate and cake. Where you are, I am, and vice versa.”
He chuckles. “Did you drink anything tonight?”
I smack his chest, laughing. “No. Keep up.” He flexes his cock against me. “I know you don’t have any problems keeping that up. I mean mentally. I need you with me mentally for five minutes.”
“You shouldn’t look so edible if you want me to focus.”
“Hartley,” I say. “I smell like old cardboard and mothballs. I’m definitely not edible.”
“I can prove you wrong right now.”
The thought of his mouth on me makes me start to veer off course. No. Focus, Mira. “Stop it. Don’t distract me. You’re just making this take longer.”
“Can we at least take off your shirt?” He shrugs. “I mean, I’m shirtless. It only seems fair.”
“Fine,” I say, sighing. I hold my arms up as he slips my T-shirt over my head, tossing it into the ethos behind the couch. “Are you good now?”
He runs his fingertips down my bra straps. “Yup.”
“Okay.” I study him, wondering why I didn’t plan out how to say this to him. I practice ordering fast food before I get to the window, but I didn’t practice telling my husband that I love him? “I love you.”
The words power into the world and then drip one by one to the floor.
“I’m sorry,” he says, bringing his hands back to my hips. “What did you say?”
His playfulness is gone, and in its place is a soberness that causes me to still. My breathing’s shallow, and he cocks his head to the side.
“I said,” I say, smiling softly. “I love you, Hartley.”
He swallows, his eyes never leaving mine. I’m not sure if he’s in shock or just doesn’t know what to say.
“I haven’t told you that because I didn’t know how,” I say. “I started to tell you a thousand times, but each time, the words got stuck in my throat. It made me feel like an asshole because you’re so amazing and I couldn’t say it.”
“Mira …”
I touch his lips with my finger. “Let me finish, please.”
He kisses the pad, then wraps his hand around mine, lacing our fingers together.
“This is me. All of me. And I’m giving all of me to you,” I say. “No running. Ever. The only direction I’ll ever run is into your arms.”
He cups my face and brings his mouth to mine. This kiss is different from any kiss before it. It’s not for an audience like at our wedding. It’s not to get to sex like a lot of the time. And it’s not him telling me that he loves me.
It’s him accepting my love.
Tears cloud my eyes when I open them and look at his handsome face.
“Don’t cry,” he says, wiping my eyes with his thumbs.
“They’re happy tears.”
“I still don’t like them.” He kisses my nose. “I’ve waited my whole life to hear you say you love me again. I started to believe that it would never happen.”
“What would you have done if it didn’t?”
He grins. “I’d have loved you anyway.”
I wrap my arms around his neck and rest my head between his collar and jaw.
He holds me tight, drawing designs on my back with his fingertip. It’s the balm for my wounds. His touch, his steadiness, slowly mends my heart. And the best part about it is that I don’t have to explain it all to him. He knows. He’s kind of like Lolly in that way. They always know.
Maybe that’s not all that strange. Maybe I just have to trust the people I love a little more.
The house is quiet—something that I’ve had to get used to after the noisy Kentucky apartment.
And outside the windows, it’s dark. The quiet would’ve driven me bonkers a few months ago.
It would’ve given me too much space to think.
But now I understand that just because you can’t hear anything besides the frogs in the distance, that doesn’t mean everything is still.
There are memories and laughter trapped in these walls—scents of apple pie and secrets between brothers held in this home.
And that’s comforting. Amazing, really. I used to not understand that, but now I do.
I want to go back and spend some time in Lolly’s attic. Maybe even poke around Mom’s room a little bit. But even more, I can’t wait to make memories with Hartley here. In our home.
“Gray and Astrid move back tomorrow,” he says. “I told Gray that I’d come over and help him unload their stuff. You good with that?”
I smile against him. “That’s funny because I told Astrid that I would help her unpack.”
“We’re just one big happy family,” he says, chuckling.
I sit up. “I want to ask you to do two things for me.”
“You can ask me for anything.”
“First, I’d like to frame or do something with the lucky coin and then hang it over our front door.”
“Done.”
I grin. “This next one might be a little hard.”
“Okay.”
“And you might have to really push to get it done.”
He side-eyes me. “Okay.”
“I don’t want you to be gentle about it,” I say. “This is one of those things that you might not get right immediately, but you can practice until it’s perfect.”
“I’ll do it. What do you need?”
I lean forward until my lips hover against his. “A baby.”
His body stills.
“I want a baby, Hart.” I grind against his cock, letting the words drift across his mouth. “Right now. I’m done being scared.”
And I’m done wasting time.
I thought I was out in the world living, but really, I was putting off life.
I had these blockades around my heart that took way too long, and the hands of one very particular ranch, to deconstruct.
But as I sit in his arms, feeling safe and loved in a way I didn’t know was possible—that I didn’t let myself feel, I know this is living.
This is what I’ve always wanted. This is what terrified me because I could lose it.
But nothing in this life is guaranteed. And like Hartley said, I’d rather feel this kind of love for a day and risk losing it than never feel it at all.
He looks at me, and the love in his eyes almost makes me cry. “You’re serious?”
“Your friends are all going to have babies,” I say. “Wouldn’t it be fun to raise our children together? They could run these fields like we did growing up.” I smile. “I think there’s something really sweet about that.”
He doesn’t answer. I think he’s in shock. Again.
“Grief stole a lot from me over the years,” I admit.
“And I watched a video tonight of my parents, who made me realize how precious life really is. It was just Markie, them, and me playing at a park, and they looked so happy. At first, it hurt my heart, and I wished I hadn’t seen it.
But then I realized—how selfish is that?
They lived fun, happy lives and had two children.
It’s such a detriment to their legacy not to think about them.
To avoid watching the videos and looking at pictures.
” I shrug. “And what a travesty it would be to waste my life being scared of losing someone else.”
He brushes my hair out of my face. “I love you, Mira. I don’t think you understand how amazing you are. How brave. How strong. But I see it. And there’s nothing, and I mean nothing, more I’d like than to have a family with you.”
“You can. We can. Because I’m not going anywhere. All that shit I said about making a divorce easy? Ha. If you ever try to leave me, I’ll fight you so hard that you’ll just come back to me out of convenience.”
“Hold on to me.”
He stands with me, clinging to him like a monkey.
I wrap my legs around his waist as he carries me through the house to our room.
There are touches of me in almost every room of the house now.
A picture here, a new curtain there. The dishwasher I chose at the appliance store.
The throw pillow on the recliner. I never really realized just how much our lives had mixed naturally.
But it works. Just like we work.
It was all meant to be.