CHAPTER 14
ROOK
I keep glancing over at my wife. My wife. It’s hard to concentrate with her next to me in my truck while the scent of vanilla and sugar surrounds me. From the way she’s wringing her hands together, I know she’s nervous. But this is something we have to do.
Not only does my grandfather’s lawyer need to know about our marriage, but I want to make sure she’s always protected and there can be no question about who inherits from me. The last thing I want to think about is my father doing something to me, but I can’t ignore it as a possibility.
He’s a greedy fucker and now that he knows he won’t be getting the farm, he’ll be desperate.
He got so close to having it all and now he won’t get it.
People do stupid things on their best day, but when they feel cornered and like something is stolen from them?
I shudder slightly as I force my eyes back to the road.
There’s silence between us, both of us lost in our own heads, until I’m leading her toward the office. Her eyes are glancing around like she’s expecting someone to jump out from behind a corner and accuse us of something. But she doesn’t need to worry.
I stop a few feet from the lawyer’s door, wanting and needing to put her mind at ease. My hands grip her shoulders, and I turn my Wildflower toward me. My eyes are keen as I study her face. Her worry is clear to see, and it makes my chest ache.
“You don’t need to be worried about this meeting, Meadow,” I assure her.
“We’re simply here to inform him about our marriage and I need to sign some papers that have to do with my inheritance.
At least the one I’m able to claim now.” I shrug one shoulder, the movement casual.
“I’m also going to talk to him about a will for myself because the last thing I want to do is leave you vulnerable if something were to happen to me. ”
“You know I wouldn’t let anything happen to the farm,” her voice is fierce, like she’s a warrior. “I don’t know how to run it, but I’m very good at hiring people and I would make sure no one can sell it off.”
I press my forehead against hers and take a deep breath. I didn’t even realize how much I needed to hear those words, to have her make such a promise, until right this moment. Something inside of me, something that has been knotted with worry, starts to ease.
While I won’t be able to relax until the farm is in my name, this is a start. Her willingness to protect my family’s legacy is a gift, one I won’t squander.
“I know you’d protect the farm,” I murmur the words softly.
I pull back just enough to look down into her eyes, and my hands come up and cup her face.
My thumbs move back and forth over the apples of her cheeks.
“Before we walk in there, you need to know something.” She swallows and nods slowly as if she’s bracing herself for my confession.
Maybe she should. “It was never fake for me.”
Meadow’s pink lips part and my eyes glance down at them. I want to kiss her, but I don’t. For now.
“I’ve wanted you since the moment I met you.
I held myself back because I’m not good enough for you, not when I was trying to put my all into making my business a success.
” I take a deep breath as my eyes bounce back and forth between hers, studying her, memorizing her.
“Grandpa wasn’t sure about my plans for the farm and even though he gave me some land to use, he was hesitant.
I wanted to put all of my time and effort into making it a success. ”
“You wanted him to be proud of you,” she whispers.
I nod, my mouth going dry while I press my lips together, not trusting my voice for a moment. When I get myself under control I croak out, “Yeah. It wasn’t until I read his letter, the one explaining his will, that I found out he was.”
“He should have told you,” she insists, “but I’m glad he put it in a letter at least. You’ll always have it now.”
“Looking back,” I admit, “I think he might have been telling me but in ways I didn’t understand at the time. Talking about his feelings wasn’t easy for him, but he tried his best.”
“For you. He tried his best for you.”
“I know,” the words slip past my lips. I shake my head and give her a wry smile.
“It was hard to see it sometimes and even harder to feel it. I never wanted to be like my father, and it felt like his ghost stuck around in my life and on the farm.” I tilt my head slightly as I look at her.
“The point is, I wanted you from the first moment I saw you. I felt it, the pull, the need to be near you. I just couldn’t give you what you deserved then and giving you any less wouldn’t be fair to you, and it would eat me up inside. ”
“I wanted you too,” she confesses, her voice quiet like she doesn’t want to break the tentative bubble of peace around us.
I kiss her lips softly and force myself to pull back. Not because I don’t want her, but because it’ll be far too easy to get lost in kissing her. What I have to say is important.
Honestly, I probably should have found time to say it before we got here. But she still deserves to hear the truth.
“When you agreed to marry me, you have no idea how high my heart soared. It was like being given my greatest wish.” Tears fill my eyes, but I blink them away. “The two best things that have ever happened in my life were being dropped off with my grandparents and marrying you.”
“Rook,” her voice wobbles as she breathes out my name.
I kiss her again, unable to stop myself. How I keep it chaste is a mystery. It’s doubtful I’d be able to pull it off a third time.
“What about when you get the farm, free and clear, signed over to you?”
I shake my head slowly and smile softy down at my woman, my wife, my Wildflower. “Marrying you will be better,” my voice is strong and filled with conviction.
Her entire face softens and she melts into me. I love it when she does that. It makes me feel like I have the power to make her feel safe, safe to let go, safe to just be.
“But I need the farm too,” I tell her, my voice thick.
“Of course,” she says it as if she’s almost affronted at the thought of me not having it. It’s adorable as fuck.
“Not because of my family legacy or because of the work I’ve put in,” I correct any assumptions she might be making.
Her eyebrows pull together and confusion is written all over her face. “That doesn’t make any sense,” she mutters.
“I need the farm because I can see our lives there. I can see the future.” She blows out a breath as she absorbs my words, my truth. “I can see you laughing in the house and helping me turning it into a home, not just for us but for future generations.”
“Future generations?” Hope fills her voice even though she tries to mask it.
“Yeah,” I confirm as one side of my mouth tips up. “I can see it all, Meadow. You, our kids. I can hear their laughter and hear their feet on the hardwood. I can’t even put into words how much I want it. I’m desperate for it.”
“Yes,” she says it like a confession, like admitting she’s right there with me costs her something, even if she gains more in return.
“I love you, my Wildflower,” the words fall from my lips with ease, as if I was born to say them.
I think I was.
Meadow’s eyes widen and she blinks at me a few times. The silence stretches between us, but I’m not worried. My heartbeat is steady.
Because I know.
I know how she feels about me. I’ve felt it when she reaches for me or when her eyes find mine and sparkle.
It’s possible her brain hasn’t caught up with her heart, but it will. I can be a patient man when I need to be, even though nothing has tested my patience quite like the woman in front of me, the woman I married.
“I love you, too, Rook,” she says the words slowly, as if she’s not sure of their taste quite yet.
Then her entire face lights up with a huge grin and I can’t help but mirror it. When she pulls me down to her, this time she’s the one kissing me.
My control completely snaps and my arms wrap around her and pull her against my chest, erasing any distance between us. Feeling her softness against me has my cock going from semi-hard, which it always is when I’m around my wife, to a steel pipe in my jeans.
I groan into her mouth, and she giggles against my lips. She can feel exactly what she does to me.
Good. She deserves to know just how much I want her, crave her, need her. I never want her to question whether or not I worship, not only her, but the ground she walks on as well.
My fingers slide into the hair at the back of her head and I grip the strands, tilting her head just the way I want it as I plunge my tongue inside of her mouth.
She clings to me like I’m the only thing keeping her tethered to the here and now.
Considering I already know I’m going to need her to pull me back from the edge, we might be in trouble here.
Before our kiss can turn even more heated, someone clears their throat and we jump apart like we’ve been electrocuted. I look down at Meadow to find her lips swollen from my kisses, her eyes bright, and her cheeks flushed.
“Gorgeous,” I mutter under my breath, but with the way her blush deepens she has no problem hearing me.
We both turn slowly to find Mr. Holden standing in the doorway to his office. His eyes are bouncing back and forth between us, and he has a huge smile on his face.
“Your grandfather would love this,” there’s a note of glee in his voice.
I let out a low groan, but I don’t move away from my wife. Hell no, not going to happen. My arm slides around her waist and I tuck her into my side, needing her closer, always needing her closer.
With a wince, I ask, “How much did you hear?”
He shoots me a pointed look. “Enough.” It’s all he says before turning his attention over to Meadow.
I clear my throat. “This is Meadow, my wife.”
“I thought that’s what I heard, but then I thought maybe I had started drinking too early.” Meadow’s mouth falls open and one side of my mouth tips up before he holds his hands up and contritely confesses, “Kidding. I was just kidding.”
Meadow looks up at me with wide eyes before she falls apart in a giggle fit in the hallway outside the office of the lawyer who holds our future in a file folder on his desk. It’s perfect.
And I fall a little bit deeper in love with my wife.
“It appears we have a lot to go over,” he steps back into his office and waves us inside. “With your marriage, I can petition for the timeline to be shortened since you now qualify to be given ownership.”
“We also need to talk about what I need to do to ensure Meadow is protected legally and financially.” My voice drops and takes on a dark quality, “And a restraining order against my father.”
He nods like he knew it was coming. Maybe he did.
As we sit, I reach for Meadow’s hand, and she laces our fingers together like it’s the most natural thing in the world. I never expected for this to happen, for me to marry to the woman I’ve been denying my feelings for, but here I am.
I’m not entirely sure what the future holds, other than a lot of hard work, laughter, and endless opportunities. There will be bountiful years and times when I can’t see the light anymore; that’s a given.
With my Wildflower at my side, I’m ready for whatever is on the horizon. I won’t let my father steal my family’s legacy; one he never earned. Meadow will be there to lend me her strength.
I’ll be there for her too. I’ll be her built in taste-tester, her sounding board, her biggest supporter and the person who cheers for her the loudest.
I grew up seeing my grandparents’ love, the way it had deep roots, and never wavered. Now, with Meadow at my side, I have no doubt I found something just as special with her. I’ll protect it with everything in me, now until forever.