Chapter 42
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
HUNTER
I’ve been carrying this ring in my pocket all morning.
Tucked in the inside pocket of my jacket, pressed against my chest, right over my heart. My mother’s engagement ring. She wore it every day of her life. Even in the hospital at the end, when her fingers were so thin it had to be taped to keep from slipping off.
Dad gave it to me the morning after Mom’s funeral, and said she wanted me to have it. Told me to give it to someone who deserved it.
I never thought I would.
Until her.
Lola is staring at the ring in my hand. Her lips are parted. Her eyes are wide and glassed over, and her whole body has gone still.
“Hunter,” she hiccups. “What is that?”
“My mother’s ring.”
She looks up at me. And I can see it. The fear, the confusion, the part of her brain that’s screaming this is insane, you’ve known him for days, fighting against the part that already knows the answer.
That she is mine. Just as I am hers.
“I’m not getting on one knee,” I tell her. “That ain’t me. I’m not going to make a speech about destiny and hearts and all that poetic shit.” I set the ring on the table between us. Beside the cherry stem. “I’m going to tell you the truth instead.”
She doesn’t speak. Just watches me with those green eyes that have owned me since the night I first saw them.
“I don’t know how much life I got left, Lola.
I could be in a cell in two months. I could be buried in the ground before that.
The Greeks want me dead. The feds want me locked up.
And there are people out there I haven’t identified yet who murdered the mother of my child and pointed the finger at me.
” I take her hand, holding it in both of mine.
Like a damn lifeline. “If something happens to me, the ranch goes to my brothers. My name goes with me. And you?” I squeeze her fingers.
“You’d have nothing. No protection. No legal claim to stay.
No reason for anyone to keep you safe. And I’d never be able to rest knowing I’d left you like that. ”
Her chin trembles, and she sniffles. This is our reality right now. It isn’t sunshine and roses.
“But if you’re my wife? If you carry the Sterling name? Then you are protected. By the ranch. By my family. By every goddamn ally I’ve built over the last ten years. Whether I’m beside you or not. Whether I’m breathing or not.”
“Hunter—”
“I need to know that if I go, you’re safe. That Wyatt has you. That this ranch has you. I need that, Lola, or I can’t fight the way I need to fight. I can’t go into what’s coming with the people I love unprotected.”
She’s shaking her head. Not a no, just disbelief. But then something settles, her eyes going wide.
“Love?” She breathes out.
I tip her chin up to me gently so I can look her dead in the eyes. “Yes. Lola Jackson. This cowboy is madly in love with you and wants to make you his wife.”
She blinks at me. Her mouth opens and closes, and I bite back my smile.
She’s so fuckin’ cute.
“You’ve lost your mind,” she breathes.
“No, I haven’t.”
“We’ve known each other for only days.”
“I know.”
“This isn’t how this works. People don’t just—you can’t just—”
“Lola.” I cup her face with both hands. Her cheeks are wet. I don’t know when she started crying, but the tears are falling, and she’s not wiping them away. “I’m not asking you to marry me because of how long we’ve known each other. I’m asking you because of how certain I am.”
She stares at me. Searching. Digging. Looking for the crack, the lie, the moment where this falls apart and reveals itself as something less than what it is.
She won’t find it. It doesn’t exist. Maybe I am insane.
“This isn’t a marriage for love. This is a marriage for you to protect me. That’s different,” she whispers.
I shake my head. She’s wrong. Because to me, the two interconnect perfectly.
“This morning, I called you my soulmate. I told you I’d bet my entire ranch on it.
I meant every word.” I press my forehead against hers.
“My future ain’t certain. But the one thing I know for sure, the only fact I have never been more sure of in my entire life…
Is that Lola Jackson is my soulmate, and I want to marry her.
Right now. Today. And I fuckin’ love her with everything in my heart. ”
Her breath hitches against my lips.
“Today?” she gasps, her mouth dropping open.
“Today. Tomorrow. This second, if you’ll let me.
” I pull back just enough to pick up the ring from the table.
I hold it between us. “This was my mother’s.
My dad worked three years to buy it. She wore it every day until the day she died.
And she wanted it to go to the woman who’d stand beside the next Sterling who was crazy enough to love with his whole heart. ”
I take her left hand. My thumb rests against her ring finger.
“I’m not asking you to fix me. I’m not asking you to save me.
I’m asking you to let me protect you in the only way that lasts.
Let me give you my name, Lola. Let me know that whatever happens next, you’re untouchable.
Let me show you not just how a cowboy fucks.
Let me show you how one loves. Wholly and completely, until the day I die. Will you marry me, Lola Jackson?”
She looks down at the ring. Then up at me.
The diner hums around us. I see no one else but my cherry red-haired girl.
“You’re insane. Have you ever been to therapy?” she asks.
“Probably am. And no.”
“This is the craziest thing anyone has ever asked me.”
“Probably that too.” I tease.
“You’re serious,” she whispers.
“Dead serious.”
She laughs. And that alone makes my chest crack. I love her. I’m dead certain on that fact.
And then she looks at me. Really looks at me. The way she did the night she showed up barefoot on my porch. The way she did when I told her I didn’t kill Ashley, and she said then I believe you. The way that tells me she’s already made her decision and now she’s just working up the nerve to say it.
“If I say yes,” she starts, and my heart slams so hard I feel it in my teeth, “you have to promise me something.”
“Anything.”
“You fight. You fight for your freedom. For Wyatt.” Her hand comes up and presses flat against my chest. “And for me. You don’t give up.
You don’t let them win. You come home every night, and you get into that bed beside me.
Promise me. Because I don’t want the Sterling name if it’s without you in my life. ”
I lean in, my lips hovering over hers. This woman is perfect. My fear was always being wanted for the wrong reasons. The money and land. The stuff that comes with my lifestyle. But Lola? She cares not just for me, but for my boy.
“I promise,” I tell her.
“Then yes.”
The word hits me like a freight train. “Yes?”
“Yes, you impossible, terrifying, beautiful man. I’ll marry you.”
Jesus, fuck. My eyes sting as I hold back actual tears. I slide the ring onto her finger, and it fits. Of course it fits. Lola was made for me.
She holds her hand up between us. The diamond catches the neon light from the window and throws tiny fractured rainbows across the table. “Holy shit,” she breathes. “I’m engaged.”
“You’re engaged,” I confirm with a grin.
“In a diner.”
“In a diner,” I repeat.
“Over milkshakes.”
“Best milkshakes in the county.”
She laughs. Grabs my face with both hands and kisses me so fucking hard I can’t breathe. The kind of kiss that tastes like strawberry milkshake and tears, and the beginning of something that’s going to change everything.
When she pulls back, she’s grinning so wide it cracks her whole face open. “Violet is going to lose her mind.”
“She’s going to threaten me again,” I say, half joking.
“Oh, a hundred percent.”
I pull her against my side. Press my lips to her temple. Feel her hand, the left hand, wearing my mother’s ring, settle against my chest.
I’ve got less than three months to prove my innocence. A war on two fronts. A dead ex-girlfriend.
And this woman just said yes. I don’t deserve her. I know that. But I’ll spend whatever time I’ve got earning the right to stand beside her. Because Lola Jackson, soon to be Lola Sterling, just became the most protected woman in the state.
And God help anyone who tests that.
“You weren’t serious about today, were you?” she asks nervously.
I nod, pulling back her lip with my thumb. “Hear me out,” I ask, plucking my hat from the table and resting it on her head.
“Please continue,” she says with a smirk.
“We go and get married… today. At the courthouse. A couple of witnesses I’ll bribe off the street.”
She arches an eyebrow, clearly unamused. So I lean in. “I ain’t finished, firefly.”
“Once all this shit is sorted and I’m a free man.
We will arrange the biggest, most fancy fuckin’ wedding of the century.
No expense spared. Whoever you want to invite.
Whatever you dreamt of as a kid. That will be our wedding.
Surrounded by people we love when we’re safe to celebrate.
But now? I need your name to change. I need you to become mine just as I am yours,” I tell her and watch a tear slip down her cheek.
“What about Wyatt? What happens to him in the worst-case scenario if something happens to you, Hunter?” she asks, a pain coming from her voice.
I blink at her. That is my darkest fear. Leaving my son. I look out the window, trying to regain my composure. Her hand finds my cheek, and she turns me to face her.
“This marriage will work two ways, Hunter. You protect me. And I’ll protect you… and your boy.”
I frown, trying to wrap my head around what she’s saying.
“If anything happens to you, I’ll stay, Hunter. I’ll stay, and I’ll look out for him. I’ll love him and make sure he’s happy. Make sure he’s safe and looked after. Make sure he goes to school in clean clothes. That he has everything.”
I fight the emotions threatening to spill from me as I suck in a breath.
“You know what you’re saying, Lola? You understand the weight of this?” I ask, my voice quiet.
She nods. “I understand. And I’d like to be your wife, and also a guardian for Wyatt if anything happens to you.”
I drag a hand over my stubble. I can’t help it, I lean in and kiss her so hard I can’t even breathe. “You’re amazing. You know that, baby?” I whisper against her lips.
“Marrying you means being there for Wyatt, too. That’s what I want.”
I nod, stroking her cheek with my thumb. I don’t care if we’re in a packed diner. This woman just completely and utterly stole my heart.
“I’ll get them to do the paperwork with our wedding papers,” I tell her.
She looks at me suspiciously.
“I have contacts everywhere, Lola. I can sort it.”
She nods, picking back up her milkshake and sucking it through the straw.
“I think Wyatt deserves to see us get married, too, Hunter. But, I don’t think the courthouse version. We can have him help us with the big fancy version.”
Wait. She will marry me today.
“So, today? You’ll marry me today?” I ask, almost hesitating.
She nods, and then a smile erupts on her face.
“Yes, I’ll agree to this wedding today. I’ll marry your crazy, cowboy ass right now. But I have one more important condition. One just for me…”
My heart races. Whatever it is, I’ll do it… for her.
“Tell it to me, and I’ll do it.”
Her grin turns mischievous. Oh, this is going to be interesting…