“I imagine it will,” I admitted. “There’s a lot of talk about our future here, Candy Ray Sunshine. Does this mean I can ask you to marry me now?”
Honestly, the idea of asking her to marry me hadn’t really crossed my mind again until the last couple of days. I hadn’t really thought that she and I were at that point—at least from her end of things. I thought that she might have a lot of things that she needed to work through before she’d be ready.
But color me surprised that she was actually talking about this.
I knew it’d likely be different when she wasn’t high on pain meds and anesthesia, but for now, it was nice to know where her heart lay.
“You can ask me, sure.” She laid her head on my chest. “It doesn’t mean I’ll say yes.”
Chuckling, the nurse opened the door for us and waved us out.
“I’ll be back to pay the bill,” I said.
She waved it off.
“We’re going to bill you,” she promised. “Don’t worry.”
And since I was the one who’d filled out her address for billing, I would be the one getting the bill and not her.
Aces.
“Come on, Sleeping Beauty,” I murmured low so that only she could hear. “Let’s get you home.”
“My home, or your home?” she asked sleepily, sounding like she was talking around a mouthful of cotton.
Which, she was.
I looked at her.
“How long do you have to keep that cotton in your mouth?” I wondered. “And my home. So I can keep a better eye on you.”
She smiled.
“I kept biting my lip, so they put the cotton in my mouth until I can feel my tongue,” she said slowly, enunciating each word with the utmost precision. “Do you want me to live with you?”
Did I?
Hell yes.
Was I going to talk to her about this while she was high on drugs? No.
“Did they give you any medication?” I asked curiously. “Stuff for pain?”
She rubbed her face on my shirt, inhaling deeply.
“I love the way you smell,” she murmured. “Like sunshine and Tide Pods.”
My lips twitched. “Pain, baby?”
She shook her head. “No. Apparently I’m all A-okay now. I can return to my normal activities as soon as I can feel my face.” She paused. “Like, if you were fucking my mouth right now, I probably wouldn’t feel it. And would drool everywhere to boot. But in a couple of hours…I’m totally down.”
I couldn’t help the laugh that escaped me as I fed her into my truck.
She kept me laughing all the way home.
After we got into the driveway, she was asleep with her head resting against the center console of the truck.
And instead of bringing her in, I left the truck running and parked it near the barn where I could see Ace and Darby working on shoeing the horses.
Careful to be as quiet as possible, I got out, closed the door, then walked toward them.
“Need some help?” I asked.
“Nice of you to show up,” Darby snarked. “I had to run fences with Ace today and miss one of my classes.”
I narrowed my eyes at him.
“You’re almost done. The classes are just a formality at this point. Something in which you told us not even two nights ago,” I said. “And I’m sorry, but Candy had to have surgery. I don’t really give a fuck whether you were sad or not that you missed a class.”
Ace, who had a horse’s hoof between his knees, looked up at me with sweat dripping down his face.
“Surgery?” he asked.
Darby walked over to the truck and looked inside, staring at Candy who was still hopefully sleeping. My guess, he wanted to check and make sure that she was all right.
The kid was a softy.
“Yes, surgery,” I confirmed. “That toothache she had last night turned into something more serious today. I walked into her house with her crying so hard that she could barely breathe. When I called the dentist, he told me to take her to the oral surgeon. The oral surgeon took one look at her, asked her a few questions, and knew right off the bat what it was that she had.”
“What was it?” Darby asked, sounding concerned.
“She had to have a root canal,” I answered. “And before you talk to her or anything, make sure you’re aware that she doesn’t do well when she’s on pain meds. She can say some pretty crazy stuff.”
The door popped open to my truck, and I nearly groaned.
“Bannnkkkkkssssss!” Candy yelled, sounding panicked. “Where are you?”
I felt my lips twitch as I hurried to the passenger door.
“I’m right here,” I said. “Easy now. I just let you stay in the truck because you were sleeping.”
She turned her face this way and that.
“I can’t see you!” she all but cried.
I caught her face in my hands and tried not to laugh.