She lifted her hand from her lap, about to unbuckle her seat belt. “It’s going to be embarrassing for me to tell Silas I’m going to be staying with you at the clubhouse.”
Gavin looked as if she struck him. “You’re embarrassed to tell him you’re going to be living with me?”
From his expression, Gavin had taken what she had said the wrong way.
“My brothers might not act like Greer, but they’re just as old-fashioned. Freddy would turn over in his grave if he knew I was thinking about living with you.”
“Are we talking about the same man who fathered half the town with how many women?”
“But that’s beside the point. I’m his daughter; a different rule applies to me. Besides that, he was searching for his soul mate. I found mine; he never did. Freddy would consider it a sin if I lived with you.”
Gavin’s expression went from hurt to incredulous. “Are you serious?”
Hurt that he didn’t see the difference, Ginny bit her lip and stared back down at her lap. “Yes. I know it’s old-fashioned. My brothers will think the same way.”
“Would they? Or are we discussing your feelings?” His voice had turned gentle again, making it hard for her to concentrate when her stomach started flipping again.
“My brothers, of course.” Lying to herself as well as Gavin, she raised her eyes to see him staring at her as if he didn’t believe her before his expression went impassive, hiding his own thoughts from her.
“Then they’ll be ecstatic after I inform them of our marriage. All you have to say when they ask why we’re not living with them is that it’s a wife’s place to live with her husband.”
“This is the last time I’m telling you we are not married.” Ginny folded her arms over her chest stubbornly, turning to face forward. “I don’t care how you managed to fake a marriage license or a certificate, we are not married.”
“Legally, we are.”
“By you attained the certificate illegally.”
“How we got there may be illegal, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t legal.”
Ginny rubbed her forehead. “Gavin, I’m not asking you to marry me, or even become engaged, before you’re ready. Hiding behind an illegal doc—”
“We’re married, and that’s what I’m telling you. If I were hiding from having a commitment to you, then I would be denying we are married. We’re married, and that’s that.”
Ginny gaped at his reasoning and his attitude. “I don’t know what century you’re living in, but you need to come back to the one I’m living in.”
“We’re living in the same century,” Gavin said unabashedly. “You ready to go in? I’m starved.”
Her mouth dropped opened farther when he just got out the car, then came across the front to open the door for her.
“I’m not go—”
Before she could stop him, Gavin unbuckled her seat belt and lifted her out the car, using his hip to slam the door shut.
Ginny started to struggle to get away from him.
“Careful, you’ll hurt yourself,” Gavin warned her.
Waiting for the rush of pain to hit her, Ginny realized she felt almost normal, other than being a little sore. What happened to the pain?
Ginny stopped struggling against Gavin, letting him carry her up the long flight of steps, afraid her anger at his idiotic reasoning had her overexerting herself and the pain would come back when her anger dimmed.
Reaching the top of the steps, Nickel moved to open the door for them. “Glad to see you back, brother. You, too, Ginny.” He grinned, turning the door handle.
Ginny returned his smile. “Thank-you, Nickel. It’s go—”
Ginny wasn’t given the opportunity to finish what she was saying as Gavin rudely carried her through the door, then used his foot to slam the door on Nickel’s face. At least she managed to give Nickel an apologetic moue of her lips over Gavin’s shoulder at his ill-mannered behavior before the door was shut.
Turning her head face forward, intending to give him a lecture that he would never forget, she was struck speechless at seeing a naked backside going up and down on a woman underneath him on the stairwell.
Before squishing her eyes closed, Ginny noticed the clothes that were scattered around the steps and a shirt hanging from the handrail before it clicked in her mind what she was witnessing.
Swinging her head back around, Ginny buried her face in Gavin’s shirt. Then she cringed in embarrassment when Gavin started moving and she could tell he was climbing the steps.
“Move your ass, Moon,” Gavin grunted as he shifted her into a more comfortable position in his arms.
Ginny plastered her face tighter against Gavin at the sounds of scrambled movements before they thankfully started moving again.
She wanted to wail at Gavin for giving her a name to the naked ass she had seen. Now it would be engraved in her memory what his ass looked like every time she saw him. Ginny didn’t lift her face until she heard the sound of a door being closed. Opening her eyes, she was prepared for the first words to come out for him to take her Silas’s house.