With a sigh, I looked at the gray sofa. “Wasn’t about needing new ones. I just couldn’t deal with anything that we had… that reminded me of… being with you.”
“Oh,” she whispered.
“The memories, they had wrecked me. Every damn day. I thought getting new ones would help.”
“Did it?” she asked softly.
I looked back at her. “No.”
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and took a deep breath. “Look, Nash, I didn’t come back to town to cause problems. I came because that was your handwriting on that envelope. I thought maybe you were ready to talk, but after last night…” She paused and pressed her lips together as if unsure what to say next.
“I was a drunk asshole last night. I did want you to come,” I told her.
Her lips pooched as she let out a breath. “Okay,” she said. “Does that mean you want to hear what happened?”
I didn’t know if I could. Or if it even mattered anymore. She was here in my house. The house I had bought for us. She was back where she belonged, and I realized I didn’t give a damn about what happened. I just didn’t want her to leave me.
“Depends,” I replied, then I took a step toward her. “Do you still love me?”
She let out a short, breathy laugh. “You have no idea how I wish I didn’t. How I tried so hard not to love you. But I’m afraid I always will… love you.”
I closed the space between us and ran a hand up her arm. “Then that’s all I care about. If I can have you, I don’t care about the fucking past. I just want you back. I’m not complete without you, Tallulah.”
Her eyes filled with unshed tears, and she let out a small sob. “Really?”
“Yeah, really. I’ll sell this house. Put it on the market tomorrow and move to Chicago.”
Her eyes widened, and a tear ran down her face. “You love your job,” she said.
I cupped her face with both hands. “No, I love you. Just you. Nothing else matters if you’re not there.”
I wiped away the tears now flowing freely down her face with my thumbs, then pressed my lips to hers. God, how I had missed this. My chest felt like it may burst. Her sweet taste intoxicated me, and I wrapped my arms around her to hold her against me. I’d never let her go again. She was my life.
Tallulah broke the kiss, and I looked down into her eyes.
“I want to come home,” she said. “Chicago isn’t my home. You are.”
I shook my head. “No, I’m not letting you give that job up for me.”
She laughed. “I was already planning on leaving the job and coming back before today. I miss Lawton. I miss our life here.”
“Are you positive that’s what you want? Because I swear to God I will happily follow you to fucking Antarctica if that’s where you want to go.”
Her laughter filled me, and the darkness that had become a part of me was gone. “That won’t be necessary,” she said, then pressed another kiss to my lips. “This house, our house, right here in Lawton, is exactly where I want to be.”
I left a trail of kisses from her mouth to her ear, then whispered, “If that’s the case, then I have a new bed I want to show you.”
Tallulah’s laughter was the sweetest damn thing in the world.
WEST AND MAGGIE
CHAPTER ONE
WEST
I stood in the parking lot that now covered the grassy wooded area where we had once parked our trucks. The only tree still standing was the one I had asked Nash and Ryker not to take down. I’d even promised a yearly donation to the new football complex just to keep that tree. My plan for tonight had been to bring Maggie here, to that tree where I had first kissed her, and ask her to marry me.
My chest tightened thinking of how everything had changed. The ache of loss that had slowly eased over the years since my father’s death was now throbbing painfully. So many times since losing Dad, my mother’s actions had hurt me far deeper than I’d thought imaginable. She’d madedecisions that would have destroyed me had Maggie not been there beside me.