“Maggie, I’ve had this ring for months,” he told me. “I was waiting until we were here. I wanted to do this in the exact place it all began.”
I sniffled. “Really?” I asked hopefully.
He grinned. “Yes. I’m down here because I want a life with you. I want you to have my last name. I want you beside me forever. This isn’t happening because you’re pregnant.”
I let out a sob, then nodded my head, unable to say anything just yet.
West took the ring from the box and slid it onto my finger, then he stood up and cupped my face with both his hands. “You’re gonna have to stop crying on me, baby. It’s messing me up.”
I smiled through my tears. “They’re happy tears,” I told him.
“They fucking better be,” he said just before his mouth pressed against mine.
Everything else fell away. It was just us at our tree. Kissing once again.
BRADY AND RILEY
Ten months ago: Bryony’s seventh birthday
CHAPTER ONE
BRADY
“Why are we stopping at Grammy’s?” Bryony asked when I pulled into my mother’s driveway. My dad’s SUV was here. That was why we were stopping. This wasn’t normal. My parents weren’t enemies. Time had passed, and they got along well enough. I’d found a way to forgive him, but that didn’t mean I trusted him.
He shouldn’t be at this house. It was Mom’s house. He may have lived here with us before, but he had chosen another path. This wasn’t his home anymore. I glanced down at Bryony.
“Boone is here,” she said then, recognizing his vehicle.
“Yeah, he is,” I replied. I had never allowed him to haveher call him anything other than his name. There were times I wanted to call him Boone. Times I wanted to punish him by not calling him Dad.
“Are we here to see him?” she asked with obvious excitement in her voice. Dad was good with Bryony. She adored him. He told her stories and always gave her money that she thought I didn’t know about when she saw him. At first I’d not wanted her to know him, but Riley had made me see how that wasn’t healthy for me or Bryony.
“Not exactly,” I told her. I didn’t want her going inside with me, but I doubted I was going to be able to stop her from that. She loved both my parents, and she wouldn’t understand my asking her to stay in the truck.
She didn’t ask any more questions and opened the door to hop out and run for the house. I sighed, knowing this confrontation would be more difficult with her there. I would have to be careful what I said and what she heard. The kid was smart. She picked up on things I often wished she didn’t. The older she got, the sharper she became.
“Come on, Daddy!” she called after me when she was at the front door. After flashing me her mother’s smile, she opened the door and went inside without knocking. Which was what my mother expected. Bryony treated my parents just like she treated Riley’s. There was no difference in her attentions or affections. She loved them equally. Thathumbled me almost as much as her calling me Daddy.
Bryony had been my mom’s salvation during the hardest times of her life. When I had been falling in love with Riley, I’d had no idea what a large part her daughter, our daughter, would play in my life. Riley had given me more than I deserved. I had gotten the best damn package deal a man could get.
When I reached the house, I walked inside through the door, which Bryony had left open for me. My dad had picked Bryony up and was swinging her around in a circle while she laughed.
“How’s my girl today? Are you ready for the big birthday party?” he asked her.
“YES!” she shouted happily.
“I got you the biggest present. You just wait and see,” he told her.
I doubted that, since Riley and I were giving her the purple sparkly bicycle she’d been begging for since January.
“What is it?” she asked with excitement lighting up her eyes.
“You’ll just have to wait a few more hours to see,” he teased her. “But what about we go sneak one of the cookies Grammy is decorating for your party?”
Bryony hugged him tightly. “YAY!”
Finally, my dad shifted his gaze to me. “Hello, son,”he said, still smiling as he set Bryony down and she went running toward the kitchen, where the smell of sugar cookies wafted. Mom was in charge of making the sunshine-, tower-, and number-eight-shaped cookies and decorating them for Bryony’s birthday party this afternoon.