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My hand comes to cover my mouth, my sinking gut already knowing where this is headed.
“She’d been dead for a while,” he adds. “And not from natural causes. Apparently, he’d choked her and left the body in the back room so he could keep collecting her social security and disability payments. The cop who did the welfare check said the smell was horrific.”
“Oh God.” I suck in a breath that catches halfway down my throat. “Oh my God, Wes. Why haven’t I heard about this? Was it on the news?”
He shrugs and tosses a few more sticks on the fire. “Chicago’s far away. And a lot of bad things happen in big cities. The news can’t report on everything.”
I sit back in my chair, stunned. “Wow. So, is he…”
“He’s in jail awaiting trial. But it’ll be a slam dunk. He’s going away for a long time. You won’t have to worry about him showing up in your life again.” Wes looks up from the flames, his gaze uncertain. “I hope that didn’t make you hate me more. I was only trying to keep you safe.”
My chest aching, I shake my head. “I don’t hate you. I could never hate you.”
“But you don’t trust me,” he says, his gaze still sad. “And why should you? You’re right. I’m a liar.” He rubs a hand at the back of his neck. “I’ve always thought of it as sharing information on a need-to-know basis or keeping my private business private, but…withholding is a form of lying. Even if you have someone’s best interests at heart.”
Biting my lip, I think over everything’s he’s said, everything he’s done. When I take a step back to look at the big picture, it’s suddenly clear what they all have in common. “It’s part of being the ‘nice one’ in your family, isn’t it? You keep secrets to keep the peace.”
His brows lift, but after a moment, he nods. “I guess so. But I promise, I mean well. I honestly do.”
“But you also want to be able to do what you want without facing the consequences. Or hearing everyone else’s opinions about your choices.”
His lips press together. “That, too.”
“It’s hard to change lifelong habits,” I say softly.
His gaze locks with mine. “It would be way fucking harder to lose you.” Uncertainty creeps into his expression. “But I guess in order to do that, I would have had to have had you in the first place.”
The backs of my eyes sting as I whisper, “You had me. You have me. You stalked the man who hurt me until you got him thrown in jail, Wes. Is that crazy? Yes. Super crazy.” I swallow past the lump in my throat. “But it’s also the most wonderful thing anyone has ever done for me.”
“I would do it again in a heartbeat,” he promises. “But next time, I’d tell you first. I swear to you, Tessa. No more secrets between us, no more withholding information, no more trying to control the narrative. From now on, I’m committed to transparency. Even when it’s hard.”
I nod, my stomach sinking again as I remember all the other roadblocks in our way. “I believe you, but…are you sure about this, Wes? Are you sure you want to hitch your wagon to a woman six years older than you are for the long haul? I mean, even if things work out perfectly, I can’t give you children.”
“I don’t know if I can have biological children, either. I’ve never tried.” He shifts his chair closer to mine, until our knees touch and relief prickles across my skin. I wasn’t sure I would ever touch him again. Even this small contact feels like being pulled back from the edge of a terrible fall. “That doesn’t mean we can’t be a family,” he continues, curling his hands around the backs of my knees. “The two of us. Together. With Freya. That’s a family. And if we decide someday that we have a baby-shaped hole in our hearts, we can adopt.” He shrugs. “Or maybe we’ll be happy being the cool aunt and uncle and spending our free time out in the woods doing things people with kids don’t have time to do.”
“Like having kinky sex in our tent and eating marshmallows for breakfast?” I ask, the tension between us taking on a different quality as he leans in.
“You haven’t seen kinky yet, Lady Gray,” he whispers. “There are still so many things I want to do to you. With you. Will you still be my girl?”
Biting my bottom lip, I nod, my smile stretching wide at the happiness that blooms on his face. “Yes, I will,” I say, laughing as Freya pops up between us, her face poking through our knees. “I think Freya wants to be your girl, too.”
“I think she wants the food in the pocket of your chair,” he says, as she crawls over my thigh and up to my hip, reaching over to paw at the Velcro.
I smile. “I think she wants both. A girl can have her churro bites and true love, too. I mean, unless you’re a ferret and can’t eat things like that without getting sick.”
His expression sobers. “True love, huh?”
“I’m getting there,” I whisper, hopeful wings fluttering in my chest.
His grip tightens on the backs of my knees, sending electrical pulses flowing up my thighs. “Me, too. Can I take you inside and show you how close I am?”
I nod, my every cell flooded with longing as his fingers thread through mine.
After tucking Freya into her crate—the better to keep her from ripping my chair apart for forbidden treats or sneaking in to watch things she shouldn’t—we come together in the dark, his lips on mine and his hands everywhere.
And it’s even better than before, because there’s nothing between us but the truth of how much we both want this to work.
“Ouch,” I hiss, wincing as I toss my shirt to the floor, sending pain flashing through my injection site.
