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I stared at him.
“My friends and I promised ourselves when we were about to die in that godforsaken desert that if we survived, we’d come home to win the hearts of the women we loved. For me, that was you. It’s always been you. But I never felt worthy. I still feel like the world’s biggest fuck up and the lowest form of low, because I hurt you. I pushed you away because I was afraid. I’m fucking terrified of what I could do to you when I don’t know what I’m doing. And maybe you don’t want to hear that. Maybe it doesn’t help at all, and it’s too late to bring any of this up. I know there’s no excuse for the things I’ve said. No excuse for kicking you out and acting like I didn’t want you with me. It was all a lie. You have every right to slam the door in my face. But if you’ll give me another chance, I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you.”
This was the most words he’d said to me in a single string in… ever. And I’d missed at least half of them because I was pretty sure he’d just said he loved me. My heart jumped into my throat, but I was too afraid to trust that he meant what I wanted him to mean.
“What exactly are you saying? What do you want?”
“I want you to come home, Felicity. I want you to scatter your plants all over the house. I want you to add all the pillows and the cloth napkins and the flowers and the smell good stuff. I want to see your clothes on the drying rack, or better yet, on the floor, because I’ve stripped you down to make love to you again. A few thousand orgasms might start to make up for what I put you through.”
My body pulsed at that suggestion, already more than willing to forgive this man for being good enough to be afraid for me. I swallowed. “You love me?”
“I’m fucking crazy about you, Felicity. Please come home and be mine, even though I totally don’t deserve it. Because I don’t know how to go back to a home that doesn’t have you in it.”
I leapt at him, tackling him so hard he staggered back a step before his strong arms wrapped around me, pulling me close and anchoring me against that warrior’s body. “I don’t know how to have home without you, either.”
“Then you’ll come back?”
“Yes.”
His mouth crashed down on mine, his hand burying itself in my hair. With every desperate stroke of his tongue, I felt a little more of the hurt and pain fade away. Because this was right. We were right. And no doubt we had details to sort out, and at some point in the not distant future, we needed to actually talk about what had happened. But right this second, I just wanted to hang on to the fact that we weren’t over. That this really was a true beginning.
Feeling practically giddy with relief, I grinned up at him. “Did you mean it about the orgasms?”
His eyes went dark. “Every word.”
“I mean, I did just put fresh sheets on the bed upstairs…”
Gabe boosted me up, wrapping my legs around his waist and strode inside, booting the door shut behind us. Then he carted me upstairs, where we got started on all that forgiveness.
EPILOGUE: GABE
“Iknewforced proximity would do the trick!” Austen crowed from the other side of the booth in Kiss My Grits, the local diner.
Beside her, Clint gently took her coffee cup before her excited gesticulations could slosh over our collective breakfasts.
Austen wasn’t deterred in the least. “I told your grandmother it couldn’t fail. Not with y’all’s history.”
“What do you mean, you told my grandmother?” I demanded.
“And what do you mean ‘with our history’?” Felicity asked.
“Dorothy’s in my book club. We talked about it a while back. When the flood happened, I was the one who suggested she move you into Gabe’s place. Because there has always been something between you two. Y’all just couldn’t get out of your own way.”
Felicity stared at her. “But you acted so surprised when I talked to you about it!”
Austen grinned. “Sorry. Not sorry.”
Arm stretched along the back of their booth, Clint smiled at her. “You are a devious woman. I really like that about you.”
Austen turned that smile on at him, and the air fairly crackled between them. Something was definitely going on there. I hadn’t actually asked Clint about her since the wedding date. Hadn’t had much of an opportunity, what with making my dumbassery up to my girl.
“Well, it’s not like I can complain about the outcome,” Felicity admitted. “So thank you for being a sneaky bitch.”
Austen snagged her coffee cup again. “Cheers.”
I lifted my own coffee in toast. She’d helped make me the luckiest man in Huckleberry Creek. I could give her props for that.
Felicity had moved back in immediately, and we’d finished moving the last of the furniture she actually wanted to keep. Everything else had been sold, donated, or tossed. I’d put a fresh coat of paint everywhere that needed it, and Dorothy already had a new tenant lined up to move in next week. I guess she didn’t want to give Felicity an escape hatch in case I lost my mind again.
