My thumb stays on his jaw. "A few weeks. At the ranch, because that's where everything changed for us."
He bends and kisses the inside of my wrist where his mouth was a few moments ago. "As soon as we can, baby."
He kisses my forehead and stays there with his mouth against my hairline.
His hand finds Nash's back again.
He's looking down at the boy in my arms when he speaks. "Whatever you want, baby. We'll have it ready."
My voice comes out shaky and sure at the same time. "I want Marlena in a chair if she has to be. I want Thunder walkin' himself down the aisle even if it takes him an hour. I want Diesel on the porch with a bandage on his shoulder. I want every brother and every woman and every kid on this property under that oak tree when I say yes to you in front of God."
He nods against my hairline. "Yes."
I pull back just enough to see his face. "And I want you to wear that cut."
He breathes in. His eyes hold mine. "I'll wear the cut."
My hand tightens on his t-shirt. "Promise me."
His mouth comes to mine for one more slow kiss before he answers. "I promise you."
The hospital room goes quiet around the three of us.
Silas takes his cut off slowly and lays it over the back of the chair where Bex was sitting.
He doesn't lay it on the bed. He's not taking the work back into bed with us. He pulls his boots off and sets them under the chair. He climbs into the hospital bed on my other side.
The bed is meant for one person.
It holds all three of us.
Nash on one side of me with his small hand in my hospital gown.
Silas on my other side with his arm coming around my shoulders and his hand finding the place where the blood dried on the side of my head.
He kisses the top of my head and doesn't speak. He doesn't have to.
The IV ticks.
Nash breathes.
Silas' chest rises and falls against my shoulder.
This morning I sat at a kitchen table with women who folded around me when they saw the ring on my finger.
A few weeks from now I'll be walking under an oak tree to a man who came back to me with my son in his arms.
Whatever comes after that comes after that.
For tonight, my family is breathing in this hospital, in the rooms down the hall, at a vet clinic where a wounded dog is sleeping, and at a ranch where the women I love are watching over the people I love.
Thisis my family.
This is my job.
To love them and feed them and stand at the door for them the rest of my life.
That's the woman I am.
