Page 31 of Working For Her Attention

“I was wrong. You are so much better than I could have ever imagined, Sam. I love you, and I’ve never… never felt this way about someone. Not even close.”

“You’re going to kill me with all this sweetness, princess. I love you, too, baby girl. So fucking much.” His forehead rested against mine, and for a moment, we just sat and let everything settle between us.

“You came home early,” I mumbled, my head now on his shoulder.

“Got one of the guys to take the last appointment because I missed you and wanted to surprise you,” he whispered against my temple.

“Mission accomplished,” I teased. His chuckle sounded rough.

“I need you to know something, baby.”

“Hmm?”

“I know today was a lot and what I’m about to say probably won’t help, but you need to know something.” I lifted my head and blinked. “You remember meeting my mom?”

“Two weeks ago? Yeah.” My lips twitched. I couldn’t help but tease him. “I’m not the old one here, remember?”

“Cute, princess. You remember what she said?” The smile on my face fell slowly. Not because I didn’t feel happy but because it was the one thing we didn’t talk about after the stuff we did once everyone left.

“Sam—"

“She wasn’t wrong. I’m going to marry you, Avery.”

“Honey—"

“I waited forty years to find you.” His tone was filled with emotion as his expression intensified. “I’m not going to pussyfoot and wait around to make you my wife. We have a lifetime to live, and I’m ready to start that now.”

“I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to ask, not just tell me.”

“Daddy knows best.” This made me laugh.

Whatever webs of fear I had left were brushed away, and when I breathed in, I realized I wasn’t scared. No. What was left behind was love and excitement at a future I hadn’t ever let myself dream about.

“Okay, then. Fine.” He blinked once. Twice. A third time.

“No argument?”

“What can I say?” I shrugged and raised a hand to stroke the side of his bearded face knowing his dark eyes were the ones of my very own happily ever after. “When you’re right, you’re right, and when you know, you know,” I whispered.

Before I knew it, his lips crashed against mine and he swallows the laughter that escaped from me, but that was okay. I loved how he sealed the deal.

EPILOGUE

SAM

I put the truck in Park, and my head hit the back of my headrest.

It was a long day. A long, dirty, dusty, grimy kind of day.

The kind that made me feel a hell of a lot older than my forty-nine years. The kind I had been working to avoid before I met Avery. Now, days like this, I took with a grain of salt because the fucking reward of a hard, long days of work was something I felt the moment I crossed the threshold of our home.

Though by the way my youngest was peeking through the window today, her big toothless grin and bright blue eyes, it seemed I was rewarded early.

It was funny. The plans we make for ourselves as we go through life. When we’re younger, the shit we think is so damn important, so damn life changing, but it’s nothing in the big picture of things. I’d given up on the idea of wanting a family of my own after helping my mom raise my sisters and love just never happened by the time I was thirty-eight. So, I had it in my head it never would. I had simply planned the rest of my life out.

Little did I know, two years later, my woman would literally move across the street from me and change my entire goddamn life. Give me things I had been so damn sure I was too fucking old for.

Even now, I couldn’t help but grin as I slipped out of my truck, lunch bag and backpack tossed over my shoulder with the water bottle my wife made me chug daily in my hand.