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I said that Jenny and I had reconciled, not that I’d gone crazy.
“But that’s a huge part of your family history. Why would you give it up?” I exclaimed.
Gabriel shrugged. “Eh, I’ve lived there for a hundred and fifty years. I was getting bored with it. Besides, nobody will take better care of the place than Jenny. And I suspect she’ll let your mother put the house on the Historical Society’s Spring Tour of Homes, which will indirectly cement your mother’s affections for me even further.”
“So, you’re basically homeless now?”
“No, I still have the houses in—” Gabriel caught himself. “Yes, yes, I am.”
I crossed my arms. “So, where do you plan on living?”
“Well, I was thinking I might move in with you.”
“Why don’t you wait to be asked?”
“Because I’d be waiting forever,” he muttered. In a very deliberate motion, he squared my shoulders in front of his and clasped my arms. “I know I could never ask you to leave River Oaks. It means a lot more to you than my family’s house means to me. Your aunt Jettie is there. It’s your home. I would like it to be my home, too. I want to make a life with you, and for most people, that means living in the same house.”
Gabriel kissed me, as gentle as an angel’s wing brushing across my lips. “You’re my bloodmate in every sense of the word, the person I choose to spend the rest of my immortal life with, if you can stand me that long.”
“That’s what that means?” My forehead wrinkled in concentration, and I tried to remember the first time I’d hear that word. “Wait, you told Missy the crazy Realtor that she’d suffer dire consequences if she hurt your ‘bloodmate.’ That was more than a year ago.”
“I knew even then. You’re it for me, Jane. You’re my eternity.”
“Well, why couldn’t you have told me?” I exclaimed.
Gabriel shrugged. “You—”
“I wasn’t ready to hear it yet,” I finished for him. “I’m sorry.” But as the enormity of what Gabriel had just said sunk in, a huge grin split my face. I brought it under control, so I could narrow my eyes at him. “So, you’re saying you will tell me everything now. You won’t try to protect me or keep me in the dark. You’ll trust me to make a rational decision about bad news after I have my inevitable, initial panic attack?”
He nodded solemnly. “I will.”
“And when I have my spastic fits of insecurity, when I make inappropriate jokes and wonder aloud why you love me, you’ll understand that this has nothing to do with you but years and years of conditioning by my mother?”
He smirked. “I will.”
“Will you agree never to accept invitations issued by my family unless you check with me first?”
He nodded. “Absolutely.”
I giggled, throwing my arms around him and kissing him deeply. “I love you.”
“Wait, it’s my turn,” he said, cupping my face so I was locked in that bottomless gray gaze of his. “Do you promise to trust that I want to be with you and no one else? That I’m not going anywhere? Will you promise to stop trying to find problems in our relationship where there are none, to give us time to work on the problems we do have?”
“What problems?”
Gabriel huffed out a breath. “Jane.”
“I will,” I promised.
“Will you quit trying to push me away?”
“I will.”
“Will you promise never to let Dick move into our house?”
I snickered. “I will … but, um, there’s one last thing.”
Gabriel frowned. “What’s that?”
