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I picked her up and started for the door. “On it,” I assured her.
“West, I can walk,” she said with a small laugh.
“Maybe, but I need you to let me carry you. Please,” I replied. The idea of her fainting or getting hurt was more than I could deal with at the moment. I’d just been informed I was going to be a dad. My reason for living had broken down on me and cried pitifully. I was currently damaged and needed to hold her.
“What if Aunt Coralee sees us?” she asked.
“Not real worried about her at the moment. Just you. Always you,” I told her, then pressed a kiss to the tip of her nose.
CHAPTER EIGHT
MAGGIE
I didn’t cry much. It was rare. West wasn’t used to it, and the way he had gone from angry to hovering over me so quickly had been because of the tears. I knew that. He was beating himself up about making me cry. I felt silly for crying now. My emotions were heightened lately.
When Riley had called and asked me to go shopping with her and Bryony then get ice cream, West had surprised me by encouraging it. After he had carried me to breakfast and fixed me dry toast and orange juice then dried my hair for me, I hadn’t expected him to let me out of his sight all day.
Bryony had been little when Brady and Riley begandating. I had watched her grow up, and she called me Aunt Maggie. Brady had become a dad so easily, as if he were born for the role. Bryony saw him as just that. Her dad. They were something we were used to, as if it had always been.
Being with them today, though, made me see things differently. I paid more attention. I watched as Riley interacted with her daughter. When they laughed together, my heart squeezed. When they told me stories about things that I had missed while in college and finished each other’s sentences, I felt my chest swell. I realized I was close to crying again. The simple fact that I was going to have this too, I was going to get to experience this, was just truly sinking in.
On our drive back to Lawton from our shopping day in Cullman, I felt my eyes grow heavy, and I couldn’t keep from closing them. It wasn’t until the car stopped that I realized I had fallen asleep. We weren’t parked outside the house, though. We were in the parking lot of the field. I looked at Riley, confused.
“Wake up, sleepyhead,” she teased.
“Are we meeting up with everyone here?” I asked her, my thoughts still groggy from a much deeper sleep than I’d realized.
“No, West just wanted me to drop you off with him. He’s been up here working. I think y’all are going to go getdinner. I need to take Coralee some things, so I’ll drop off your purchases there.”
The smile on Riley’s face was strange, as if she was trying to control it from being too bright. I glanced in the backseat to see that Bryony had also fallen asleep. “Sorry I fell asleep on you,” I told Riley.
“No worries. I enjoyed the silence. I had fun today. I’ll give you a call tomorrow,” she told me.
Reaching down, I picked up my purse. “Thanks for the invite.”
She was still beaming at me when I closed the car door, and I waved once more before she drove off. Turning around, I started toward the stadium lights and the facility to see if I could find West without calling him.
Just before I reached the gate, West stepped around the only tree left from the field it once had been. It was our tree, and although I couldn’t get West to fess up, I knew he’d had something to do with it not being cut down. Our first kiss had been at the tree. It was very possible I had lost a piece of my heart the night West Ashby kissed me there and I hadn’t even known his name.
He stopped in front of the tree and waited for me to get to him. The black shirt he was wearing fit his sculpted chest. He was beautiful, especially when he stood like that with his arms behind his back and his jean-clad legs slightly apart.
“Hey,” I said when I reached him.
He simply smiled at me. Then glanced back at the tree. “Funny thing about this tree,” he said.
“Oh, really? What’s that?” I asked, amused by his teasing tone.
He turned to look back at me. “My world was falling apart, and I found an angel right here, leaning up against his tree. She saved me. Then she stole my heart.”
Smiling, I took a step toward him, but he shook his head and I stopped. Then he went down, and it took me a moment to realize he was on one knee. I stood there staring at him as he tilted his head back and his gaze locked with mine.
“I’ve been planning on forever with you since I was eighteen years old,” he said as he opened a small black box in his hand. “Not a day has gone by since then that I haven’t wanted you to be my wife. I’ll love you until the day I die. Nothing will ever change that. Please, Maggie, be my wife.”
Tears were once again filling my eyes as I looked from the square-cut diamond to West’s face. I had thought of this moment for years now. Knowing one day it would come. I couldn’t imagine a world without West. But as much as I wanted to shoutyes, I felt a lump in my throat blocking it.
I didn’t want West to ask me to marry him because I was pregnant. The idea that he was doing this out of pressure made it all seem forced, and I never wanted this to besomething he wasn’t ready for. He could have asked me three years ago, and I would have said yes. But he had waited.
My gaze went back to the ring, and I wanted to slide it on my finger so badly. I wanted this more than I realized. But how could I?
