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“Thank you,” she said.
“Let’s get married down at the lake.”
“Okay.”
She’d lied to Elsie. Shehaddreamed about getting married. She loved romance novels. And she loved the passion in them. She hadn’t found any of that passion in the cab of Travis’s truck, nor had she found thundering climaxes, crashing waves or opening flowers. It had just been perfunctory. It had beenfriction. And it had not been something that she was all that interested in repeating.
And she wondered if...much like that, all she was going to get out of her wedding was... The lake. Not the gauzy glorious wedding of her fantasies.
Nothing that she had dreamed about when she was a girl.
Well, it was time to stop being a baby. Dreams were for girls who didn’t go out and make stupid-ass choices. Dreams weren’t for her. Not anymore. She had to make do.
“Yeah. That would be good,” she lied.
“We can drive down to the county and get paperwork.”
“That sounds...fun.”
“You don’t think it sounds fun.”
“I mean, it’s always fun to get out of Pyrite.”
“Get off the ranch.”
They looked at each other. She still really...didn’t know what to think about any of this. “When?”
“Today. I’ve got work to do this morning. Around lunchtime, let’s go to Mapleton.”
“Okay.”
CHAPTER THREE
“ALLRIGHT,”Hunter said, glaring directly at Gus. “It’s time for you to explain.”
“Seriously,” Brody said.
Lachlan said nothing; he just stared, along with Tag.
Gus shrugged. “No explaining to be done. I’m marrying Alaina Sullivan.”
“Why?” Brody pressed.
“She’s pregnant.”
“Fuckinghell,” Lach said. “You are the biggest dick in the entire world. You lecture us about our behavior all the time and you knock uplittle Alaina Sullivan.”
“Hedidn’t knock her up,” Hunter said, looking far too confident in his opinion. His opinion was correct, but that didn’t make it less annoying. “That much is clear.”
“I’m hurt, Hunter. You don’t think she’d have me?” He did his best grin, and he could feel his scar tissue pull tight.
“That isn’t what I mean,” Hunter said. “And I think you know that. You were warning me off Elsie like it was your hobby. I think you’re a whole lot of things, Gus, but I know you’re not a hypocrite. So you might as well come clean.”
He shrugged. “Biologically, no, it’s not my baby. But my name’s going on the birth certificate. So as far as I’m concerned, the kid is mine. I’m protecting her. I will not hear a damn thing said about the parentage of this child, or about Alaina, or anything.She’smine.”
He could tell that his ferocity shocked his brothers. He hadn’t meant to claim her along with the baby. But it was true.
The thing was...there were a few things he cared about in this whole world. She was one of them. From moment one.
