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“What are you doing?” Hale’s voice is quiet and laced with hurt. He’s confused and bewildered. Just like I always was each time I had to pack up and move.
I don’t answer him. I keep putting things in the suitcase, willing myself to stay busy.
Until his strong hands are on my shoulders, stilling me.
Hale turns me to face him.
I blink past the tears that are rolling down my face, trying to see him clearly. I want to remember him happy and smiling. Not the way he’s scowling at me right now. “Tell me what’s going on.”
I gesture to the room. “I can’t do this.”
“Do what?”
“Do this,” I insist. “I don’t know how. I’m not the girl that gets a family.”
Hale’s harsh features instantly soften. He swears and tries to pull me into his arms.
I put my hands against his chest. I can’t be against him like that right now, seeking comfort. I need to go. I need to leave. I already care too much. It already hurts. Why does it hurt? Why can’t I breathe?
“I’m not letting you leave,” Hale insists.
“I don’t want to wait until the day you realize that I’m not a good fit. That there’s something wrong with me. That I’m too loud or too clumsy or too sick.” My voice breaks on the last word. “Every time I got to be with a good family, there was a reason I had to go back. I don’t know what your reason is going to be, and I don’t want to know. I want to go home.”
“You are home,” Hale insists.
There’s a fierce look in his gaze, mixing tenderness and something else that I can’t quite define. Then he reaches into the pocket of his jacket and pulls out a ring box. He opens it. “Look at this.”
It’s a seven-carat diamond engagement ring with tiny emeralds surrounding it set in a gold band. It’s huge and attention-grabbing and so over-the-top that it’s somehow completely Hale.
“This is a custom design,” he explains. “I had it commissioned the day I met you. I know this is scary because you’ve never felt like you belonged anywhere. You’ve never known what it’s like to be wanted. But that changed five months ago. I knew the moment I saw you that you were meant to be mine. I’ve loved you every single day since then. All the choices I’ve made from that moment forward have been about you. I love you and I want you to be my wife. I want you forever.”
I use the sleeve of my sweater to blot at my face. “You love me?” I repeat the words in a broken whisper.
“I love you,” he says as he takes my hand and puts it over his chest. I can feel his steady heartbeat, strong and steadfast. “I’ll do whatever you need me to do, but I will not let you go. I will not let you run from this. You’re my family.”
My heart melts at his words. “Family.”
“We’re family. We always will be.” He gives me a wry grin. “It doesn’t matter if you accept my ring or agree to be my wife. You’re stuck with me forever. That’s what family means. I’ll always be by your side. Always be your home.”
I throw myself into his arms, sobbing against his shirt and somehow managing out the words, “Yes, I want to be your wife.”
He pulls me onto the bed and holds me in his arms as I cry for a little girl who never found her forever family, who never found her forever home. She’s all grown up now, and she finally has that. She has a family and a man who will love her through everything.
He holds me through it all, circling my back and reassuring me with soft words. He repeats that we’re together now, that I’m safe, that I’m loved.
When I cry myself out, we still hold each other, and Hale reaches for the ring again. He slips it over my finger.
“We’re a family,” I repeat, staring down at the diamond with the beautiful emeralds.
“Family. Now and forever,” he insists, smiling down at me. His expression is filled with so much tenderness and compassion that it makes my heart skip a beat.
“I love you too,” I whisper, and this is it. This is the moment I know I do have a family.
I’m not an orphan anymore. I am loved, and I am wanted. I’m going to build a beautiful life with my grumpy mountain men.
11
IVY
