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“When can he come home?” Bree asked. She wanted Rylan back in his own environment. On his ranch, where he belonged, surrounded by his own land and his beloved animals. From now on, that meant their home.
The doctor looked at her over the top of his glasses. “If he behaves, and follows instructions, it will be a week. If he doesn’t, it could be two.”
“Do you hear that?” Bree said to Rylan. “You are going to do exactly as you are told.”
When the doctor had gone, he turned his head toward her with an obvious effort. “Where were we? Oh, I remember. I said I love you. You said I know. I’m still waiting to find out whether you love me too.”
She gave a soft laugh. “You have doubts?”
His smile was teasing. “Not quite the three little words I was hoping to hear.”
Bree moved until her face was inches from his. “I love everything about you, Rylan Bennet. I love how you rescued Papadum from a dumpster... How when you heard the story of a cat belonging to Cindy from Finance, you took her home with you. And I love that even though other people left Boo, the brokenhearted goose, at the side of the road, you refused to leave him there to die.”
“I did what any decent human being in the same situation would have done.”
She shook her head, brushing a soft kiss across his forehead. “That’s debatable. But in any case, those animals got a new life because of your big heart. It takes a special kind of tough guy to show his sensitive side and make a home for the world’s waifs the way you’ve done. But it’s about more than how you care for your misfits. It’s how you care for me and how you make me feel...” She ran a finger along his arm. “All the time.”
He groaned. “Maybe not the best time for that sort of information.”
“You asked.” She gave him a mischievous grin. “But we have plenty of time for the physical stuff when you’re all mended.”
“I’m going to hold you to that.”
She laid her head next to his on the pillow. “As long as you hold me, I’ll be happy.”
“I never believed in love at first sight,” Rylan admitted. “When other people talked about it, I figured they were describing an intense attraction that happened when they met someone. But the first time I saw you, Bree...my heart was overflowing with the most genuine emotion I’d ever known. Suddenly, the whole world made sense. It was wonderful, and scary at the same time. It was even more meaningful because it was so out of character for me. In case you hadn’t noticed, I like to be in control.”
“I noticed.”
Bree could see his eyelids drooping as he talked. He’d been through so much, and she was amazed at the strength with which he’d clung to life. After the surgery, the doctors had admitted that, in those first hours after the shooting, they had been unsure if they could save him. Hearing that, she’d gone on a roller coaster of emotion, alternating between happiness and might-have-been.
Alongside everything else, she had been dealing with a hefty should-have-been-me dose of guilt. How did you thank a man who had taken a bullet for you? She knew the answer to that question now. You didn’t. Not when that man loved you. She would have done the same for Rylan. That was the magical give-and-take of real love.
“I wasn’t looking for love.” His voice was sleepy now. “Never thought forever was for me. But when I first saw you, it was like a buzzer went off inside my brain. It told me the search was over. Didn’t even know I was looking, but I’d found you.”
“We found each other.” Bree lifted her head to watch over him as his eyes closed. “And we have our own forever.”
Epilogue
Four Weeks Later
“It was my shoulder that got injured, not my legs,” Rylan grumbled.
“And you lost a lot of blood,” Bree calmly reminded him. “The doctors have said you still need to take things easy.”
“I don’t think a walk on my own ranch is going to do me any harm.”
They were seated on the porch, eating a late lunch and watching a few fluffy clouds scurry across an otherwise perfect sky. The whole pack of dogs were dotted around the lawn, while Jekyll curled up beneath Bree’s chair. Nance’s ducklings were old enough now to leave her protection, and they bobbed about on the pond. Their cat mom lay in a shady spot on the bank, watching them.
