AllFreeNovel
Share Us
His gaze settled on her. “No.”
“Then what?”
He cleared his throat. “I’ve done some thinking . . . and well . . . I—”
She tried to act like her heart wasn’t cracking in two and cut him off. “Like I said before, you don’t have to explain anything to me, Jesse. I didn’t think this was forever. You’ve made it perfectly clear you don’t do forever. That’s okay. I don’t know if I’d be real good at forever either. So you can leave and not feel guilty. I’ll be just fine.”
He studied her for a long, heartbreaking moment before he spoke. “You might be fine, Libby Lou, but I won’t be.” His eyes softened. “I love you. I’ve fought it for a long time and I just can’t fight it anymore.”
She blinked. “You fought it? Are you saying loving me is like catching a bad cold?”
“No.” He paused. “Although love does kinda feel like that. It makes you achy and out of your head. And you do make me ache, Libby Lou, and feel out of my head.” He cringed. “Shit. This has to be the worst declaration of love in the history of love declarations. The only excuse I have is that it’s the first and only declaration I’ve ever made. And I’m standing here shaking in my boots, scared to death that you don’t feel the same way and that I’m gonna leave Wilder with a bigger hole in my chest than when I came.”
“So you’re still leaving?”
“No! I mean I’m not if you don’t want me to. If you want me to stay, I’ll stay . . . forever, Libby.”
Liberty had worked so hard at being the tough Holiday sister. The one who didn’t crumble easily. But she crumbled then. Her knees gave out and she crumbled into a sobbing heap, tears falling much faster than she could blink them back. Suddenly, Jesse’s arms were around her and he was pulling her into a hard chest that smelled of soothing campfires and cool summer nights.
“Lib. Baby. Please don’t cry.”
She swatted his chest and spoke through a tear-clogged throat. “I don’t cry!”
He rubbed her back. “Of course you don’t.” He kissed the top of her head. “But if you ever feel like you need to cry, it’s safe to cry with me, Libby Lou. I promise I won’t tell a soul.”
That was about the sweetest thing she had ever heard. She lifted her head and looked into his eyes. “You make me feel achy and out of my head too, Jesse Cates. But you also make me feel so much more. Until you showed up, I forgot how to live. I was just fighting my way through each day without enjoying it. You taught me how to slow down and enjoy life. Now I can’t imagine that life without you.”
He brushed a tear from her cheek. “That’s good, darlin’. Because I can’t imagine life without you either.” He kissed her. It wasn’t a heated passionate kiss. It was a soft, sweet one. And yet, it rocked her world more than any other kiss. Because this kiss was filled with all the emotions both of them struggled to express. When he drew back, they were both smiling. Although Liberty’s logical brain didn’t let her smile for long.
“So how are we going to do this? How are we going to share a life when I live in Houston and you live . . . all over.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess we’ll have to figure out a place to live that works for both of us.” He hesitated. “Like maybe Wilder.”
“Wilder? You’d move here?”
“For you, Libby Lou, I’d move anywhere.” He leaned in to kiss her, but she stopped him.
“Just to be clear, I’m still ticked about you not telling me Corbin is your brother.”
He grinned. “I figured as much. I also figured that this won’t be the last time you get ticked at me.” He pulled her closer. “So I guess it’s a good thing I’m excellent at making up for my sins.”
He kissed her.
And he was right.
She forgot all about his sins . . . and wanted to do some sinning of her own.
Chapter Twenty
“Jesse, I swear I’m going to throw up if you don’t take this blindfold off me.”
Jesse glanced over at Liberty sitting on the truck seat right next to him and couldn’t help grinning. Her eyes were covered with his bandana and her mouth was turned down in a mean-looking scowl.
“Hold on, darlin’. We’re almost there.” He took her chin and turned her face toward him so he could brush a kiss on her lips. The way she melted into the kiss, disrupted the fat pug sleeping on her lap. Buck Owens snuffled his annoyance and Jesse drew back to find the dog glared at him with buggy eyes.
Liberty blindly petted the dog. “See, even Buck is over it. Aren’t you, baby?”
The pug sent Jesse a smug look and Jesse rolled his eyes. “I’m not sure how I ended up with a feisty dog and a feisty woman.”
