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“You laughing for no reason.”
“I told you. I’m happy. Charity is wonderful. This is exactly what I wanted.”
She was his friend. And yes, the whole thing with Byron had produced some weird, dark feelings, but now that was solved. This was going to be perfect.
The only reason he hadn’t thought of it in the first place was because of Byron.
If she’d been single she always would have been the first woman he thought of.
Because hedidlove her. She was his friend.
What was better than that?
He already knew how his life was with her.
She was tea and cookies, and the best moments. She was good conversation and companionable silence.
She was his deepest sexual fantasy come to life.
She was everything great that he could imagine would be in a marriage.
He also hadn’t managed to spend the whole night in bed with her yet. But he was an early riser and she hadn’t noticed. There was a weird closeness to sleeping with someone. He didn’t like the idea of it at all.
But that was fine. It was good. Hell, it was almost all good and he couldn’t think of a damn thing that came close to being half as sweet.
“Yeah, welcome,” Brody said. “To the ball and chain club, which I have to say, we have all willingly gotten ourselves into.”
“Same,” Lachlan said. “I didn’t want to be alone.” And really, it was the perfect mix of worlds. Because he had her in every way now. And it was... She was a revelation.
She was inexperienced. This was all new to her, and that was pretty clear, but he found that delightful.
He had been so dedicated to his life of womanizing, drinking. It was the strangest thing how suddenly all the things that he used to enjoy had been just...nothing.
When he had seen what his brothers had, the ways that it had changed them, his life had felt like nothing.
Now it felt like something again. Now he could see a way forward. Not just a way to keep sitting in the same stagnant pond he’d been in since he was a teenager.
Redemption.
That was what he was after.
He ignored the slightly uncomfortable twinge that entered his heart when he pinged in on that word. On what he’d told himself early on about Charity, and what he would never, ever use her for.
It was different now. She was thirty, not fifteen. She had her own money, her own career. She had gone away for a while and gotten an education. She had been engaged. Had fully had the opportunity to be with another man and hadn’t taken it. He wasn’t taking advantage of her.
Back when they were teenagers, he would’ve felt like he was. But this was different. It was different now.
She’d seen some of the world. She knew what choices she had available to her. She’d chosenhim. So there.
“I guess all it took was seeing some functional marriages?” Tag asked.
“It didn’t hurt,” Lachlan said. “Think about it. None of us ever saw anything functional growing up.”
“Yeah,” Tag said. “You’re welcome. I’m the one that decided to break that damn cycle.”
“Yes, Taggart. Everybody thinks you’re the best,” Gus said.
“Actually, Nelly is the best,” Tag said. “That’s a fact. She took a pretty messed up cowboy and made him into husband material. That is no mean feat.”
