of the last few months without him. The weeks we could have been taking care of each other, carrying one another through this tragedy. “Josh, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry for hurting you.” I clutched him, crying. “Thank you for never giving up.”
“Shhhhhhhh.” He squeezed me. “I would have fought for you for a lifetime. I’m just glad you didn’t make me wait that long.” He smiled with his forehead to mine, his eyes closed. “Are you ready for the best part?”
I sniffled. “Did you steal a baby?”
He laughed, running a knuckle down my cheek, his brown eyes creasing at the corners. “No. But it’s almost as good.” He held my gaze. “I already have a surrogate lined up.”
I jerked back. “No. Sloan is not in any place emotionally or mentally to do this. I don’t know if she’ll ever be in a place—”
“It’s not Sloan.” He gave me a smile. “It’s my sisters.”
I blinked. “What?”
He grinned at me. “I went home to have a family meeting. I met with all six of my sisters and their husbands. I told them I was head over heels in love with a very practical woman who wouldn’t have me unless I figured this out.”
A laughing sob choked from my lips, and I put a hand over my mouth.
“All six of them volunteered. They even argued about who gets to go first. It’s no fun unless they get to argue.”
I snorted, rivers spilling over my cheeks.
He pulled me in, thumbing tears off my face. “Kristen, I need you to know that if none of these options were available to us, I would still want you. I want you no matter what. I want you first before I want anything else.” His face was earnest and steady. “I have no chance of happiness if I can’t have you. None.”
I buried my face into his neck, and he held me to him.
“It’s hard for me, Josh. It’s hard to feel like I’m enough,” I whispered.
“Well, I’ll just have to spend the rest of our lives working on that, won’t I? Which brings me to the next thing. Look at me.”
He tipped up my chin. “I think we should get married.” His eyes moved back and forth between mine. “Today.”
THIRTY-NINE
Josh
We stood on her porch, and she looked up at me with those brown eyes. “You want to marry me now? Today?”
The tower was gone. The drawbridge, the piranhas, the machine guns—gone. She was happy and open wide and her love was in everything. It poured out of her. It was in the way she looked at me. The tone of her voice. It was in her hand on my chest and her kiss, the smile that reached her eyes and the set of her mouth.
All these weeks I’d planned and prayed for this outcome. I didn’t even know what I’d do if I failed. It was something I’d refused to let myself think about.
But I hadn’t failed.
And now, seeing her love me like this was a relief for my soul. I had all of her for the first time. She was mine. She was finally mine.
But it wasn’t time to celebrate yet.
I’d thought long and hard about this over the last few weeks. We still didn’t know if she had some underlying health issues, and I’d bet my life that if she did, she’d leave me again to spare me having to take care of her.
Kristen believed in marriage. She believed in better and worse and sickness and health, and if she made that commitment to me, I knew she’d honor it. Even if she was the one who was sick.
I needed to seal this deal before she changed her mind. I’d seen time and time again how quickly I could lose her, and I had no intention of letting that happen by putting more time between us while we planned a wedding. Not while she was one bad doctor’s visit from bailing on me.
“Hear me out,” I said. “The fact that I’m crazy in love with you doesn’t play into this. I promise. I know how much you’d hate it if I wanted to marry you in any sort of romantic sense, right?”
She laughed. God, I missed her.
“You’re about to have a major surgery, and your insurance isn’t as good as mine. You could see any doctor you want. You’d have access to any specialist you want to see, without a referral. I don’t want to end up like Sloan and Brandon. I don’t