would take?”
I flashed her a lopsided grin. “She’s not moving, babe. Which means Jack’s not moving. Which means I’m never fucking leaving you again—ever. Which means I want a whole three-ring circus that will make Cal and Vanessa’s wedding look like a yard sale.”
Tears immediately hit her eyes. “You’re not moving?”
I pressed a deep, reverent kiss to her lips. “No, babe. And the time I spent in Portland this week trying to convince myself that I could actually breathe without you is the last bit of time I’m planning to ever waste again when it comes to us. We belong together. I love you, Alexis Lawson, and I’m done waiting. This is our time. All you have to do is say yes.”
A gorgeous smile curled her lips even as a single tear fell from her eye. “Are you asking me to marry you?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you have a ring?”
Shit!
I tucked her hair behind her ear and peered down at her. “Um, no. Not yet. But I’ll buy you whatever diamond you want. I swear.”
She wrinkled her nose. “How am I supposed to take you seriously when you aren’t even down on one knee?”
Shit!
“Right. Well…” I started to climb to my feet—or, more accurately, my knee—but she circled her legs around my hips and held me tight.
She licked her lips. “You aren’t even naked, Hud. And you’re expecting me to say yes?”
Now that I could fix.
After grabbing the back of my shirt with one hand, I tore it over my head. She didn’t release me to get my pants, but I was able to slip them down over my ass while she lay beneath me, giggling at my struggle.
“That better?”
Her smile was huge, white, and life changing. “One out of three isn’t bad, I guess.”
“Say yes.” I kissed her slow and filled with promises I’d spend an entire lifetime fulfilling, and she wrapped her arms around my neck as though she could absorb each and every one.
“What if I don’t want a three-ring circus?”
I nipped at her bottom lip. “As long as you’re at the end of that aisle, I’ll find a way to deal. Besides, it’s not like Judy is going to let us have a say anyway.”
She laughed and it filled my soul in unimaginable ways. Never once in my life had I dared to dream that I’d find a woman I loved as deeply or completely as I did that crazy redhead. We’d traveled through hell together more than once, and I wasn’t naïve enough to think that the future would be any different. But as long as we held on to each other, everything else would fall into place.
“Marry me, Lex.”
“Yes,” she breathed before throwing her head back against the couch as I slid inside her.
A Little More Than Ten Years, Three Daughters, Two New Cats, and a Goldfish Later…
TL;DR: Jack’s Eighteenth Birthday
“Caroline, leave that poor old dog alone and go have Riri help you put your swimming suit on. Everyone will be here any minute.”
Jesse, God love her canine soul, lay there while our wild, redheaded three-year-old tried for the millionth time that day to make her wear a birthday hat. Don’t even get me started on the things she did to her dad when he was napping. But after Jack and our two other calm, blond children, we’d been asking for it when we tried for another boy. We didn’t get another boy, but damn did she make me appreciate the patience Judy and David had had with me as a child every single day.
“Mom, listen. It’s Jackie’s birthday and Jesse wanted to wear it.”
I closed my eyes, tipped my head to the ceiling, and wondered if noon was an acceptable time to start drinking at a birthday party for my oldest kid. But I still had a veggie plate to make and about three hundred other things to do before our family and friends arrived.
I felt two big hands land on my hips and then a kiss on the top of my head.
“Caroline Rose Bradley, what did your mother just ask you to do?”
God, his daddy-tone still got to me. A bolt lit up my spine.
Hudson’s voice could be tender and gentle when needed, but I was the first Bradley woman to learn it could also mean business. Just as bossy as ever, he gave little option to disobey. Then again, he’d had decades of experience when it came to taming the fiery, stubborn women in his life.
Caroline straightened the party hat once more and then