Bo approached at a slower pace, Tricks’s pink leash hooked through her belt loop out of her way, her green tank top baring the gleaming skin of her shoulders to the bright morning light. She was smiling as she watched him and Tricks. “Did you get everything worked out?” she asked, and when he stood, she linked her arm through his despite his sweatiness.
Morgan looked down at her and everything coalesced inside him in a blinding moment of light, the color around him flaring in brilliance before fading back to normal. In the trees a mockingbird began running through its repertoire of trills, whistles, and warbles, the sweet tone sinking into his bones. “Not yet,” he said, feeling as if he were in an alternate universe and liking it. “The main part is up to you.”
“Me?” She looked both puzzled and pleased. “I thought you didn’t want me to help. Okay, what can I do?”
No hesitation, he thought, just a willingness to throw herself into the fray and do whatever she could. “You can marry me,” he said.
She froze and actually turned white. Her big dark eyes widened until they eclipsed her face. Her mouth worked, but nothing came out.
He figured the turning white wasn’t a good sign, but he knew the battle he had to fight was also one he had to win, and he was ready to go to war, right here and right now, to get this woman. “I’ve been playing it cool,” he said, “not putting any pressure on you because I know you’ve dealt with some shitty people who let you down, and I wanted to give you time to realize you can trust me. But now I may be running out of time, and I want you sewed up and locked down, legally, in case this thing doesn’t have a good outcome.”
If anything, she went even whiter, standing stock-still on the narrow trail in the woods. The mockingbird sang some more, and a few other birds got in their own whistles and calls. Tricks dropped her ball at his feet and backed up, tail wagging, inviting him to throw it for her. For once, the humans in her life ignored her.
Bo’s mouth worked again, and this time words came out. “That’s not fair,” she croaked.
He clamped his hands around her waist and turned her to face him. “I don’t give a shit about fair. I give a shit about you. Oh hell, that wasn’t very romantic, was it?” He bent his head a little to peer into her eyes. “Do you want romantic? I can try. I’m more of a see-it, want-it, go-for-it type of guy, and I did: see you, want you, go for you.”
Her chin wobbled, and alarm spiked through him. “Are you going to cry? Don’t. Please don’t. Just say yes, and we’re good.”
She looked around wildly as if expecting to be rescued by a bush or a tree, but his hands were firm on her waist and he wasn’t about to let her go. Finally she half-shrieked, “You want me to marry you because you might die?” but at least she was talking and not crying.
“No, I want you to marry me because I’m… I’m-” To his consternation, the words clogged in his throat, and it was his turn to look around for one of those rescue bushes. Damn it. He thought he’d said them before, when he’d been engaged, but if he had, it was because they’d been expected and he couldn’t remember for certain. This was completely different. This was important. This was the rest of his life.
He looked down into those big dark eyes, so solemn and so scared, and his pulse leaped through his body. He grabbed a deep breath and went for it. “I’m crazy in love with you. That’s why I want to marry you. I want to marry you now so if anything happens to me, everything I own will come to you, no question. I’m not rich, but I have some savings and a good pickup truck, plus an old boat. What do you say?”
Annoyed that they were ignoring her, Tricks gave an indignant bark. He glanced down at her; she used her paw to bat the ball to his foot in case he couldn’t figure it out. He gave a rough laugh. “I just hope you love me half as much as you love your dog.”
The seconds ticked along in silence, going on and on until Morgan began to wonder if he’d overshot his target. Then her lips moved, and she said in a low voice, “I do.”
He knew he had it bad when he didn’t balk at coming in second to a dog. He was already used to it. Besides, Tricks wasn’t an ordinary dog.
“So you’ll marry me?”
She gave a jerky nod. “Though you could just make out a will leaving everything to me.”
Yeah, she’d think of that.
“I’ll do that, too. But I want to marry you, and you nodded yes, so it’s a done deal. Is there a waiting period in West Virginia?”
She shook her head. Then she said, “You’d have to use your real name. But West Virginia isn’t an open-record state, so marriage certificates won’t turn up in an online search.”
“That’s convenient. I was already working out how I could finesse the timing, but it’s good that it doesn’t matter. I’d like to get it done tomorrow.”
“I can’t,” she said, still looking dazed and more than halfway panicked.
“Why the hell not?”
“People.”
“What people-oh. The ones who would be mad at you if you didn’t tell them, right?”
She sighed. “Like Daina and Loretta and Jesse and half the town.”
“Yeah, like them.”
“I can’t plan a wedding overnight anyway.”
“Then we’ll get married and have the wedding later.” Shit, had he just said that? He’d been off the hook until he opened his big mouth. What had he let himself in for? Men looked forward to big weddings with less enthusiasm than they did a visit to the dentist. On the scale of things he didn’t want to do, weddings might rank above seeing a proctologist. Maybe.
“I don’t want a big wedding,” she said, still in a tone that said she was in shock.
If anything, he fell even more in love with her. “I don’t either, but what will the town let us get away with? I can tell you straight up they’ll want Tricks to be a bridesmaid.”
She gave a choked laugh. “You’re probably right.” She looked down at Tricks, who had abandoned her ball to sniff around some undergrowth. “What about you? Your mother, for instance. Will she want to be here? Come to think of it, have you been in contact with her at all?”
“I haven’t, but we thought of that. Axel has sent a couple of emails that she thinks are from me, telling her I’m all right but busy, that kind of thing.”
“Does she even know you were shot?” Bo asked, her tone a little shocked.
“No. I’m fine with her never knowing.” He rubbed the side of his nose. “You think I should tell her I’m getting married? Ah, hell, don’t bother answering. But I’m still not waiting; she can come to the after-marriage wedding. What about your parents?”
She looked off, thought it over. “I’ll let them know, but really, there’s no point in inviting them. They won’t come. An announcement after the fact will do.”
“If you want them here, they’ll be here.” If he had to twist arms and break heads, they’d be here. He’d have them escorted under armed guard, if necessary. His friends weren’t the type of people who messed around.
She shook her head and gave him a wry glance. “You’d make them be here, wouldn’t you? I appreciate the thought, but-no. Having them here would just stress me out. I’d rather be happy.”
Making her happy was his new life’s mission. He released her to lean down and pick up Tricks’s ball, then linked his hand with hers and headed back down the trail toward the house. Her slim fingers felt as fragile as a bird’s bones in his rough hand, and for the first time in his life he was acutely aware of the trust being offered to him as a man. His previous relationships, abbreviated and fairly uncomplicated as most of them had been, had been straightforward and based mostly on sex. This was more. She was giving him something incredibly special-herself, her trust, inviting him into her life.