Her sister-in-law set up dinner outside on the deck that overlooked the river below. And it seemed fancy. And that made her even more nervous.
“Hey,” Hunter said. “It’s just you and me. No worries.”
She nodded. “I’m not worried.”
They got out of the truck and went toward the deck, and Hunter put his hand low on her back. She flinched slightly. But he didn’t move it.
“You be you,” he said. “I’m going to be me.”
And there wasn’t really anything she could say to that. But when they got up to the deck, she did pull away from him slightly. Sawyer and Wolf were looking at them both with flat eyes, and Violet and Evelyn were barely suppressing a grin.
“Thanks for the invite,” Hunter said.
“Don’t be weird,” Elsie said. “You wouldn’t normally thank them for the invite. This is weird,” she said. “And I don’t like the weirdness.”
“It’s different,” Sawyer said, clearly trying to behave.
Her sister-in-law brought out dinner, and Elsie knew that she was being slightly feral. But there was something about it all that was just...
And it wasn’t until June toddled out onto the deck and jumped onto Hunter’s lap, and he plopped the hat on her head, that it crystallized for her. That her chest seized up with a particular kind of horror.
Because he was making declarations to her family. And declarations ended here.
With babies in family dinners, and marriage. And people left when those things happened. That was her only experience of it. She was the baby that had been born in a barn that had ruined her mother’s life so much she’d had to run away from her.
And Hunter was just a kid whose mother had done the same. And what did they know about anything? What did they know about breaking cycles?
She had been certain that her friend would withhold her blessing, and that would be an excuse. She had been certain that her brothers would be furious and she could use them. But all of the barriers were gone, and she was just left with this. With this pain. This fear. This unimaginable sadness that she wasn’t the person people stayed with.
And it just pounded in her like a drum. Unending and horrible. And when dinner was through, she couldn’t get away quickly enough.
“Stay and have a drink,” Evelyn said.
“No,” she said. “I’m tired. Early morning and...” She trailed off and moved quickly out of the house. And Hunter followed behind her.
“What’s the matter?”
“It’s just... It’s weird,” she said, loading up into his truck. He began to drive them back to her place. And he would want to stay but she needed to breathe. She had just never felt...anything like this before. She was so...so scared. There was no beast. No monster at the gate. Except she could feel it. In her heart. In her soul.
“I just... It’s the whole domesticity thing,” she said. “I don’t know that I like it. It’s not really what we signed on for.”
He was silent for a long time. They parked in her driveway, and he turned off the engine. And he still didn’t speak. It wasn’t because he didn’t have anything to say, she could sense that. He was saving it. And that made her nervous.
When they walked into the cabin, he turned to her. And she knew that there was nothing she could do to stop him from what came next.
“Hunter—”
“I want to get married.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
HUNTER HAD KNOWN this was where it would go.
Maybe he always had.
From the moment he’d punched that bar wall.
From the moment he couldn’t leave her.
Maybe he’d known even then.
He had spent his whole life trying to ignore the deep things. The heavy things. He had spent a long time telling himself he wasn’t a deep thinker. But maybe that was just because the logical conclusion was right there, and always had been. The conclusion he hadn’t been ready for.
But he was going to have to get over a whole lot of stuff. Going to have to heal because Elsie Garrett deserved a man who was whole. Because she had been through too much on her own, and she needed to be able to trust that he could go the distance. Because he needed to be able to promise her that he would. Unequivocally. Absolutely certain this was why he had wanted to give her everything. Lush hotel rooms and date nights at nice restaurants. Why he wanted to make love with her in the field. And in this house.
Because it was everything. Her. She was everything. She deserved to be spoiled, and she was one with nature. One with him.
He wanted to show her everything that he had to offer.
He wanted to be her world. Her whole damned world.
He knew he could be what she needed. He could be everything for her because this was right. He felt it down to his bones.
“Elsie Garrett,” he said. “I love you.”
She stepped back, her eyes wide.
“You don’t mean that.”
“I do. I love you more than anything. Hell. I don’t care about anything else. That’s the thing. Nothing matters as much as what I feel for you, nothing at all. I love you and that means that’s all there is to it. It’s all that matters.”
“It’s not all that matters,” she said. “It can’t be... Because...”
“Why?”
“Because. I have let...this...love turn me into something unrecognizable. And if that’s possible...when does it stop, Hunter? I have... I have turned into a person that I don’t know. Being okay with betraying my friend. I did it because I wanted you. And that can’t come from love. And if it does, then love isn’t a good thing. Not for me. I’m sure my mom thought she loved my dad too, but she left, didn’t she? She left and she didn’t come back. And how close... How close am I to becoming her? And how will I ever know? Because all you have to do is start deciding that the people around you don’t mean as much as what you want, and before you know it you’re leaving your baby behind, and you never come back and see her and you...”
“Stop that,” he said. “That wasn’t love. It wasn’t love that made her leave.”
“No, it was me,” Elsie said. “So maybe it was all...in me all along, all this...stuff. This... Maybe I’m just not worth it. I claimed that friendship was the most important thing to me. Loyalty. Trust. But what did I actually prove? That I was willing to hide things and lie when it suited me. I was willing to call the pain of the people I care about collateral damage when I wanted something enough. I don’t like this person that I’ve become. I don’t like what I’ve turned into. Because when does it stop, Hunter? When does it stop?”