There was a long moment of absolute silence. Caroline hadn’t been in Autre all that long but even she knew absolute silence didn’t occur often.
“You missed one,” Max finally stage-whispered.
Zander frowned.
“I think she means you need to add, ‘I’m sorry for always thinking I know best in every fucking situation no matter what’,” Kennedy said.
Fletcher nodded, “Or ‘I’m sorry for never giving anyone else a chance to have a damned opinion before making a decision’.”
“Of course, ‘I’m sorry for constantly bossing everyone around’ would probably cover it too,” Charlie said.
They all nodded.
“Or—” Owen started.
“Okay,” Zander said. He sighed. Heavily. And looked at Caroline. “I’m sorry for…all of that.” He paused. “And I’m warning you that all of that will probably continue. But I’ll apologize for it when it does. At least some of the time.” He looked at his family. “Because some of the time I’m fucking right.”
They all just shrugged and rolled their eyes.
Caroline felt her heart filling to the point of nearly bursting. She wanted to cry and laugh. These people were so damned crazy. And she loved them. All of them.
One very stubborn, bossy, protective one in particular.
“Zander,” she said, pulling his attention back to her. “You know what I would really love for you to do?”
He let out a long breath. “Anything.”
“Take me fishing.”
There was a beat. Then his face—hell, his whole body—relaxed, and he gave her a huge grin. “Really?”
“Really.”
Twenty minutes later they were floating on the bayou in Zander’s fishing boat, with two poles in the water, the sun shining down, without another person anywhere around.
Which meant no one talking anywhere around.
The water gurgled, a bird called off in the distance, insects buzzed. But mostly it was completely quiet for almost ten minutes straight.
Finally, Caroline took a deep, cleansing breath and said, “So this is fishing.”
“This is fishing.” His voice was deep and contented.
“Damn.” She looked over at him. “This is pretty great.”
His smile was so big and so sincere, she felt the impact to her very bones. “I really am falling madly in love with you.”
She grinned. “And I’m falling madly in love with you.” Her heart was full in a way she’d never imagined.
“By the way, if you get bored, you can always sit back and read,” he said. He reached under the seat and withdrew a bag. From inside, he pulled a few books. The first he handed her was familiar.
She laughed. “Logan actually sent me the name of this one. I downloaded and read it the other night.”
“Really?” He seemed surprised, and pleased.
“Yeah, I liked it.”
“Oliver Caprinelli is a friend. His wife and Paige are close. They were all actually down here to visit a couple weeks ago. They left the day you arrived.”
She nodded. “Logan said you had book club with him. That’s pretty great.”
Zander got a playful glint in his eye. “You might like this one then.” The next thing out of the bag was a much smaller paperback.
She looked at the front. “Gone Fishing? Is this a romance?”
“My brothers, who think they’re hilarious, asked Ollie to write me my own romance for my birthday.”
She laughed. “You’re kidding. This is your very own customized romance?” She opened it.
“Yep. I particularly like chapter three. Start there.”
“But I won’t understand the characters and plot.”
“Trust me. You don’t need to.”
Grinning, she looked up from the first two paragraphs of chapter three. “Is it possible to have sex like this in this fishing boat?”
He shook his head, his eyes heating as his mouth pulled up on one corner in a sexy half-smile. “Nope. We’d definitely tip over.”
“Too bad.”
He chuckled. “Yeah.”
She leaned back and flipped to page one. But, no matter how dirty or sweet or exciting a book was, nothing was as good as the man lounging on the other end of this boat.
She watched him over the top edge of the book. God, she’d missed him.
“When are you turning your application in?” he asked, catching her eye.
“My application? For the bureau?”
“Yeah.”
“Monday.” He understood that, right? This whole I-was-wrong thing and I’m-falling-madly-in-love-with-you thing and I-want-you thing was all still true if she went to work for the FBI, right?
“Good.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m not going to lie and tell you I’ll never worry. Or act like an overprotective jerk about things. But yeah, it’s good. Of course. You’re going to kick ass.”
She smiled. “Thanks. And by the way, I’ll worry about you too. And I might be a jerk sometimes too. Though that might be more about you not picking up your socks or drinking the last of the coffee and not going to the store.”
He grinned. “That all sounds very domestic. You thinkin’ I’m gonna let you live with me?”
“Well, yeah. I’m a spoiled heiress who has lived with her parents all her life in a big mansion with maids and cooks. What do I know about living on my own?” she asked, leaning back further and stretching her legs out in the boat.
He reached out and wrapped a big hand around one bare foot, running his thumb back and forth over the instep. It felt absolutely delicious and hot shivers ran up her leg.
“That can be arranged, of course,” he said, his voice husky. “But you should know that blue-collar, small-town types do things a lot different from you rich folks. For instance, we do our own housekeeping. Naked.”
She laughed. “Awesome. Can’t wait to watch you dusting the house in that case.”
He pressed his thumb into her foot and she moaned with how good it felt.
“Yeah, there will definitely be some negotiating of the ‘chores’,” he said, somehow making “chores” a very dirty word.
She was going to live with Zander. In Autre. And work for the FBI. This was…a dream come true. But a dream she hadn’t even known she had.
“How about your parents?” he asked. “Have you talked to them? Do you plan to?”
She sighed. If he kept rubbing her foot like that, she could definitely talk about her parents without feeling tense or too sad. “I haven’t really talked to them. I let them know I was staying with a friend in New Orleans and looking into a new job. I’ll keep in touch. But…” She met his gaze. “We can’t fix everything we’d like to fix in life, right?”
He nodded slowly. “Right. But some of us are programmed to keep tryin’. My grandma says those people have warrior’s hearts. And they’re bigger than most so that little pieces can break off and we still have plenty left.”
Caroline felt a stinging at the back of her eyes and she blinked rapidly. “Wow. Your grandmother is…something.”