Chapter 68

CHAPTER 68

SLATE

I wasn't sure how healthy it was for my heart to keep pounding the way it had been, but when I saw Jess running toward my car, it skipped and leaped into my throat. I'd never felt anything like how I did when I saw her racing toward me, her brown curls loose and streaming out behind her.

Those green eyes were wide and misty, a massive grin spreading on her lips. I slammed on the brakes and spilled out of my car on the driveway, rushing to meet her with my heart still wildly out of control.

We crashed into one another like we'd been separated for weeks, and she threw her arms around me without hesitation. Immediately rising up on her toes, she pulled me down, kissing me deeply.

I was a little surprised by the warmth of her reception, but I wasn't about to question it. Sliding my arms around her waist, I held her to me, sweeping my tongue into her mouth and groaning. She responded with a little shiver.

"I went to the hotel to find you yesterday morning," she murmured desperately between kisses, her cheeks wet. "I was too late. You were already gone. I thought about going after you, but the farm, and chores, and?—"

"I never should've left," I replied just as urgently, then pressed my lips to her nose, her eyes, and her cheeks. "I should have stayed. I should've told you."

"Told me what?" she asked, finally pulling away just enough to look into my eyes.

I took her chin between my thumb and index finger, needing her to keep looking at me so she could see exactly how deeply I meant this. "That I'm in love with you, Jess."

I smiled, running my free hand over her hair and into the locks, my thumb stroking her cheekbone as my gaze locked on hers. "I'm so in love with you that I can't put on my damn shoes without thinking about you."

"But what about the city? And your life?" She breathed the questions, tears trickling down her cheeks as she tightened her grip on my hair. "I can't ask you to abandon all that for me, Slate. You could do so many amazing things, but you can't do them from here."

"I don't want the city, Jess," I said confidently, a fierce, determined note in my voice that even I had only heard when I was at my most serious. "I've had the city and I don't need it. To be honest, I'd been feeling lost and out of place there before I ever even came here."

"Are you sure?"

I nodded. "I've never been more sure of anything in my life. I don't want to be without you. Not ever again. I don't care if we live here in Firefly Grove or if you want to move to the damn moon, I'm with you. If you'll have me."

"If I'll have you?" she scoffed, her head shaking as a soft smile spread on her lips. "Well, I mean, I'd have to think about it, but?—"

I laughed as I pressed my lips against hers once more. "You're not as funny as you think you are."

"I'm hilarious." She smiled against my lips, glancing up at me with so much hope sparkling in those greens that I nearly got teary-eyed myself again. "I don't want you to resent me, Slate. I don't want you to wake up one morning and you're eighty years old, wondering what the hell went wrong in your life."

"Before I came to Merrick Meadows, I had no purpose," I said honestly, spilling all my deepest thoughts and fears that I'd never given voice to before. "I was aimless. Wandering. I tried to find something I was passionate about, but nothing stuck. Until you."

I inhaled deeply, needing her to believe now more than she ever had before. "For a while there, I didn't think I was ever going to find where I belonged. I even thought I was destined for a miserable life alone in a city I didn't want and that I didn't fit into anymore."

Jess cradled my cheek in her palm, eyes looking deeply into mine. "I didn't know you felt that way."

I shrugged. "It's not exactly something I'm proud of, but I had a lot of doubt and no idea what to do with myself. I was miserable for months before I met you. Maybe even years. I knew I didn't belong on the rigs either, but then Mira bought me out and I thought I'd find something else so easily."

I swallowed hard. Admitting all this stuff to someone went against the grain for me, but she wasn't just anyone. She was the woman I loved and I had to make her understand that I would never resent her.

In fact, the way I saw it, it was the complete opposite. I'd owe her for taking me back and letting me be in her life.

"When Mira asked me to come out here," I said. "I did it as a favor to her, but also because at least it would give me something to do, but then I saw the passion in you, Jess. I saw the fury, the dedication, the loyalty, and the love. And then you became my purpose. This is where I want to be, Jess. With you. For as long as you'll have me."

She'd started glowing as I poured my heart out, tears still streaming down her cheeks but I was at least eighty percent sure they were happy tears. She touched her fingertips to my cheeks. "Are you sure you'd be happy here, living with my parents? At least for now?"

I nodded. "I'll be happy wherever you are, but I have a few thoughts about that. We'll talk about it. There's no rush. The short answer is yes. I can definitely be happy here, even living with your parents."

She beamed at me. "I love you, too. I'm sorry I didn't ask you to stay. I thought I'd be asking you to sacrifice everything for me, and I wasn't willing to do that. Life here is small and simple, and New York City? Well, I mean, it's the complete opposite of small and simple."

"This is what I want, Jess," I said fiercely. "Small and simple with you. I want our kids to sleep in the barn with the cows and?—"

"We're having kids now?"

I smirked. "Okay. If you insist."

She laughed before peering up at me curiously. "You do want kids eventually though, right?"

"With you, yes." I didn't even have to think about it. "I want everything with you, and I know the house is going to be really full with me in it too, but I'm going to pull my own weight."

"And you have a few thoughts about that," she said, smiling as she toyed with the ends of my hair. "You shaved again."

I shrugged. "It was symbolic. As soon as I got home, I grabbed my razor and I thought it'd help me come back to my own reality, but it just made me more miserable. I'm not sure I'm ready for a rock-star beard like your dad's, but I've kind of grown used to the scruff."

"So have I," she said. "It'll grow again. Just like we will."

I touched my forehead to hers. "I can't wait to grow with you."

"We already have, you know," she said. "I didn't know what to think of you when you first showed up in that suit, with the shiny shoes, and the fancy car."

She giggled and cried at the same time as her gaze darted toward the car in question. "I knew what was under that suit, but I didn't know what was in here." She put her hand right over my heart, her eyes coming back to my own. "I never could've imagined how much I would grow to love you. You're the kind of man I want to spend my life with, Slate. Not even the kind of man I want to spend my life with. You're it. You're the man I want to sit on the porch with one day when our kids are grown, reminiscing over the good old days when they were riding their bicycles around on the farm."

I grimaced. "We might need to start paying more attention in those lessons with your mom or we'll starve."

She laughed. "We'll get there, but I want to be your wife, Slate. I know it's early days yet and I realize that we've got a ways to go before we start talking about marriage, but while we're being honest, you might as well know that's where I want this to go. I want to marry you here. On this farm. I want to make you a father and I want our kids to grow up right here, just like I did."

"If I'd known how well this was going to go, I'd have stopped to buy a ring," I said, only half joking. "I want all those same things, baby. I don't care if it's early days. I know how I feel and I know that this is right, so I'm in. For all of it."

Laughing through her tears, she pressed her lips to mine and I sank into her, kissing her passionately and desperately, full of love and genuine excitement about my future for possibly the first time ever. I'd have married her today if I could have, but I suspected she wouldn't want to be dragged to town hall to tie the knot.

Besides, I wanted to do this right. I wanted to ask her father for her hand and give her mother the opportunity to plan her wedding with her.

A throat cleared on the porch and I broke away from Jess to glance at whoever it was that had witnessed us trying to fuse our faces together. When I saw it was Austin, my insides turned to steel. I knew he'd already known about us, but I had no idea what to expect from him seeing me devour his sister like that.

Instead of anger or betrayal though, all I saw was amusement. "Welcome back, bro. I'm headed out in the morning, but we'll catch up another time. As you were."

He winked at me and turned to go inside, and both my eyebrows jumped up. I stared after him, not quite knowing if I believed that he could've taken it in stride like that. "Do I need to worry about him shaving my eyebrows off in my sleep tonight?"

"Not anymore," Jess murmured, pressing her front to my own. "If you hadn't come to your senses, then maybe. Just before you got here, he offered to kick some sense into you when he got back to the city, so I think you're safer now than you were before."

"Good to know." I chuckled, slid my hand into hers, and tugged her closer to me, peppering her with kisses as I spoke between them. "Can we go find somewhere private? I want to say hi to everyone, but not quite yet."

"My thoughts exactly," she murmured. "I think I know just the place."

Giggling like teenagers as she dragged me off in the direction of the hayloft, we practically ran to get there, needing to get out of sight before we started tearing each other's clothes off. Living with her parents was going to have some definite drawbacks while we were in this honeymoon phase, but not even that was enough to stop me—or to drive me back to the fleabag hotel.

All that mattered was that I was here. She'd forgiven me for leaving the way I had, and even if it was going to be damn hard keeping my hands off her while we were in the house, we always had this place to come to.

I might just have to have a bed delivered. I wonder if that'd make it too obvious.

I laughed between kisses and yanked her shirt over her head. Speaking into her mouth, I tried to figure out if there was a way to get into the loft without having to stop kissing her. "Is it weird that your entire family probably just watched us come in here?"

"I don't care." She winked as she pulled away from me and hurried up the stairs. "I'm the wild child, remember? They've come to expect the unexpected, and so should you."