Chapter Thirteen

J ax set the last of the puppies beside the happy couple. "Five puppies, Lily. You're a rockstar."

She purred almost feline-like, and Gander nuzzled her neck. They looked pretty darn happy for a mutt of dubious upbringing and a city purebred. He glanced over at Jill and smiled.

He understood the attraction to a city woman who, on paper, was as different from him as a gelding was to a barn kitten. But there was so much more there, so many threads tying them to one another that were stronger than the pull of any disparities.

Jill sat next to Ren on the ground, petting Gander and Lily respectively, both of them beaming. She didn't wear a lick of makeup, and her curls were wildly framing her face. The baggy pajamas she wore showed the events of the morning on them. In his eyes, she'd never been more beautiful. Not even when she was in cropped jean shorts and a tank top the day she'd been fixing the mower.

"I love you," he said.

She looked up at him and smiled wide. Then her cheeks turned pink like they always did when he embarrassed her. The problem was, she looked so damn adorable when she flushed with mortification, he wanted to keep at it.

Her eyes darted to Ren, who, save the crutches leaning on the chair behind him, didn't look like anything had happened.

"He's fine. You don't think I didn't run everything by him first, did you? He knows I'm madly in love with you and that the three of us are gonna make a go of it in Deer Creek together."

"Is that okay?" she asked Ren.

The boy smiled down at her like he'd won a rodeo. "Heck yes. I love it here, and to be honest, I didn't ever want to live in Austin anyway. My dad said he'll teach me ranching on the weekends, and I can help Lily and Gander raise the puppies. Well, train 'em anyway. Ooh, and I'll get to go to high school here where they have an AAF program."

"FFA," Jax corrected. "Future Farmers of America. Your uncles Bennett and Matt both graduated from that program."

"When will Matt get here?" Maggie asked, still nestled on her old couch. Her hand rested on her stomach, and her soft smile said she was at peace.

Jax felt that on a cellular level. Only his oldest brother's arrival cut through the calm. He and Matt had always gotten along, but Bennett and Matt had bickered like two feral cats every chance they got. Things were gonna be interesting, that was for sure.

"Should be back from Outcrop by the end of next week. Just in time for Ren to go back to school and Manny to take over the Austin gig."

"Nice. I can't freaking wait. I'll get another uncle, you two will get married, and I'll get to be a cowboy."

Jax laughed. The kid was 100 percent his, no doubt about it. Jax sent up another prayer of thanks to the universe for keeping his people safe, for bringing this little motley crew together for him. It wasn't conventional, maybe not even what Jax had hoped for growing up, but damned if it wasn't perfect.

Thank goodness the universe hadn't answered his requests when he was seventeen.

"Speaking of, there's one thing we didn't cover earlier."

Jill hugged her knees and smiled, the pink on her cheeks deepening to a crimson.

"How is that possible? Literally everything is different."

Jax sat beside her, then laid out on his side.

"You're making this difficult, sitting on the floor, but I'll make it work."

"What am I making difficult now?"

He took her hand in one of his, and the other fished a small wooden box from his pocket.

"Letting me seal the deal since you aced my test from earlier."

She giggled. "And here I thought I failed it."

"Not even close. You gave me an even better answer than I was hoping for. And that's one of a million reasons my life is better now that I know you." With that, he opened the box.

Her eyes went wide, and her hand flew to her lips. "Jax, it's stunning."

"My mom will be glad to hear you say that. It's made from the one my dad gave her when he proposed. I wanted to take a past I wasn't proud of and make it into a future that can't go wrong."

"Well, you did that, and more." She sniffled and held out her hand for him to place the band on her finger. "I love it, Jax. And I love you. I'm so happy."

He was pretty damn happy himself. When his mother had given him her engagement ring to have reset for Jill, he'd known exactly what to do with it. Still, it was nice to know he'd done a good job since this was the first of many gifts he hoped to give his bride-to-be.

"I hope this says how much I love you and want to give you the best life has to offer."

Jill leaned into him and smiled. "It does, but so does this," she said, kissing him and wrapping her fingers in his hair. "And this." She kissed him again and rolled over, so she was sitting on top of him. It was his favorite, the way she sat on his lap.

His heart fluttered. Now that he recognized what that feeling was—love—he didn't want it to ever go away. For a guy who didn't want a family or life on a ranch, he got a pretty good one of both.

"Get a room," Ren complained, but the kid's focus was still on the puppies, not the lovebirds.

Jax responded by pulling Jill tight to his chest. In that room and the two thousand acres that surrounded it, he had everything he'd never known he'd always wanted. Damn, was he one lucky cowboy.

The End