Chapter 41

41

" H ow can I ever repay you?" Tabby asked Becket, trying to convince her eyes not to water.

Logan looked completely undone and was clearly trying to draw himself together, but Tabby didn't want to stop watching him, sure that he would vanish if she let him leave her sight.

Franzi and Tara looked singularly unimpressed and were already back at their play, but Tabby still felt as giddy as if she'd just been pushed off a cliff and realized she could fly.

"It's fine," Becket assured her, though he looked like he'd just finished a marathon. "No thanks necessary. I need to get to the clinic, but either Vivian or I will be back at about five thirty."

"Can we have you over for dinner? Or take you out later? Or take Tara for a weekend? A month?" Tabby knew that she was babbling and made herself stop. "We're just so, so grateful."

"I'm really happy I could help," Becket assured her, and Tabby let him leave before she embarrassed herself by sobbing on him.

Logan was sitting in the garden with the kids, accepting mud pies and tea with weeds floating in it, and Tabby stood at the corner of the house and watched them, drinking the sight of him far more truly than he was drinking his questionable tea.

She had been slightly worried that she had imagined him too handsome in her head, that he could not possibly live up to her memory. Now that he was back, lean and gorgeous and wearing everything that he'd had on the last time she saw him, she realized that if anything, she'd underestimated the sheer beauty of his human form.

"Logan…"

Tabby hadn't meant to say his name out loud, only think it happily in her head, but it slipped from her lips. Logan looked over at once, and his face lit up with glee as he gave the girls excuses and sprang to his feet.

"Two legs!" he exclaimed, closing the distance between them to sweep her up into his arms.. "Two legs! Tabby, I missed you."

"You were right here," Tabby reminded him breathlessly, but she knew exactly what he meant. It had been a kind of sweet torture, having him so close and yet not there, not himself. She missed this—the hard press of his body and his hot kiss and his clever hands.

They sat together on the porch swing looking out over the garden and the playset, listening to Tara and Franzi playing, shamelessly cuddling because they couldn't do any more with their four-year-old chaperones.

"There has been so much I wanted to say," Logan said, laughing and nuzzling her hair. "And now that I can speak again, I just want to hold you and…" he whispered the rest in her ear, causing Tabby's cheeks to heat .

"Patience, stud," she chuckled. "It won't be that long until Tara goes home and Franzi goes to bed."

Logan groaned and had to adjust himself. "Would they even notice if we snuck off for about three minutes?"

"I am not settling for three minutes of you after waiting for over a month," Tabby chided him, but she stroked the inside of his thigh and pressed into his shoulder before turning to steal another kiss from him. "I missed you," she said honestly.

"I was right here," Logan echoed her as he kissed her, deeper and slower. "I was right here the whole time."

After they had kissed a little longer and Tabby's lips felt raw, he drew away. "I remember one of the things I wanted to say to you."

"Oh?" This wasn't the same kind of torment that not knowing when he would be human had been. He was hers again, and they just had to wait until after dinner and bedtime, and she'd have him for herself. It was a when , not an if.

"I love you," Logan said seriously, and the words were an electric thrill up Tabby's spine.

"I…l-love you," she said, stumbling over the words like she hadn't when he was a horse. "I love you."

"Marry me."

Tabby blinked at him and licked her lips. Her body was so on fire, and she was still more than a little in shock from seeing a perfectly normal doctor turn into a unicorn and heal her boyfriend, that she was beginning to feel a little like she was in a dream. Was dream-Logan asking her to marry her? Was she going to wake up to find that she'd never met him and was still trying to figure out how to make her mortgage payment?

"I probably should have done that better," Logan said, chagrined, because she was doing nothing more than staring at him, waiting for him to turn into a blaring alarm clock. "Will you accept the fact that I've been a horse for a month as an apology for being a clod?"

"You're not a clod," Tabby whispered.

"Then, will you marry me?" Logan begged. "I mean, I'm not against living in sin or whatever; sin is super fun. But I'd like Franzi to have a mom, and I'll probably have more luck adopting her if I've got a ring on your finger. And I don't want anyone else to ever have you. I want you to be mine forever, and I love you, Tabby. I love you so much ."

"Why…?"

"I love your eyes and your hair and your ass," Logan said, touching each one in turn. "I love your indomitable spirit. I love that you were willing to do crimes with me, sort of, and that you took care of Franzi when I couldn't. I love how capable you are, and how you can fix all kinds of things, and how you ride and how you teach and how you cook, and the way you make me want to be a better person and that you show me how. I love how you're looking at me now, and how you never stop working and the way you fill up your shirt and how you twitch when you're sleeping."

Tabby had started laughing at some point and now wasn't sure how to stop. "I was going to ask you why it took you so long to ask me, Logan."

"Because I'm a fool," Logan said. "Because I spent the last month as a horse and I couldn't figure out how to get a ring."

"I don't need a ring," Tabby said honestly. "They just get in the way when I ride." She put a finger on Logan's mouth to cover his protest. "I fell in love with you the moment I set eyes on you and spent my life savings to buy you. "

"Are you ever going to forgive me for that?" Logan asked, catching her hand to kiss it.

"Probably. When we're old and gray and have grandkids."

"Huh. I kind of love the idea of grandkids," Logan said. "And I bet you'll be really hot with silver hair."

"Uncle Logan?"

Tabby startled to find that Franzi and Tara had come up the stairs to the porch while Logan was proposing.

"We're hungry."

"You're filthy!" Tabby exclaimed. "How about a bath before lunch? Want me to hose you down like a horse?"

Both girls were very much in favor of this plan and Tara's parents had been wise enough to send a change of clothes and swimwear. Tabby had them switch into swimsuits and run through the sprinkler in the hot sun while she made lunch and laundered their clothes.

They ended the task almost muddier than before, but Tabby sacrificed two bath towels and got them mostly dry and clean enough to eat hot dogs and corn chips with cold lemonade sitting on the steps of the porch.

"Fu—" Logan glanced towards the girls. "—good grief. I have never tasted anything so amazing in my life." He ate his hot dog—and then a second one—like he hadn't had a square meal in a month. "Chips," he crowed, crunching them to the giggles of the girls. "CORN chips! Oh my god, NAPKINS!" He pretended to eat them.

Everything was absolutely wonderful.

After lunch, the girls quarreled briefly over how to play and settled on coloring in Franzi's ‘horsey woom.'

"They're distracted," Logan said suggestively, raising an eyebrow at Tabby.

"Not distracted enough," Tabby said regretfully. "But while you've got two hands, there are a few things I could use your help with."

Chores were much more fun with Logan there to reward her with hot kisses and whistle after her ass when she bent over to pick something up, and Tabby didn't even care that each one took twice as long.

Vivian arrived a few minutes late. "We had a fun rush of firecracker burns late in the afternoon," she said, as she peeled Tara away from Franzi. "We'll take you up on that offer for dinner later this week, I hope!"

Franzi was wound up and worn out from playing hard with Tara all day, and she was inclined to be defiant and pouty when she didn't get her way, but Logan deftly distracted her every time she was on the brink of a fit, and he spent the time that Tabby was making dinner playing in her room with her.

Predictably, the little girl popped right out of bed after she was put down, first to go potty, then to get a drink, then because she needed a hug. "No, not from Uncle Logan, from AUNT TABBY!" Tabby tucked her back in and she had a moment of hope after she closed the door when there was silence.

Then, "NOW I NEED A HUG FROM UNCLE LOGAN!"

Logan took a turn tucking her in. "Stay in bed, pumpkin," he begged. "It's time for sleeping."

"I'm not sleepy," Franzi insisted, her mouth deforming around a yawn.

"Try to sleep anyway," Logan suggested. "Close your eyes and think about pickles."

Franzi giggled. "Sing me the song!"

They sang the lullaby together, while Tabby fidgeted outside the door and wished that they would hurry up .

When Logan came out and shut the door, he pulled her into her arms and kissed her, but they went to the living room instead of the bedroom, sure that this wasn't Franzi's final gambit.

"I didn't get an actual answer about marrying me," Logan said, as he kissed her neck.

"You don't have to marry me," Tabby said. They sat together on the couch stroking each other but not daring to undress because of the inevitable pending interruption.

Logan drew back. "Do you not want me to marry you?"

"No, I do!" Tabby was quick to assure him. "It's just that you've been a horse for a month and you're finally human. Probably this is one of those things that you shouldn't make big decisions after, like major surgery or grief. We could wait. You could ask me again in a week. But I'm serious about not bothering with a ring."

"I don't want to wait," Logan said, his voice—and oh, it was so wonderful to hear his voice!—low and full of feeling. "I love you, Tabby Swiftwater. I love you to your toes, and I want to be with you forever."

"I'll marry you." Tabby rose up in his arms and kissed him, and she wasn't sure how he got her shirt off, but it occurred to her some time later that there was still silence from Franzi's room, and it would be a lot more comfortable in the bedroom. "C'mon stud," she told Logan, pulling him up with her. "I'm going to get my money's worth."