8. Danny

Danny

“How’d she take it?” Gavin asks a few days later as we walk along the hunting trail, checking his traps.

“The island or the bank account?”

He chuckles as he fills the sack I’m holding. “I still can’t believe you got her an island for a wedding gift.”

“Freaked her out a bit,” I admit, laughing along with him. “But it turned out great, and she didn’t want to leave in the end.”

“Why did you? Could’ve stayed as long as you liked. It’s not like you have an office. Your work is portable.”

“But then I’d miss seeing your pretty face, bear.”

“Ain’t a single thing pretty about me,” he says with a grunt as he swipes a hand through his long beard. Gavin got the nickname bear when we were in the marines. He’s bigger and brawnier than any man I’ve ever known, strong as an ox too.

“Jolene seems to think you’re the bees-knees.”

He chuckles. “That’s because Jolene is the sweetest woman on this earth. I exist just for her.”

“Well, you seem happy. She’s been good for you; I’ve never seen you looking this relaxed.”

“Married life agrees with me. What about you and Marnie? Still doing those gaga eyes at each other?”

I can’t help the grin that kicks up my mouth. “Fuck yeah. Can’t get enough of her. Who’d have thought a miserable bastard like me would fall for a timid small-town librarian?”

“Simple girls like simple things.”

“Are you calling me simple or my wife?”

“I’m calling this life and this town simple perfection,” Gavin says, resetting the trap before we head back to the cabin. “You can have all the money in the world, my friend, but all you really need is a good woman to love, a belly full of food, and life is good.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” I say. Before Marnie came into my life, I was barely living. Meeting her has been the only thing that has truly mattered to me.