“What made you change your mind?” I shouldn’t question it, but I also knew he’d talk to me. What he’d said in front of everyone at the bar had made him wide open. It was time for us to complete this connection between us. “About kids?”
His chest rose, paused, then fell. “When I talked to Dad, I told him I was afraid of being like him.”
I kept swirling my fingers over his skin, sensing he wasn’t done speaking yet.
“Being here, with you, it unlocked a lot of memories,” he continued. “Good ones. I can’t believe I’d forgotten so much. But going back h-home—to Percival—was the key. Images of me, Mom, and Dad rose relentlessly in my head. Same with visiting you at school. The school program. Goddamn trick-or-treating.” He shook his head. “Talk about a trip down memory lane.”
I caught the way he’d faltered over the wordhome. “Is it going to be hard? Not having Percival in the family? Never mind. Of course it will be.”
“Yes and no.” He went quiet. I flattened my hand over his beating heart. “It’ll always be the home where I grew up. Those memories are mine. I don’t have my grandfather’s voice in my ear, telling me how I should feel about it. I loved that place. I always will. Do I wish it was still in the family? Yes, but it sort of is. It’ll pass down to our kids in a way.”
It would as long as Bailey Beef decided not to sell it. But Gideon’s name wasn’t on any of the papers.
He hugged me closer to him. “When I left home at eighteen, Bourbon Canyon didn’t pull at me anywhere close to the way it has for the last month. That was fucking miserable. I tried to ignore it. To continue on my stubborn path. Then you sent those fucking papers. I wasn’t willing to give you up,” he ended on a growl.
“I was going insane waiting for them to appear in my inbox.”
“There was a reason I hadn’t told my lawyer to send those papers, firecracker, and that was because I still wanted to be married to you. Being married to you in a different state meant you were still mine. Then you woke me the hell up. I’ve had blinders on my entire life and you pulled them right off.”
I wiggled into him. It shouldn’t be possible to get closer to him.
“When I told Dad I was scared of being a father, the fear just drained away.”
“Like speaking it out loud took the power away?”
“You remember the party he threw?”
I rolled up to an elbow. He feathered a hand over the tresses of my hair and draped it over his chest. “Yeah?”
“The emotions I felt when I returned were big.Powerful. And my first urge was to have a stiff drink. It scared me, Autumn. With how I feel about you? Fucking terrifying.”
I made the connection without him explaining it. He worried that if something happened to me, he’d be no better than the dad he’d condemned for years.
I pressed a kiss to the hot skin of his pec. “I’m sorry.”
“I talked to Dad about that too. I’m not saying the fear isn’t still there, but I can handle it. I have you to talk to. Him. That’s two more people than I had when I met a sassy redhead on the elevator at Silver.”
I laughed. “Just keep talking to me. If you quit, I’ll sic my family on you.”
He shuddered. “I don’t think I’d stand a chance against your mom.”
“None of us do.” I cuddled against him again. “So... househusband?”
“You’re worried, aren’t you?”
“Maybe a little.” Would there be a day when I didn’t think this was too good to be true?
He didn’t answer right away. I’d asked him at the bar, but I had to hear the specifics. I had to know there’d be nothing to worry about. He had to be as happy as I was.
“I’ll hang out with Dad.”
I smiled. He said it so simply. There was too much time to make up for between them, but they weren’t going to waste more.
“Then, I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Maybe your brothers need a hired guy.”
“You’d work for my brothers?”
“I liked moving cattle with them. I know a thing ortwo about farming, and rumor has it they want to start planting in the spring.”
