Stepping outside, I shiver a little. It’s cold, but I don’t give a shit. I need to make sure my girl is okay.
Jules glances over her shoulder and smiles softly at me as I sit next to her and tug her against me. She immediately melts into my side, nuzzles my shoulder, and wraps her arms around me.
“I wanted to let you sleep,” she whispers.
“I don’t like waking up without you,” I tell her, kissing the top of her head. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing at all is wrong. Everything in my world is pretty much perfect.”
I grin and tip her chin up so I can kiss her. “Good. Just couldn’t sleep, then?”
“My brain is moving a mile a minute,” she confesses with a sigh and then looks away again. “That’s our house, Brooks.”
“Yeah, baby. It’s our house.”
“I have so many ideas already. I don’t know if you’re ready for this because I basically want to take everything in there down to the studs and start over.”
“It pretty much has to be that way. Did you see it?”
Jules chuckles and nods. “Yeah, I saw it. It’s amazing. It’s better than I ever imagined when we were kids. We’ll make it really special.”
“You can have anything you want.”
“I’m using the money.” Her voice is quiet, and before I can argue, she keeps talking. “He owes us so much more than he could ever pay. He took time. He tookyoufrom me, and now he’s going to pay for it in the only way possible. I’m not afraid of using that money anymore. Connor’s right, it’s not personal.”
“Sounds personal,” I mumble.
“It’s not any better to be stubborn and let a fortune rot in an account where it doesn’t do any good to anyone. I’m going to use it for my business, first and foremost. Because he always said I couldn’t do it. That it wouldn’t work. Well, it’s fucking working. And then, I’ll use it for some of the work on the house. It’smine, Brooks.”
“I don’t love the idea of anything that came from that piece of shit making its way into our home, Juliet.”
She sighs and gives it some thought. “It’s going to be expensive to make it all happen, and we can do it without loans. It’ll be all ours.”
“We’ll talk about it some more. I’m not exactly poor, you know.”
She laughs and reaches up to brush her fingers down my cheek. “No, you’re not. You have a kick-ass business, and I’m so damn proud of you. If you just want me to use that money for the restaurant, I will. I understand.”
“We’ll discuss it,” I say again and kiss her nose.
She’s quiet again, snuggled up in my arms, taking in the night.
“Remember earlier when you said you’d marry me today?”
My heart stills. My whole body seems to pause.
“I remember.”
“Okay.”
I pull back and take her face in my hands, staring down into the most gorgeous blue eyes reflecting the moonlight. “Okay what, Wildfire?”
“Okay to marrying me. Today.”
Now the blood rushes through my ears, and my heart’s beating in overdrive. My skin is hot, oblivious to the cool night air around us.
“You want to get married today?”
She nods and smiles up at me. “Yeah. Can you take the morning off work so we can go to the courthouse?”
