Jax barks out a laugh, and Logan grins. My chest feels so damn full I’m afraid to speak, so I just squeeze Logan’s hand.
“So…,” Logan starts, looking around at us all. “Navarre.”
We all look at Sienna, and she balks. “Guys, wejusttalked about this.”
“We all get a say,” I force out, “but on this one, you get the first say. We’ll go next.”
Tristan nods. “Gray is right, Bonded. We’re not going to budge on this one.”
Sienna takes a deep breath. “Okay. Well. I thought about it, and I ran through the reasons why we might go back, and why we wouldn’t. And – seeing as we’re putting all of our cards on the table…”
She swallows, looking down. “I’m scared,” she confesses. “I’m scared that it feels like we’re at the beginning of something real, and if we go back now, then… it sounds stupid, but I’m scared that we’ll go back, and things will be exactly the same as they were. And I don’t think I could survive that a second time.”
Her voice is raw as she voices her feelings to us, and it hits me straight in the middle of my chest.
“Sienna,” I say, and she turns to me. I open my arms. “Come here? Please?”
Hesitantly, she gets up, moving around the table and hugging her elbows. Carefully, I tug her down until she’s settled on my lap, and I relax a little at the feel of her warm weight against my chest.
“Do you think I could give this up?” I murmur in her ear. My hands stroke down her back as she fits her head under my chin, a perfect fit. “Give you up? We’re not going back, sweetheart. We’re moving forwards. Here, there, it makes no difference to me.”
Logan cups her cheek. “We’re still proving ourselves to you. Hell, we will be for a long time yet. And I can’t think of a better way for us to do that than to show you just how different it will be.”
Tristan leans forward. “You know my views. We’ll do whatever it takes to make this work for you. And if you don’t want to stay at the house, you don’t have to. If you want somewhere new, we’ll design something that works for all of us.”
My hand clenches against Sienna’s back, and I look down at her. “Do you want that?” I ask. Ideas flood into my mind, plans and dimensions and possibilities. “Because I’d love to design a home with you.”
She glances up at me. “You would?”
“Hell, yes. Let’s do it.”
“That’ll have to come later,” Tristan interjects gently. “The decision we need to make is immediate, but we can start looking at it as soon as we’re back.”
Jax whoops. “A music room, please. One big enough for both of us to use.”
Sienna bites her lip, but I can see the smile hovering. “You’re incorrigible, Jax.”
“Damn straight I am,” he announces proudly. “I’ve got all sorts of ideas, shortcake. And you’ll enjoy every single one of them.”
Sienna flushes, her cheeks pinking and a tantalizing tendril of raspberry snaking up into my nose. Clearing her throat, she waves her hand.
“I do want to go back,” she says, after a pause. “I want to see my family. I’m not so keen on the rest, but I’ll take it if I have to. But I don’t want to lose this. And it doesn’t mean that everything is just fine and forgotten, either. We still have to work things out. Just because we’re changing location doesn’t make everything okay.”
Her words remind me, and I dig a hand down into my pocket, jostling her slightly. Taking her hand in mine, I unfurl her fingers and place the wooden figure inside.
“For you,” I murmur, dropping a kiss into her hair and taking a second to just breathe her in.
She gasps under me as she reveals the little baby fox, curled up with its tail in the air. “Oh, I love this one.”
“How come you’ve never made me a cute wooden forest creature?” Jax leans across the table, eyeing the fox with fascination.
“Ask me nicely,” I say smoothly, “and I just might.”
“All right,” Tristan says, but he’s grinning as he looks at Sienna. “Are you sure, Bonded?”
She nods, looking up from the fox. “But I mean it,” she warns, looking each of us in the eye. “I’ll move back in, but I need this to move at my pace.”
I swear all of our tension sucks out of the room, each of us letting out a collective breath of relief. I think we were all afraid she’d choose to leave us, to be with her parents or Jess.
