His eyes snap to mine.
“And you?” he asks softly. “What do you think?”
Heat skates down my spine. Not lust—though that’s always simmering around him. This is different. A slow burn that hurts.
“I think…” I breathe, “that I’ve never seen her look at anyone the way she looks at you.”
He holds my gaze. Tension thickens—heavy, pulsing, magnetic.
My breath shivers out. “And I’ve never seen you look at anyone the way you look at her.”
He shuts his eyes, jaw clenching like he’s fighting something huge inside him. When he opens them again, the restraint is gone.
“Briar,” he says low, “I’m in this. With you. With her. I’m not half-stepping. I don’t do halfway commitment.”
“I know,” I whisper. “That’s what scares me.”
He shifts—carefully, so he doesn’t jostle Junie—and cups the side of my neck with his free hand. His thumb brushes my jaw.
“Look at me.”
I do.
“Being scared doesn’t mean it’s wrong,” he says. “It means it matters.”
My breath shakes. His gaze drops to my lips for a heartbeat—but he doesn’t lean in. Not with Junie asleep in his arms. Instead, he runs his thumb along the line of my cheek, soft and reverent.
“I meant what I said last night,” he murmurs. “All of it.”
I swallow. “All of it?”
“That I’d marry you right now. That I’m done pretending. That I want you. That I want her.”
I tremble.
His hand slides down from my neck to my collarbone, fingertips brushing the edge of my hoodie—gentle but full of promise.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he says. “Not running. Not hiding. Not pretending this is some arrangement.”
My voice comes out small. “So what is it?”
He looks down at Junie. Then back at me.
“It’s a family,” he says softly. “If you’ll have me.”
Something inside my chest breaks open, warm and bright and impossibly fragile.
I exhale, a shaky, cracked sound. “You’re gonna wreck me, Saxon.”
His mouth curves—a slow, dangerous smirk that still manages to look tender.
“Sweetheart,” he murmurs, brushing a curl behind my ear, “you wrecked me first.”
Junie shifts, snuggling deeper against him, tiny fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt like she never intends to let go. Saxon looks down at her—and something in his face softens so completely my eyes burn again. He leans his head slightly toward mine, our temples almost touching.
“Come here,” he murmurs. I lean into him, resting my head on his shoulder. He exhales—a deep, shuddering breath—and presses his cheek to my hair. We sit like that. Saxon holding my daughter. Me leaning into him. Junie breathing softly between us. And for the first time in years, I feel something I thought I’d lost forever.
Home.
