Colt just shook his head while Noah chuckled before looking at his watch. “I need to go.”
“Hot date?” Indie asked.
“Nah, I promised Holden I’d help him move a few big things from his work shed.”
“Need any help?” Colt asked.
“I think we’ll be all right, but I’ll message if that changes.”
“You got it.”
Once Noah left, Colt turned back to the door. “Five more minutes and I’ll be done.”
“No rush.”
He tightened some screws. “You’re happy he’s home.” It was an observation, not a question.
“I’m happy you’re both home.” There was a small pause. “Has he mentioned Bonnie to you?”
Colt stopped. Bonnie was Indie’s sister. And even though she told people they didn’t get along, the story was a lot more complicated than that. They’d never gotten along.
Bonnie had always been a rebel. Then came the night of Bonnie’s high school graduation party. It had been a house partyhosted by someone in her class. Bonnie had fought with her boyfriend and left him at the party. He’d driven home drunk, crashed his car, and died. It hadn’t been Bonnie’s fault, but his family blamed her. Then a few short months later,herparents had died in a car crash. It was too much for Indie’s sister, and she had left town.
“Has he reached her?” Colt asked, trying to keep his voice neutral.
“Yeah, but she won’t talk to him. Not a surprise. She’s avoided us for this long—why would she start talking to us now?”
And there it was. The hurt. The pain she tried to hide. He lowered his tools and looked at her. “Are you okay?”
“Not really. When I think of Bonnie, I defer to anger because it’s easier than feeling the hurt and the loss and the worry. God, I’ve beensoworried about her for so long. But she doesn’t care. She’s never cared about anyone but herself. She needed to leave town, so she did. Who cares about anyone still here who loved her and also lost people?”
Colt crossed the space between them and sat beside her on the picnic table bench. “She’ll come home.”
“You don’t know that. It’s been thirteen years, and she hasn’t so much as made contact.”
“Idoknow that because my gut tells me she’ll come home. And my gut’s rarely wrong.”
She leaned into his side, and he wrapped an arm around her. “What did your gut tell you about us?”
“That you’re my wife. That you’ll always be my wife.”
She looked up at him. “Lately I’ve been thinking…maybe we should start exploring other options.”
Colt frowned. “Options?”
“Adoption or fostering. I want to be a mother.”
His arm tightened around her. “That sounds good, Cricket.”
Her eyes softened. “I love you.”
“I love you. And I would do anything for you.” He meant that…anything.
She leaned forward and kissed him, her lips soft against his. And he drank her in. Slipping his tongue between her lips and tasting her.
Never again. Never again would he be away from her. Separated in any way.
He lifted her to his lap and her thighs immediately hugged his hips, the soft moans from her throat shifting into the air, toying with him.
