From where I stood, I could see the children’s door sat wide open.
They were well aware they were supposed to wake me up if I slept later than them, clear instructions given that they were not to bother Cash, though he was always locked behind that secreted door at the end of the hall before any of us woke up, anyway.
They weren’t supposed to be having their wild way by themselves in Cash’s house. It was bad enough during the day when I was supervising. The last thing I needed was them bringing it down as I slept away the morning.
It was already hard enough on Cash, having them under his roof.
I knew that.
Could feel that.
And I didn’t want them scaring him off.
Not when he’d…agreed.
I nearly tripped over my feet when I remembered what had happened last night.
He agreed.
This brusque, harsh, cranky man had agreed to marry me.
After he confessed to being involved in unsavory things. Things I was probably a fool for shoving aside.
I couldn’t contemplate it right then. I needed to focus on the issue at hand.
My kids had gone outside by themselves, and it could be dangerous out there.
Bears and snakes and rushing rivers.
Or something far more dangerous.
Ethan.
My throat thickened as I was nearly sucked back into the dream.
I would have been afraid except I was able to differentiate each of their voices, and now I was just upset they hadn’t listened.
I stormed toward the big doors that opened to the back porch, wondering exactly what type of punishment would work the best to make them understand that they were given these rules for their safety.
I came up to the glass then stalled out with my hand on the handle when I saw Cash was out there with them.
On his knees as he measured something along the end of the wooden porch. Wearing jeans and a white tee and a cap on his head.
Sweat glistened on his tattooed flesh, and his muscles worked beneath the fabric that covered his butt and back.
My mind spiraled back to that first night. When I’d seen him mostly bare.
Every hard, packed inch of him vibrating with that strength the same as it did right then.
Why did he have to be so gorgeous?
But it was more than that.
It was simply because it washim.
The one who’d had my heart since I was a teenager. A teenager with stars in her eyes every time she looked at him.
Apparently, that one tedious little detail hadn’t disappeared with age.
