I ruffled his hair, noting that I was somehow dressed in Paddy’s clothes as I processed the influx of my wildest dreams coming true. A slow smile grew on my face, but it was cautious. Disbelieving, almost. The last twenty-four hours had been carnage. Was I lucky enough to wake up from that to this? “Say all that again,” I said gruffly.
Rami sat up. He shifted Charlie from my lap and whispered in his ear.
Charley giggled and wandered off, calling Paddy’s name. Rami watched him go until he was happy with wherever he’d ended up, then he turned back to me with an expression so open I fell into it and drowned. “We’re staying, Fen. I gave my notice at the probation service and I’m going to set up a remote counselling service for young offenders when I’m done with my last cases. It’s what’s best for Charlie, and best for me, even without the fact that I think I’m falling head over heels in love with you.”
“Youthink?”
Rami chuckled. “Iknow. I was trying to be cool.”
“What the hell for?”
“So I didn’t scare you back to sleep. I missed you while you were gone.”
There was humour in his words, but a deeper emotion too. He was speaking the truth. He loved me.
And I loved him.
I exhaled a quiet breath. “I’ve wanted this all along. I know it’s fast and sudden and probably a little crazy, but I think I knew how I felt about you the moment you got out of that car. Like it was fate, you know? That everything that had happened to both of us had brought us to that point for a reason—forthisreason.”
“I’ve never believed in stuff like that.” Rami traced a random pattern on the back of my hand. “But I do now. And I don’t care that it’s fast. I’m tired of waiting for life to happen to me and dealing with other people’s bullshit instead. I want this. I wantyou, and me, and Charlie together for as long as it works, and you never fucking know. It could be forever.”
I liked the sound of that. I pulled Rami close and kissed his temple, revelling in the sensation of his lean, unyielding body against my bulk. I was bigger than him, stronger perhaps, but only in the physical sense. He was my hero, and I couldn’t wait to spend forever with him.
Rami let me hold him for a while, but it wasn’t long before he pushed back and returned us to the subject of the muddy apocalypse that had nearly stolen this moment from us. “What thefuckhappened? We woke up to find your house buried, your car sticking arse end out of the mud, and no path down the fell to get to you. I never gave up on you, not for a second, butjesus, I was scared.” He shuddered. “So fucking scared.”
“I was too, especially when I saw the state of my bedroom. I’d nearly asked you to bring Charlie down and wait for me there. If you had, well…” I shook my head. “Let’s just say I’m glad I dozed off on the couch and leave it at that.”
Rami arched a brow. “Don’t be vague with me. I have an overactive imagination, so I’d prefer the truth.”
“Me too.” Safia entered the room and perched on the arm of the couch. “And I already spoke to Daryl at the main house, so don’t even think of giving us the diet version.”
I sighed. “Really?”
“Really,” she snapped. “You were family long before you were boinking my brother, and we were terrified we’d lost you.”
Rami pursed his lips, half cringing, half hiding a grin.
I didn’t know what to say.
To any of it.
So I went with the truth. “I didn’t hear it coming. I woke up to find half my house buried and I couldn’t get out. My phone was smashed up and not working and I couldn’t reach the landline. My lads from the farm came looking for me and dug me out. As soon as I knew they were okay too, I made a run for it to get to you guys, but the paths were all ruined. I think it took me longer to get up here than it did to get out of my house.”
“It took you six hours,” Paddy said, joining us with every child hanging off him. There was felt-tip scribble on his forehead. I wondered if Rami had told Charlie to put it there. “They thought you’d lost the plot, but Safia told them you’d be right as rain after a hot dinner and nap.”
“She was right, about the nap part, at least. I feel fine.” Better than fine. I was on top of the world in every sense. At some point, I’d have to face some difficult realities about the state of my house, and the fact that half of next year’s timber had likely been destroyed, but that could wait. All of it could. As long as my guys still had jobs, here and now—that was what mattered.
Safia came closer and gave me a hug. She was built like Rami—compact, but deceptively strong. She squeezed the life out of me, stealing my breath, then fixed me with another stern gaze. “I don’t know what your intentions are with my sweet brother—”
Rami snorted.
Safia thumped him and continued, “—but whatever they are, there’s no way you can live in that house for the foreseeable future so you’re moving in with us, no arguments.”
I opened my mouth.
Paddy cut me off. “No arguments, dude. Right, kids?”
Addie nodded.
