“Cal!”Victoria says, shocked.
“I’m a total catch,” I bark in my defense.
“True,” Finn says.“You’ve been caught a lot.But Cal’s right, sis.If you need help, I’m on my way.”
“‘Sis’?Hell no.I’m still Summer.”Then she looks around Cal and smiles at me.“But I think they’ve got your number, Declan.”
My heart twists as I look at her.I know she’s joking.I know she believes me when I tell her I’m in this for real.But nobody else does.So I’ll tell them.
“Listen up,” I announce.“That number of mine is now officially disconnected.Out of service.New phone, new life.”
CHAPTER 37
Summer
It’s been two weeks since the word got out about Declan and me, but we’ve refused to divulge how it happened.
Or why.
I’m still trying to understand the why, and I’m the wife.
But I can’t deny that I’m glad it happened.Crazy-happy-thrilled it happened, because it’s good.Better than I could have imagined.Declan tells me he loves me all the time, but it’s kind of overkill.
Because heshowsme he loves me even more.And I show him I love him right back.
We’ve settled into a married-couple routine.We make love for hours until we fall asleep.I’ve learned a lot in the last couple of weeks, thanks to my patient and creative teacher.
I get up way before sunrise to get to work, and while I’m getting ready, Declan makes me coffee for the road.He hands me my thermos mug, kisses me, and tells me to have a good day.
While I’m working, Declan is either doing his StellaR Tech thing with his brothers or he’s flying somewhere for the business.But he always manages to get back in time to meet me after work.
We do one of three things for supper: go into town to the diner, eat with Phyllis and Jamie, or head to my place where Emma has left a dinner basket for us on my front porch with a sweet note.
We’ve fallen into a rhythm of taking care of one another.And everyone at Yosemite Ranch takes care of us.
Life couldn’t be any better.
So far, we’ve always stayed at my place.I don’t know if that’s because Declan wants me to feel comfortable and ease into our relationship, or if he wants us to be far away from his family so we can have a little privacy.
His family.
My family.
I have a family now, and I’m so incredibly lucky.
A real family.As the only child of a married couple, I suppose that technically, I’ve always had a family.I had parents.Still have them, I guess, if they’re still alive.But it wasn’t a real family, or a good one.
I’ve told Declan some of the story, but it may take me years to share the whole awful truth with him.How my parents got hooked on oxy and fentanyl when I was younger than Jasmine, and how I never really knew them asMomandDad.
They were just Steve and Lurlene Stevens, who would lock me in a closet when they had distributors or buyers stopping by the trailer for a drug deal.And if they started using their own supply, which they often did, they’d sometimes forget until the next day that their kid was in the closet.
It wasn’t exactlyLittle House on the Prairie.It was more likeLittle Meth House on the Prairie.And it was nothing like Yosemite Ranch.
And that’s why I know I’m lucky.If they’d been better at parenting, and if they hadn’t wound up in prison, I’d never have come looking for work at Yosemite Ranch.I’d never loved and married Declan, and I’d never become one of the MacLaines.
So.Damn.Lucky.
“I don’t think you should ride.”
