His swallow is loud. “If it makes you feel better, hell is exactly how it has been without you. Every hour feels like a year, knowing you’re not coming to see me. That you’re not going to waltz into my house like you own the place and turn me upside down.”
I don’t have a chance to respond to that, because my mother materializes at my side, gasping when she sees who it is. “Mr. Morgan! I wasn’t sure you’d really come.” She splits a look between me and Knox, who is still staring at me hard. “Please. Come on in and we’ll fix you a plate.”
His chest dips and he nods once. “Thank you, ma’am.”
My mother rushes back into the kitchen, presumably to gather a plate and cutlery.
Knox, meanwhile, steps right into my space, forcing me to tilt my head back.
“Happy birthday,” he says roughly, looking at my mouth.
“Don’t even think about it,” I whisper, goosebumps lifting on every inch of my skin.
“Think about what?”
“Kissing me.”
He drags his bottom lip through his teeth. “Kissing you isallI think about, Billie.”
My word.“Is that so?” I whisper, my voice unsteady. “W-well it’s my birthday.I’mgetting presents, not the other way around.”
“For now, getting to be near you is enough.”
I gasp, pushing him in the chest a little. “Stop that.”
He presses into my hands, like they’re shock paddles and he needs them to live. “Stop what, sweetheart?”
Sweetheart. “Being romantic when I’m mad at you.”
Knox grins down at me and I’m instantly mesmerized, swaying closer to him. Has he ever smiled like that before? With crinkles in the corners of his eyes and all his teeth showing? I knew he was a handsome devil, but this is outrageous.
“You’re really going to have dinner with my family?” I murmur. “You said you weren’t coming to my little birthday party.”
My reminder of his harsh words causes misery to blanket his features, that grin long gone. “Billie, I—”
“Mr. Morgan,” my father says, approaching with his hand out warily. He seems relieved when Knox shakes his hand. “My wife failed to inform me that she’d invited you to dinner.”
“I didn’t really think he’d come,” my mother squawks from the kitchen. “Honey, did you know Billie and Mr. Morgan run into one another out in the pasture, from time to time?”
My father issues me a double take. “Do they now?”
I shrug guiltily. “It’s just a friendly sort of thing.”
“Friendly,” my father repeats.
Knox’s face is impassive. At least, at first. “Actually, sir, I’ve gotten to know your extraordinary daughter quite well.” The resulting silence weighs heavy in the air. In my stomach, too. What is Knox doing? “She has told me a lot about your family and how important the ranch is to you. How important it is to her that it remain in your hands, for generations to come.”He slides an envelope out of his back pocket, handing it to my father, and all I can do is stare, my pulse tapping out a quick rhythm against my ear drums. “The land is yours now, free and clear.” Knox has to raise his voice to speak over my father’s stuttering. My mother’s weeping. “I’m only asking for one thing in return.”
“What is that?” my father asks, struggling to speak.
Knox looks at me, intention inscribed clearly on his face. “I want the opportunity to convince your daughter to be my wife. I want your permission to pursue her, if she’ll allow me the chance.”
My head rings like someone attached a gong to my brain and smacked it.
Is this real?
Did Knox just sign over the ranch to my parents?
He doesn’t even know if I’m pregnant yet.
