“The kids are fine; I just checked on them. I want to talk to you.”

“I don’t think I’m ready to talk to you,” she says low, her head shaking back and forth in agitation.

“Lil.”

“Don’t ‘Lil’ me.” Her eyes finally meet mine, and she points at me. “I have accepted your past since the beginning of our relationship. I accepted who you were the first time we were together, and I more than accepted you this time around. What did you think, Cash, that you were the only person I would ever be with?” she asks, and I can hear the anger in her words. Each one cutting through me.

“That’s not what I was saying,” I say, taking another step towards her.

“You know, you’re right. You broke me. I couldn’t be with anyone else. Austin is a great guy—sweet, considerate, loving, and handsome—but I couldn’t be with him, no matter how many times I tried, no matter how much I liked him. He wasn’t you. No one was ever you.” As much as it kills to think of her trying to be with anyone, I understand. I see tears in her eyes, and I’m done with the space separating us. Walking towards her, I quickly pull her to me, not giving her a chance to argue.

“I’m sorry.” I breathe her in, the smell of lavender comforting me. “It was a shit thing to ask you.” I rub her back. “I love you, Lil. I just…shit...I just hate the idea of you with anyone else.” I take a breath; I can still tell that she’s crying. “Please don’t cry because I’m an idiot,” I say gently.

“You are an idiot,” she says. I can feel her cheek move against my chest and I know she’s smiling.

“As long as I’m your idiot, I couldn’t care less.” Her head tilts back, her glassy eyes meeting mine.

“You know, you make it really hard to be mad at you,” she says, studying my face.

“I’m not going to complain about that. It seems to be working in my favor.” She shakes her head before dropping her forehead to my chest.

“I hope you know that I will be meeting Austin when he comes back in from his fishing trip,” she tells me and I take a breath, not wanting to say the wrong thing, but not wanting her to meet up with a man that she obviously cares about.

“Can I come with you when you meet up with him?”

“No.” She shakes her head. “You have to trust me, Cash. Austin and I are friends, nothing more.” Her arms wrap around my waist. “But that doesn’t mean that feelings were not there, and Austin was hurt in the past and I want to make sure he’s doing okay.”

“I don’t like it,” I whisper into her hair before kissing the top of her head.

“I know, but it’s something I have to do.” She gives me a squeeze, trying to offer me comfort.

“I trust you,” I say, and it’s the truth.

“Thank you,” she replies quietly, but I can hear in those two words how much I just gave to her. My hand goes to the back of her neck before traveling to her jaw so I can tilt her head back.

“I know what’s in front of me, Lil. I know exactly what I have, so when I feel like it’s being threatened, the first thing I want to do is lash out and kill anything that may come in and jeopardize it. I know what we had before, and I know what we have now. And I will always do everything within my power to protect it.

“Austin isn’t a threat,” she says, her hand coming up and traveling along my jaw.

“Lilly, your kind of sweet is hard to come by, so when you get even just a little taste of it, you want more. I’m saying that as a man who knows what bitter tastes like,” I tell her gently. I don’t know what happened with Austin and his past relationship, but I have a feeling he knows what bitter tastes like too. And he also knows the kind of woman Lilly is, and how hard that is to find.

“I think you’re reading too much into this.”

“I’m not, but that’s okay as long as you know that you’re mine. I will try to control the urge to throw you over my shoulder and carry you back to my lair,” I tell her, making her laugh. She rubs her face against my chest before lifting her eyes to meet mine.

“We should go check on the kids and get them something to eat,” she tells me before taking a step back. I pull her back to me, bend her back and put my mouth on hers. Once I feel her relax, I nibble on her bottom then top lip.

“Now, we can go get the kids,” I tell her, my mouth still against hers.

“You have to let me go.” She’s right, but I don’t want to.

“Are we good?” I don’t like fighting with her.

“We’re good.”

“Good.” I kiss her once more before righting her, turning her towards the door, and smacking her ass. She looks at me over her shoulder, and all I can do is shrug. “You have a nice ass.”

“We’re in my parents’ house.”

“Just because were in their house doesn’t mean I’m going to stop touching you when I want to.”

“My dad isn’t going to like you smacking my ass,” she says. I smile, pushing her out the door of the bedroom. “Cash, seriously, he won’t like it.” I ignore her, leading her down the hall with a hand in the small of her back to where the kids are. “I would hate to see my dad put his old Seal skills to use by making you disappear.” I start laughing. “This isn’t funny,” she says loudly just as we walk around the corner into the rooms that the kids are playing in.

“What’s not funny, Daddy?” Ashlyn asks, running up to us.

“Nothing, love bug.” Lilly glares at me when I chuckle. “Are you guys hungry?” Lilly asks the kids.

“I’m starbing,” Jax says, his head going back, his arms going straight out at his sides.

“Little dude, when are you not hungry?” I ask, and he looks at me. I can tell he is really thinking about what his answer is going to be.

“When I eat,” he replies, making both of us laugh.

*~*~*

“Baby, seriously, are you sure you don’t want me to take you?” I ask. I know I promised I would trust her with the whole Austin thing, but what the fuck? The idea of my woman going to meet another man for coffee seems ridiculous to me.

“Cash, we talked about this. I will only be gone for about an hour, if that, then I will be home,” she repeats the same thing she told me five minutes ago.

“I know,” I grumble. I’m sure I sound like Jax.

“An hour,” she repeats, kissing me. She grabs her bag and a set of keys off the counter and heads out the door. I watch her go, wanting to drag her back inside, but I know she will kick my ass if I try. I look around the quiet house; Jax and Ashlyn are out with Lilly’s dad. Her mom is sleeping, so it just me and my imagination. I need to keep busy.

“What the hell are you doing?” I spin around, coming face-to-face with Lilly’s mom, who is looking at me like I’m crazy, and maybe I am. I got bored, so I started cleaning. I had just finished vacuuming the whole downstairs when she showed up.

“Vacuuming,” I tell her, lifting the vacuum up.

“I know. I was trying to take a nap when I heard you down here. What the hell is wrong with you?” Her hands go to her waist and she looks a little scary. “Austin is just a friend to Lilly, so you need to relax, and if you don’t want to relax and cleaning helps you decompress, or de-stress, or whatever the hell it is you’re doing, then take the vacuum upstairs and finish what you started,” she says, walking past me into the kitchen. I’m just finishing my vacuuming when Lilly comes into the room. She looks just the same as she did before—no happier, no sadder—so I guess that’s good.

“You vacuumed?” she asks, looking around, then at the vacuum in my hand.

“Yes,” I say defensively. “I know the kids are messy; I just wanted to help out.”

“Oooo-kay.” She rolls her eyes. “I brought you a coffee and a cinnamon roll; they are both downstairs.”

“Thank you.” Ha! She thought of me when she was out with Austin. She starts to walk away, but I snag her, bending her backwards and kissing her, possessing her mouth. When I right her, she looks at me and smiles before skipping away. The damn woman is going to make me lose my mind.

*~*~*

I’m dying. I take a deep breath; my lungs are on fire, along with the muscles in my legs. I’m pretty sure I’m dead already. I look ahead and see that Austin and Lil’s dad are about a quarter of a mile ahead of me. We’re hiking up the side of the mountain they said was great for hunting bears. Honestly, I don’t even want to see a bear in the wild, let alone get close enough to shoot it. “Hurry up there, son,” Lil’s dad calls back over his shoulder. I shake my head in disgust; I thought I was in good shape.

“I’m coming,” I grumble, and glare when I see Austin look over his shoulder with a smirk on his face. He isn’t even sweating, which is strange considering he has as much hair on his body as a wild animal. After about twenty minutes, we get to the top of the mountain. The view is breathtaking. “This is amazing.”

“This is where I asked Lilly’s mom to marry me,” Frank says, his eyes landing on me, his arms crossing over his chest.

“It’s a good spot,” I tell him, looking out over the valley below.

“When are you going to ask my daughter to marry you?” I look at him, then over at Austin. My hand goes to my pocket where I have kept her ring since picking it up at the jewelers. I run my fingers over the metal before pulling it out of my pocket.

“I actually wanted to ask you for permission.” I hold the ring out in his direction. The ring has three diamonds. They represent our past, present, and future. They’re wrapped in white gold, with the kids’ birthstones set in-between.

“I can’t believe she took you back,” Austin says, looking at the ring, then me.

“I can’t believe it either, but she’s mine, and I will take out anyone who stands in the way of us having a future.” I look directly at Austin; his eyes flare, but he doesn’t say anything.

“You have my blessing,” Frank says. I look at him to see him smiling.

“Thank you,” I reply, putting the ring back in my pocket.

“Where’s the box?” Austin asks.

“What?”

“The ring box, where is it?”

“In the garbage.” I sigh. “I can’t have the box in my pocket; it’s too obvious,” I say, running my fingers over the ring again. This is a new habit; touching it does something to calm me.

“How long have you had it?

“A little over a month,” I say, shrugging. I like having it with me. I don’t know when I’ll ask; I just have a feeling that when the time comes, I will know.

“It ain’t burning a hole in your pocket?” Austin asks, looking at me curiously.

“Honestly,” I shake my head, “yeah, but I want to make sure that she is ready before I ask her.”

“I know a spot she loves,” Austin says, looking thoughtful. I’m not sure I would want to ask her to marry me at any location they used to go to together. He must read my face when the next words come out of his mouth. “Childs Glacier. She loves it out there. And no, we never went there together,” Austin says, and I remember her telling me about that place, saying there wasn’t anywhere in the world more beautiful. I can even remember the pictures she had in her apartment when I first started dating her.

“I’m not sure when I’m going to ask her. I want it to be in the moment.” I look at Austin and Frank, who both smile.

“Well, if you want her to say yes, then you should be in the moment at Childs Glacier.”

“She will say yes,” I say, not feeling so confident when I read the looks on their faces. “What?”

“When she was a little girl, she told me she wanted her future husband to ask her to marry her at her favorite spot, just like I asked her mom to marry me at her favorite place.”

“I don’t know. I just keep thinking I will know when I’m supposed to ask her.” I sigh, pulling the hat off my head.

“Bud, just take her out to the glacier. If you don’t get the feeling when you’re there, then don’t ask her,” Austin says. I really don’t want to like this guy, but he makes it hard not to.

“I’ll think about it,” I say, thinking over the idea.

“All right.” Frank smiles and pats my back. “Enough of the women-talk, time to go find our bear.”

“Shit,” I groan. “How the hell did I end up in this situation?” I look at Austin, who laughs.

“You need to man-up,” Austin says, smiling. “We need to make a man out of you. Hunting is like coffee; it puts hair on your chest.”

“If that’s the case, I think you need to quit drinking coffee and hunting.” I look him over, shaking my head. He looks like a bear.

“Jealous?” he asks, pulling down the top of his shirt and showing off his chest hair.

“Fuck no.”

“Chicks love it.” He smiles, and I can’t help but laugh.

“What the hell are you two gossiping about? Get it together; we’re burning daylight,” Frank yells. Austin looks at me and shrugs before taking off hiking again.

“You better be careful, Austin, you could easily be confused with a bear,” I tell his back. His hand raises over his shoulder so he can flip me off. I start to jog so I’m not so far behind and pray we don’t see a bear.