“Keep talkin’,” he urged.

“I can’t,” I said softly.

“Baby, I think you don’t get this but you’re safe here.” His hand left my jaw and both arms wrapped tight around me, giving me a squeeze at the same time pulling me up so my face was level with his. “You’re safe, Lauren,” he murmured and my eyes came back to his. “You weren’t safe with him but, honey, swear to God, you’re safe with me.”

I felt the tears smart in my eyes and my lower lip quivered so I pressed them together.

“Keep talkin’,” he repeated, I took a breath in through my nose and nodded.

“You were far away,” I whispered, “it was night, I could barely see you…” I hesitated. “But you still took my breath away.”

His eyes closed and his hand slid up my neck into my hair and he put pressure there so our foreheads were touching.

“Christ, Laurie,” he muttered.

“The next day,” I went on, “I saw you walk into the bar and you were so beautiful…”

His eyes opened and his fingers tensed against my scalp. “All right, maybe you can quit talking.”

I ignored him.

“That’s why it hurt so much.” My voice was so quiet it was barely audible. “What you said. You being you, looking like you, breathtaking…”

“Stop, Lauren.” His voice was a growl.

“I’m not throwing it in your face, I’m just saying –”

He interrupted me again. “I know what you’re sayin’.”

I put my hand on his chest and told him softly, “Tate, you’re all that.”

“Baby –”

“And you like me.”

“Shut it, Laurie.”

I moved my head, sliding my cheek against his beard so my lips were at his ear, my arms went around him and I whispered, “So maybe I’m a little bit of all that too.”

I found myself moved suddenly, landing on my back with Tate’s body covering mine, his head up and his hand back at my jaw.

“You were all that before me,” he declared, his voice again a growl.

“Tate –”

“My guess? You been all that for awhile.”

“Captain –”

“Shitty luck, stupid decisions… I lost a lot in my life. My Mom left when I was a kid. Thought I’d live life high, playin’ football and that dream was dead almost the second it began. Then my Dad died. Mixed up with Neeta, with Bethany, havin’ Jonas and thinkin’ I finally got a hint of sweet only to have it come along with a lot of fightin’ and headache and broken promises I was f**kin’ stupid enough to believe. I haven’t had much of all that. All I ever had I had to fight for, pay for or do penance for because I jacked up. Then you walk into my goddamned bar lookin’ for a job.”

“Tate –”

His thumb came to my lips and put pressure on.

“Shut it,” he whispered.

“Okay,” I said against his thumb.

“I don’t define you,” he told me.

“I know, but I –” I started and his thumb, still against my lips, pressed gently so I shut up.

“You’re not found because you found me,” he went on. “You think that you’re still lost.”

I didn’t speak.

Tate did. “I wasn’t here, you cuttin’ ties and gettin’ out from under him, you woulda found your way.”

He stopped talking so I chanced speaking.

“Can I say something now?” I asked against his thumb and he moved it away, rolled to his side and brought me to facing him.

Then he said, “Yeah.”

“You’re right,” I agreed. “But –”

“No buts about it, Ace.”

I put my fingers to his lips and asked quietly, “Can I say what I need to say, Tate?”

He didn’t speak or nod, he just waited.

So I spoke. “I would have come back to me, eventually. It’s just that, it so happens I found myself with you leading the way.”

“Laurie –”

I moved my hand and replaced it with my lips.

“Thank you,” I whispered and then I kissed him, doing it hard and putting feeling into it, a lot of it, as much as I felt for him and what he’d given me. And what he’d given me was huge.

He’d given me me.

I pushed him to his back, slid on top and kept kissing him with Tate kissing me back.

Eventually, I lifted my head to look at him and Tate’s hands slid into my hair, pulling it away from my face and holding it behind my head.

His eyes were on the fall of hair that escaped his hands and curtained my left eye then they came to mine.

“You got great hair, babe,” he muttered.

I lifted a hand so my finger could slide along his hairline then all of them glided in.

“You do too,” I replied.

One of his hands left my hair and became an arm wrapped around my upper back, his other hand cupping my head and both brought me back down to him.

“I have to frost the cake,” I whispered.

“In a little while,” he whispered back.

“And make dinner,” I continued.

“Later.”

“Captain –”

He cut me off with, “Ace.”

I studied his beautiful face.

“She’s mine,” he’d said to Wood.

I was his. And he was mine.

I smiled and my mouth went to his. “All right, honey. Later.”

His head slanted one way, mine tilted the other and it was a lot later when I was able to get up, frost the cake and make dinner.

* * * * *

We had pork tenderloin with Gramps’s famous glaze, boiled new potatoes, salad and delicious rolls with sunflower seeds crusting the top, eating it at the wrought iron table on Tate’s back patio.

My eyes were on his terraced yard and my mind was filled. It was filled with what it would say to Tate if I spent a day weeding the plants and adding more. It was filled with if I cared anymore about Tate reading what that said (and I figured I didn’t). It was filled with Tate telling me his Mom left and his Dad was dead and how little I knew about him. It was filled with how strong the feeling was that I wanted to know more and the fact the power behind that feeling didn’t scare me. It was filled with the knowledge that Wood “killed” Tate’s Dad in a car accident; with Stella telling Tate to cut Wood slack; with Stella saying, if Tate let it go, Wood would be able to; and with Wood telling me they once were brothers. It was filled with Wood coming to take my back when Neeta was in town, for me but also for Tate, even after what passed between the three of us. And it was filled with Wood telling Tate he’d do anything he could to help Tate get Jonas from Wood’s sister.