Bury the Hatchet (37 page)

“DON’T BE NERVOUS
,” Hunter said. He rubbed the pad of his thumb over the back of my hand, but it wasn’t enough. There was no point in denying I was nervous as hell.

That didn’t stop me from saying, “I’m not nervous.”

“Mm-hmm.” There was a heck of a lot of sarcasm in that hum of assent.

We were sitting on a bench at baggage claim, waiting on not only Hunter’s parents but also Carrie and Kaylee to arrive. They were all coming down to celebrate Christmas with us. Daddy was going to come over, too. I was cooking a big meal for all of us. That should be the part I was most anxious about, in all honesty—cooking a holiday meal for that many people—but I couldn’t help being worried about other aspects of it, too. I was scared to death to meet Carrie, and the thought of meeting Hunter’s niece gave me heart palpitations, even if the bigger reason they were all coming to Tulsa was so Kaylee could visit her father at Horizons.

The thing was, I wanted to be part of Hunter’s family, and regardless of the fact that I was pregnant with his baby, I was almost positive that they thought of me as a temporary part of his life. I didn’t want anything to do with temporary. I wanted permanence, and I wanted them to accept me that way.

Being accepted just as I was would probably always be something I struggled to believe, thanks to everything Mama and Lance had done to me over the years. I was getting better at it, but I doubted I’d ever completely get rid of their voices whispering in the back of my mind that I wasn’t good enough. They were getting quieter, though. That was a huge improvement.

After that night when Lance had shot me, the news had blown up about the entire situation. It wasn’t just the gossip pages following us anymore but the mainstream media. It was on the front page of every paper, the cover of every magazine, the top of every news site. The best part of it all, though, was that the insanity surrounding Lance and Mama took the heat off me and Hunter. People seemed to realize there were things a lot more important than me losing my crown, and they started to give Hunter a break about the things he’d said over the summer. Everyone decided we could give up our efforts at turning the tide of opinion that had followed us around for months. All those people who’d been out to get us had finally decided to bury the hatchet. They’d moved on, so now we could, too.

I nestled into Hunter’s side, soaking up his warmth to fend off the chill coming through the sliding doors behind us. A cold snap had blown in last night, and I hadn’t been prepared for it. That was always a possibility, living in this part of the country. You couldn’t count on the weather to behave the way you expected it to. Hunter almost always behaved the way I expected him to, though, which was something I took comfort in.

He leaned back and reached into the pocket of his coat. “Before they get here…”

I glanced up at him, trying to figure out what he thought he could throw at me at the last second. I was already freaking out enough without him adding anything to the equation that I hadn’t already planned for.

“Hunter,” I said in a warning voice. Surprises were the last thing I needed right now, and he darn well knew it.

“It’s nothing bad,” he said, laughing. “At least, I hope you won’t take it that way.”

Now I was really curious.

“It’s just that I never really proposed to you. I never got down on a knee and gave you a ring and professed my undying love or anything like that. I just handed you a box, and that was that.”

“Oh.” I wanted to say more, but words were definitely failing me.

“So here’s the thing.” He drew a box out of his pocket, but it wasn’t a ring box. It was like one that had been flattened out, maybe the right size for a bracelet or an anklet. My heart swelled. He stood up and then dropped to a knee in front of me. “I’ve told you before that I don’t want
us
to be temporary, but I’ve never asked you. So, Tallie, will you remain my wife even after our year has come to an end?” He opened the box.

I was right that it wasn’t a ring. It was a simple silver chain with a clasp that was made to look like handcuffs. I bit down on my lower lip, blushing like crazy since we were in public. Not that anyone had a clue what would make me blush like that. The truth was, Hunter had finally gotten around to buying us a set of proper handcuffs last week, and we’d been making good use of them ever since.

A tear fell down my cheek, but I didn’t care. All I cared was that I loved this man with everything in me, and I never wanted to be apart from him. “You’d have to fight me off with a stick,” I said. “I’d be madder than a wet hen if you tried it, too. Yes, of course I want to remain your wife.”

He winked at me. “Good. Thank you for not making me beg, even though I absolutely would.” Then he reached for my left ankle, drawing it out toward him. He picked up the chain in one hand, fished in his pocket for something else with his other hand, and came out with a key. He used the key to open the clasp. Then he fixed the chain around my ankle, closing the cuffs together.

When he was done, I held out a hand for him. He came to his feet and helped me to mine. And he kissed me like he meant it.

The sound of a little girl’s giggles broke us apart. I turned to find Hunter’s parents alongside a gorgeous redheaded woman and an adorable child.

“Uncle Hunter,” the girl who could only be Kaylee said with a chastising tone, “kisses are yucky.”

He gave her an exaggerated look of shock. “Is that so?” And then he grabbed her, lifting her high in the air while he covered her face with kisses to the delightful sound of her scandalized squeals. “Kisses are yucky?”

She giggled again, rubbing her nose against his, and I just about melted into a puddle on the floor thinking about Hunter and our child rubbing noses.

“Maybe not
all
kisses,” she conceded.

“Just my kisses?”

She shook her head, blushing, and she whispered something in his ear.

“Ah, I see,” he said.

“Will my daddy want to kiss me?” she asked.

“Maybe. Probably,” Hunter amended. “Would that be okay?”

She thought about it for a moment, comically tapping her finger on her chin. “Maybe. Probally,” she added, grinning like the cat that got into the cream. She patted him on the cheek. “You need to shave. You’re scratchy.” Her r’s came out sounding like w’s.

He chuckled, and his eyes flickered over to me. “There’s someone I want you to meet, and she happens to like me scratchy.”

“Aunt Tallie?”

“Yep.”

“Why does she like you scratchy?”

“Why don’t you ask her?”

Kaylee turned in his arms and pinned me with a very serious expression. “Why do you like Uncle Hunter scratchy?”

In a bit of a panic, I looked to Hunter for help. He studiously avoided my gaze. No help there.

“Well,” I said finally, “I like him however I can get him.”

“Oh,” Kaylee said. She nodded and started playing with his hair. “I do, too.”

“Is that so?” he said, brushing his cheek against her hand until she squealed again.

“Yep. But Uncle Hunter?” she said, turning serious, with giant crocodile tears forming in her eyes.

“What’s up, sugar?”

“What if my daddy doesn’t want me?”

“Well…” He set her down on the ground and got down on his knees so they were on the same level. “Here’s the thing about your daddy.”

I held my breath. Couldn’t help it. Things between Hunter and Kade had been slowly improving over the last few months, but it had been painfully slow. I honestly didn’t know what he would say to her, and I worried on her behalf. Because I’d been that little girl who had a parent who didn’t love her. I’d been there, and it had nearly crushed me, and I couldn’t bear to let her suffer the same kind of crushing blow.

“Your daddy loves you more than he loves anything in this world, including himself,” Hunter said, and my lungs filled again with beautiful, wonderful air. He tucked a curl behind Kaylee’s ear. “But he’s been sick. Really sick. But he’s trying to get better for you.”

“If I kiss him, will it make him better?”

“It’s sure worth a shot,” Hunter said. Then he leaned close and dropped his voice. “But he might be scratchy.”

“It’s okay,” Kaylee said. “I like him however I can get him.”

He gave her another scratchy kiss, and she giggled. We collected all their bags before heading out to the parking lot. Kaylee decided she needed to hold my hand on our way out, and she didn’t stop chattering the whole way home.

We got everyone settled in before heading up to the arena for Hunter’s game that night. It was the Thunderbirds’ last game before the Christmas break, and he got his first shutout of the season. I spent the whole game talking to his parents and Carrie, who told me she’d decided I was going to be her sister whether I liked it or not.

It was only after everyone was in bed for the night and Hunter and I were finally alone again that he and I could really talk. We were lying next to each other in bed, touching and kissing and holding each other. He slid a hand down the outside of my leg, drawing my knee up so he could reach all the way down to the chain he’d put on my ankle earlier.

He looked deep in my eyes and kissed me long and hard. “Sorry,” he said when he broke it off. “That was one of the yucky kisses.”

“I thought she said not all kisses were yucky.”

“No, not all. Just the ones with tongues involved.”

I laughed.

“You have the sexiest fucking laugh,” he said, rolling over on top of me and pinning me to the mattress with his weight.

“I have the sexiest fucking husband, and he makes me laugh.”

“Is that so?”

“That’s most definitely so.”

“Well, I have the sexiest fucking wife, and she makes me care, even when I don’t want to care.”

“We’ve both very lucky to have our sexy spouses, then,” I said.

“Lucky doesn’t even begin to cover it. Good thing we both screwed up so badly.”

Hunter slid inside me, slowly making love to me.

I put my hands on his butt, where they belonged, rocking with him until we both found our release.

He rolled off me, dragging me along with him so I could rest my head on his shoulder, exactly where I liked to be. It wasn’t just where I liked to be, though. It was where I belonged.