“You named your hip after me?” She didn’t sound appalled, though he did detect a note of concern in her tone.
“Look again,” he told her.
She did.
And this time when she looked up there were tears in her eyes.
“A guy can promise you his fidelity every day until the day he dies, but a promise isn’t going to be enough for you. At least for a while,” he said. “Because your trust was given in the purest sense and was twisted and broken.” He’d planned more, but as the tears rolled slowly down her face, he forgot most of it. “I figured the only way for you to know for sure that my fidelity was always yours was to have the fact that I’m yours permanently emblazoned on me.”
She was sobbing, which might have bothered him more if she wasn’t smiling, too, and kneeling down. Her lips were even with the very sore tattoo he’d just had inked onto his hip: low enough that it would never show unless he was nude. She kissed it gently. And then sat back, staring at it. As though, if she looked away, it would disappear. Clearly, she liked what she saw.
He liked it, too.
Everleigh’s. To show that he was hers, now and forever.
His buddy had done a good job.
And the rest was up to him.
Gently covering his very sore hip with his underwear, but leaving the fly undone because it wasn’t at all comfortable, he sat down, holding both of Everleigh’s hands, as she sat beside him.
“I know we’ve only known each other a few days,” he said. “And that you’re a recent widow, though I think that’s less of an issue...but... I’m forty years old, Everleigh, and I’ve realized I’ve spent my whole life waiting for you. I don’t want to waste any more time.
“Unless, of course, you need it,” he amended. “I’m probably not going to make it home in time for the dinner you spend two hours cooking, and I’ll get on a case and forget to call, and sometimes I get an urge to see if I can catch a fish with my bare hands in an ocean full of sharks...but I can promise you that, while I don’t always follow the rules of polite society, I always abide by the law, and I will always, always, always be faithful to you. I love you,” he told her, as serious as he’d ever been.
“I love you, too,” she said while crying again. Harder. And even that he figured out. She had a lifetime of grief to expel. And a lifetime of the promise of happiness surging through her, too.
“I’m sorry,” she said, sniffling, wiping her eyes and smiling, too. “I never cry. But I do need to ask you something.”
“Shoot.” He’d tattooed himself for her. He’d happily committed his life to her. He could handle whatever else she needed.
“Clarke Colton, will you marry me?”
His lips trembled. His eyes grew moist. His darling, sweet and so-strong Everleigh was asking for what she wanted.
“As soon as it can be arranged,” he told her. And then kissed her until neither one of them had any air left in their lungs.
He sucked in breath only when he had no other choice. He’d found a way into his woman’s heart
and never, ever wanted to leave.
“And...do you mind if we get out of here? Before we’ve had too much to drink to be able to drive? I’ve realized I hate this place, Clarke. I want to go home.”
Home.
She meant his condo.
Their home. He could hardly comprehend all of the changes that were happening so rapidly. Could hardly comprehend the opportunity and open doors they were bringing into his life.
The condo had always just been a place to him.
But Everleigh had made it a home.
Her home. With him. And whoever else they brought into their family.
Maybe the child she’d once said she wanted. She was only thirty-eight. There’d be precautions, but he knew that there were things that could be done to see a child safely into the world into a woman’s forties.
But for starters... “How do you feel about dogs?”