“Cait, you know there’ll be problems if we try to just live together. Or even date for any length of time.” From her changing expression, he could tell that wasn’t what she wanted to hear. “I’m saying we’ll go that route anyway, if you need time.”
She stared at him, as if trying to see deeper than anyone ever had. “But…what about you?”
“I’m thirty-five years old. You’re right. I’d never thought the word marriage in connection with myself before. It wasn’t long after I kissed you the first time when I started thinking it. You remember when I gave you the grand tour of my house?”
Color heightening in her cheeks, she nodded.
His body stirred at the same memory making her blush. What happened at the end of their tour, when they’d reached his bedroom.
“You said something about decorating one of those front rooms as a nursery. I had a vision. You were pregnant.” He smiled faintly. “You were on a ladder putting up wallpaper covered with fluffy yellow ducklings. I thought I had to have lost my mind, because, damn it, I wanted that. All of it.”
The intensity in her eyes had softened as he talked. “I want that, too,” she said softly, maybe a little tremulous. “I looked at that house made for a family, and at you, and I felt all those things I’d sworn I wouldn’t.”
He let go of her hand so he could put his arm around her. “So why the hesitation?”
“I just don’t want you to feel like you have to do this.”
Noah shook his head, his stubbly cheek rubbing against her hair. “Don’t be ridiculous. I never do anything I don’t want to.”
Cait giggled, a watery sound. “That’s what Nell said.”
“Smart woman.”
They sat in contented silence, at least on his part.
It was a minute before he had a disturbing thought. “You’re not going to have to choose whether you have your mother or your brother at our wedding, are you?”
Her breath huffed out. “Oh, there’s a thought.”
“Damn it, you shouldn’t have to make that kind of choice.”
Cait tilted her head back. “Then I won’t make it. I want to get married here, in Angel Butte. If my mother refuses to come…well, that’s her choice. I do love her, but…did I ever tell you about the last time I talked to her?”
She did then, expressing the disappointment she’d felt, which had become tangled up with the sharp-edged knowledge that her mother had been capable of abandoning one of her two children without any apparent regrets.
His arm tightened around her. “How much of a relationship you want with her is up to you. I’ll be polite.”
She managed to reach his chin with a kiss. “Thank you.”
Neither of them moved. For a man usually too restless to do nothing but sit, he was completely happy to stay right where they were.
“If I’m patient,” Cait said thoughtfully, “I ought to be able to get a job with one of the other cities in the area.”
Jolted out of the mindless contentment, Noah straightened so he could see her face. “What are you talking about? You have a job.”
“Yes, but you know George has already started a campaign to get rid of one or both of us.”
“And what? You think we should surrender without a fight?”
“No! I’m trying to plan ahead, that’s all.”
Noah shook his head. “If either of us has to resign, it’ll be me.”
“What?”
He didn’t know if he liked the shock on her face or not. “You heard me.”
“But—”
“I’m an elected official, Cait. At most I might run for one more term. I make a damn good living. I have a career, and it isn’t city government. Urban planning is your career. I repeat, if we lose, I’ll go.” He watched her mouth open and close a couple of times. “And, no, don’t even think about arguing.”
“It’s just… You’d do that for me?”
She sounded piteous, which pissed him off.
“I love you,” he said. “Believe it.”
To his astonishment, tears welled in her eyes. With a muffled wail, she threw herself at him, then cried out again and tried to retreat. “Oh, no! I’ll hurt you!”