Take Me Away (Southern Bride 6)

“Will you help Belle up onto the bed?” she asked.

Smiling, I reached for the puppy and set her down next to Linnzi. Duke jumped up, did a few circles, and then planted himself at Linnzi’s feet.

“Are you going to get undressed and get into bed?” she asked, yawning again.

I didn’t realize I was tired, but suddenly it felt like I could sleep for days. I walked to the other side of the bed, took off my clothes and tossed them onto the floor near Linnzi’s. I climbed under the covers, pulled her up against me, and kissed the back of her head. “Go to sleep, princess, I’ve got you.”

Linnzi sighed and snuggled closer to me as I felt my body relax completely.

“Nolan?” she whispered.

“Yes?”

“How is it you’re here?”

“We’ll talk about it later, after you sleep.”

She nodded. Another minute went by and she asked, “Nolan?”

I pressed a kiss to her head. “Yes?”

“Did you have a funeral for Amanda?”

My body froze, and I fought to keep my voice controlled. “A small one, with me and your folks.”

“Where is she buried?”

“Here, on the ranch, next to my folks. Would you like to go and visit her grave?”

She sniffled and whispered, “Yes. I would.”

Drawing her body closer to mine, I replied, “Okay, just tell me when you want to go.”

She let out a long, deep breath. “Okay.” After a few minutes, she spoke again. “Nolan?”

“Yes?” I asked, chuckling.

“When can we get married?”

My eyes popped open, and I stared at the back of her head. I fought the urge to reach over and pinch myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. “I’ll marry you whenever you want, Linz.”

“Let’s get married this weekend.”

“This weekend?” I asked, surprised.

“Yes. Just you and me, no one else.”

My heartbeat picked up, and I tried not to let myself get too excited at the idea of finally making Linnzi officially mine. “Where? I mean, did you have a place in mind where you wanted to get married?”

She sighed happily again. “We can get the license and then have Pastor Scott marry us down by Cibolo Creek.”

My mind raced for a moment. We could easily get our marriage license, and I knew Pastor Scott would drop anything for me and Linnzi. “Are you sure?”

She turned slightly and looked at me. “Do you not want to get married that quickly?”

“Hell yes, I do. I only want to make sure you don’t want a big wedding. Before, you wanted…”

I let my words fall off into the air as she stared into my eyes and then rolled completely over until she faced me.

“All I want is to be your wife. I don’t want to pick up where we left off. I want to start new. Focus on our future. And I want to get off my birth control and let what happens happen.”

I brushed a stray piece of hair away from her face. “I love that plan.”

She smiled. “Good, then I’m going to need you to put that engagement ring back on my finger. It’s over there on the dresser.”

I kissed the tip of her nose. “I will, after you get some sleep.”

Closing her eyes, she breathed in and then exhaled as she buried herself deeper into my chest. Less than a minute later, my sleeping beauty was fast asleep in my arms.LinnziTHE SMELL OF something delicious drifted into the bedroom and woke me from my sleep. With a yawn and a stretch, I slowly sat up in bed to find Duke still snuggled down at my feet. Belle was missing, and so was Nolan.

I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood. As I made my way over to the dresser, I glanced back at Duke. “I see you’re going to be my little sidekick.”

He barked, and I laughed as I pulled open one of the dresser drawers. I had somehow managed to bring most of Nolan’s clothes down that he had up in his room. It was all older stuff that he really needed to weed out, but I found an old Def Leppard t-shirt and slipped it over my head. It fell to the middle of my thighs. When I reached down for my panties, I stopped. My eyes lifted to see Duke watching me. “Don’t judge me, Duke. I haven’t seen him all week.”

He gave a low bark that made me giggle.

“Let’s go see what your daddy is making.”

Duke jumped off the bed and made a beeline out the bedroom door that had been left ajar.

As I made my way down the hall, I could hear Nolan. He was singing. I covered my mouth with my hand and peeked around the corner to get a glimpse of him.

“Hey, buddy. Did the smell of food get to be too much?”

Duke barked before Nolan tossed him something he was cutting up. Belle lay patiently at his feet and seemed to be perfectly content. Nolan went back to humming, and I placed my hand on my lower stomach. So much had happened in the last week and a half. The one good thing out of all of it was that I remembered every single thing about this man. Our first kiss. The first time we made love. The first time he told me he loved me. Even the moment I told him over FaceTime that we were expecting a baby. Every memory, good and bad, was back.