Like she's always belonged here.
Tommy is finally asleep in the nursery my brothers helped me create earlier, worn out from being passed around to everyMcKenna at the reception dinner. The kid charmed the hell out of my brothers, especially Luke, who knows what it's like to raise a child alone. By the time we got back to the cabin, Tommy was calling Cade "Uncle" and trying to grab Boone's shield.
But now it's just me and Lisa, alone in my house for the first time as husband and wife. The weight of what just happened, what we just promised each other, settles between us like something alive.
"You didn't have to make coffee," I say, leaning against the doorframe and watching her move around my kitchen with an efficiency that makes my chest tight. "It's late."
"I couldn't sleep." She doesn't turn around, focused on measuring coffee grounds with the same careful precision she brings to everything. "Too much adrenaline, I think."
"Lisa." I push off the doorframe, move toward her. "We need to talk."
"I know." Her voice is quiet, careful. "About what happens now. About how this works."
She's putting up walls again. I can see it in the set of her shoulders, the way she's avoiding eye contact. Like she's already regretting what she said at the ceremony, already trying to figure out how to take it back.
Like she thinks I'm going to let her.
"Turn around." The command comes out rougher than I intend, edged with the authority I use when I need someone to listen.
She freezes, coffee scoop halfway to the machine. "Sawyer..."
"Turn around and look at me."
She does, slowly, and the uncertainty in her green eyes makes something primitive and possessive roar to life in my chest. She's scared. Scared of what she feels, scared of what this means, scared of letting herself want something she thinks she can't have.
Scared of trusting that I meant every word I said tonight.
"What did you think was going to happen?" I keep my voice gentle, controlled, even though every instinct I have is screaming at me to back her against the counter and show her exactly what happens now. "What did you think would change after you told me you had feelings for me?"
"I don't know." She wraps her arms around herself, defensive. "I wasn't thinking clearly. The ceremony, the kiss, everything just felt so..."
"Real."
"Yes. Real." She looks down at her hands, at the simple gold band on her ring finger. "But Sawyer, we agreed this was temporary. We agreed separate bedrooms, separate lives. Just a legal arrangement to help me keep Tommy."
"That was before."
"Before what?"
"Before you told me you feel the same way about me as I do you." I step closer, close enough to see the pulse fluttering at the base of her throat. "Before I kissed you and felt you melt against me like you've been waiting for it as long as I have."
Her breath catches. "That doesn't change anything."
"Doesn't it?" I reach out, trace the line of her jaw with one finger. "Because from where I'm standing, it changes everything."
She shivers at the contact but doesn't pull away. "Sawyer, I'm scared."
The admission is barely a whisper, but it guts me. Because I know Lisa Graham, know how much courage it takes for her to admit fear, to show vulnerability.
"Scared of what?"
"Of this. Of wanting something I might not be able to keep. Of letting myself believe this is real when in six months, whenthe custody case is over..." She trails off, but I know where her mind is going.
Six months. The arbitrary timeline we set for this arrangement, back when we thought we could fake our way through being married. Back when I thought I could keep my feelings locked down for half a year and then let her walk away.
Back when I was lying to myself about what this really was.
"Lisa, look at me." I wait until her eyes meet mine. "There is no six months. There is no expiration date. There's just this, just us, just the family we're building together."
