“Your daughter, she’s really loud and dramatic.”
He lets out a soft chuckle, continuing to caress my face.
“But she’s also got more fire in her than anyone I’ve ever met. She loves fiercely, and she makes the quiet feel less lonely.”
Carter pulls me closer, positioning me to sit in front of him, my back pressed against his bare chest.
“I know I’m not what you pictured for her. I’m rough around the edges and carry more baggage than I can count. But I’d walk through hell for her, and I will—every day.”
I let out a shaking breath.
Carter’s rough hand caresses my jaw, his thumb tilting my chin up to meet his gaze. His blue eyes searched mine with want, need, and love.
Those three words are threatening to escape my lips,but I shove them back down, scared of letting the truth come out.
“C’mon baby, let’s get some sleep,” he says as he presses a gentle kiss to my forehead.
I lean into his chest, close my eyes, and for the first time in a long time… I feel something that almost feels like peace.
My grief will always be a part of me, but Carter’s love and patience is helping me grow with this ache that I never thought I’d get past.
carter
. . .
Ihaven’t stopped thinking about it since.
I fucking said it. I told her I loved her, whispered it into the dark like a pussy, hoping the silence would swallow it whole. I convinced myself she was asleep, that it didn’t count. That if I kept brushing my fingers along her skin like nothing had changed, like the truth wouldn’t burn a hole straight through me.
Hell, I meant every fucking word.
I’m standing in the kitchen like some idiot who doesn’t know how to function. My arms are braced against the counter, waiting for the coffee machine to spring to life. It hisses and sputters in protest as if it has an attitude of its own.
God damn it.
I pace the kitchen like a man on edge, my feet dragging across the cold tile.
“I love you, Catalina.”
Those three words play in my head on a relentless loop. She was asleep, or damn it, I think she was. God, I hope she was.
My palms drag through my hair for the third time, my fingers gripping the strands, anxiously. I can’t stop fucking moving, I can’t sit still, because if I do, I’ll think too hard and unravel completely.
I let the words slip out, revealing a flicker of vulnerability. I meant every fucking word, the first genuine expression that has escaped my lips in years. The moment they left my mouth, I knew they were true.
I fucking love her, even if it scares the shit out of me.
She’s not just my best friend’s daughter. She isn’t just some high-maintenance hurricane that landed on my ranch with lip gloss and an attitude. She’s in my truck. In my bed. In my fucking head. She’s made a fucking home in my bloodstream and now there’s not a single piece of me she hasn’t touched.
The second I picture her leaving, going back to Los Angeles, back to a life that doesn’t have me in it—I feel like the ground’s been ripped out from under me.
I don’t want her to go. I want her here, with me.
Always.
I’m reaching for my mug when I hear footsteps pounding down the stairs like a goddamn stampede, taking me out of my anxiety induced thoughts.
“OH CARTERRRR!”
