Her expression softened. “That’s wonderful, Mack. I’m happy for you.”
He nodded, shifting his focus to her face. “I told them I wanted to marry you.”
Lacey froze. “You didn’t,” she whispered.
“I did, and I meant every single word of it, Lacey. I love you.”
“You can’t love me,” she argued. “You don’t know me.”
“I know you enough,” he insisted. “And even if I didn’t, I fully intend on spending the rest of my life getting to know you better than you know yourself. I meant what I said. I’m not going anywhere. I’ve spent my whole life floating along, not committing to anything. But I’m done with that. One day, I’m going to ask for your hand, and you’re going to say yes.”
Her lips thinned, and her eyes shadowed over, but she didn’t voice the argument he knew was probably on the tip of her tongue. “Good night, Mack.” Then she turned and headed for her apartment.
Well, it wasn’t a no.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Lacey was going stir crazy.
How could that happen when she had an entire city to spend her time in? How could she feel trapped when she still had access to fresh air, a car, and all the shops she wanted to go to?
Her hands tightened on the steering wheel as she drove toward Billings. She needed to see Angela. She needed her sister to tell her that she wasn’t crazy for pushing Mack away, especially since he had that past that Angela had insisted on warning her about.
Her resolve was waning. She couldn’t keep telling him to leave—not when he was making declarations of love to her in the middle of the night in her apartment complex parking lot.
“Mom? Do you think Aunt Angela will let me watch that animal movie again?”
She shot a look at Bridger through the reflection of the rearview mirror. “I’m not sure she has that one, bud.”
Bridger frowned. “Oh.”
“But she probably has some cartoons about animals. You could watch those.”
Bridger shrugged, then he straightened and looked back at her. “Do you think we could visit Sammie and the baby and uncle Caleb again? I really want to watch that movie.”
She let out a laugh. “I’m sure we could work something out.”
He grinned and turned his attention out his window. Ever since Bridger had bumped into Mack, he asked about him. She got the feeling that the animal movie wasn’t the only reason her son wanted to pay Caleb and Sammie a visit. The chances that Mack was nearby were pretty darn good, and Bridger had caught onto that fact.
Lacey would just have to enlist Sammie’s help in ensuring that Mack wasn’t around when they planned their visit. Just thinking about making that plan made Lacey feel sick to her stomach. It wasn’t even about Bridger missing out on seeing him now. She hated how weak she’d become—that she didn’t want to stay away from him.
When Angela opened the door, all she had to do was give Lacey that look—the one only a sister could give, the one that said she knew more than she was letting on—for Lacey to throw herself into her sister’s arms.
Bridger gave them a strange look as he moved past them into Angela’s place and went straight for the television. Angela wrapped Lacey beneath her arm and tugged her toward the kitchen. “I have cinnamon rolls. Wanna talk about it?”
Lacey nodded, her throat already closing with emotion as she shot a quick look in Bridger’s direction and lowered her voice. “But maybe somewhere more private.”
Angela nodded. “Of course.”
They found themselves out on the balcony. A breeze tugged at Lacey’s hair, and she could hear the television playing some cartoon through the crack in the door. Angela sat across from her at the table for two.
“How much do you know?” Lacey asked.
Angela frowned. “Just what I saw at the salon. Mom doesn’t like Mack, and she wants you guys to stop seeing each other.”
“We’ve already stopped.”
Angela frowned. “What? Why? Mack is a great guy.”
