Page 84 of Wilder Heart

Cash laughed breathlessly. “I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you. I’ll say it everyday for the rest of our lives.”

“Good, because I want to hear it. Every single day.” Wilder’s ocean blue eyes rolled back. “Oh God, I’m close.”

“Good. Kiss me.”

Wilder crushed their mouths together, his quick breaths fanning across Cash’s cheek. He tore away as he came, pressing his forehead against Cash’s as he rutted through the aftershocks. He looked beautiful like this, his face and neck flushed red and his eyes glazed and heavy-lidded with sated lust. The sight was enough to drive Cash over the edge, and his spend joined Wilder’s on their stomachs, leaving them panting and grinning.

Wilder met his eyes with such a soft look that it drove the breath from his lungs. “I love you, too.”

“I meant what I said last night, by the way,” Cash blurted.

Wilder blinked at him. “Which part?”

“All of it. But especially the part where we get our own place and start building a life. I want that. It doesn’t have to be a camper, and we don’t have to have animals and a garden if you’d rather do something different.”

“I like animals,” Wilder ventured bashfully. “And gardens. I’m thinking I might steal Blaze, if I have to leave the ranch.”

Cash snorted out a laugh. “Fair enough. I don’t think he’d let anyone else ride him, anyway. But what if Lain doesn’t ask you to leave?”

“Then…” Wilder’s brow furrowed. He looked a little lost. “I guess we stay? It would be easier to finish out my parole there.”

“Move in with me.”

Wilder looked scandalized. “Share the foreman’s quarters? What will the other hands think?”

“I don’t give a shit what they think. I want to fall asleep with you every night and wake up just like this.”

Wilder smiled, settling against him like he had no intention of moving, so Cash assumed that was the right thing to say.

“What’s the plan for today?” Wilder asked.

Cash let his fingers trail up and down Wilder’s warm back as he sketched out a plan in his mind. “I need to take Lain’s truck to the hospital. It’s got the babies’ car seats in it, so they’ll need it when they’re discharged—which probably won’t be today. Think you could follow me in my truck to bring me back home? You don’t have to go in and see him if you don’t want.”

“Sure, yeah.”

“And then… I’d like to take you back to the ranch and move your stuff.”

Wilder rested his chin on his hands, palms flat on Cash’s chest. “What if he makes us leave, and we moved everything for nothing?”

“Not for nothing. We’ll just have to move out of my room instead of both rooms.”

Cash really, truly, didn’t think Lain would fire Wilder for finally speaking his mind about the events of eight years ago, but if Wilder needed to have contingency plans for it, Cash wouldn’t begrudge him that. He hadn’t had a lot of good in his life. It was understandable that he would catastrophize and prepare for the worst.

Wilder looked contemplative. “Okay. Sure. Let’s do it.”

The urge topinch himself grew stronger as the day went on. They checked out of the motel room, and Wilder tossed his duffel in the backseat of the truck. As they pulled out into the street, he reached over and threaded his fingers through Cash’s.

They were side by side for the rest of the day, and as the day went on, Cash started to relax. Wilder helped him unhitch the cattle trailer in the open-sided barn where they usually kept it, then rode with him to the parking spot for the work trucks and climbed behind the wheel of Cash’s personal truck. The only time they separated all day was when Cash had to drive Lain’s truck to the hospital. Wilder waited for him in the parking lot while he took the keys inside.

Mary-Beth was napping, so Lain met him in the hallway with a wan smile.

“How’s she doing?” Cash asked.

“She’s a trooper. We’ve got the babies in there with us now. Listen, I’ve got a favor to ask.”

Cash nodded wordlessly.

“Can you take Annalise home and keep an eye on her? She’s been here since last night, and it looks like we’ll be here anotherday. She just doesn’t need to sit here with us the whole time. She’ll go stir crazy.”

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