Page 202 of Heartbeats & Highways

He fell silent and I prodded him to continue.

“Duke and Willa bought the land behind their house when it came up for sale. Duke sold it to me. Well, he said he’d sell it to me. If I wanted it. If you wanted it. I was thinking we could build a house. Get some lambs. You like lambs, right?”

I smiled gently. “Yes, I like lambs.”

“And bees. You said you kept bees. And chickens. Fresh eggs might be nice.” He yawned. “And I thought it would be nice to live near Willa and Duke and Cooper and Waverly and Sailor and we can all be one giant family.”

He looked up at me, his eyes glassy.

I cradled his cheek with my hand and leaned down to kiss him softly.

“Let’s go home, Savage.”

“Home,” he repeated. “You’re my home. And I’ll go wherever you want. I promised to make you happy.”

“When did you promise me that?” I asked with a gentle laugh.

“When I fell in love with you.” His brow furrowed. “Didn’t I promise you that?”

“No, baby. You promised me you’d always protect me.”

“Protection is good.” He nodded. “But so is happiness. I want you to be happy.”

“I’m happy,” I assured him.

“Evie?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m gonna fall over.”

I smiled. “That’s okay. I’ll catch you.”

Chapter 53

It wasspring and everything was in bloom—including me. I seemed to grow bigger every day.

We’d been welcomed back to Waco with open arms and a club barbecue. Colt and the brothers had decided to take the vote early. It was unanimous; they’d wanted Savage back as a brother. Colt told Savage that the club had already lost too many brothers, and they weren’t going to lose him too.

Still, restitution had to be made.

Savage would take a pay cut for a year. We wouldn’t be uncomfortable financially, but we wouldn’t be able to buy the land from Duke and Willa and build a house. That would have to wait.

I wasn’t upset about it, though. Whatever had to be done for Savage to be in good standing with the club needed to be done. We’d stay in the apartment over the bakery and even though it would be crowded, we’d make do. We’d turn the bedroom into the nursery and move our furniture into the living room.

“We’ll be able to watch TV in bed,” Savage said with a smile. “It’ll change your life.”

“I don’t watch TV,” I reminded him.

“You will.”

Cozy took over my receptionist job at Three Kings, but Roman insisted on continuing to pay me. When I tried to fight him, he said I deserved it—a customer had seen one of my doodles I’d left at the parlor and wanted it tattooed on them. He then demanded I continue to send him my artwork so his clients could have custom designs.

I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth and gave in to Roman’s offer.

Not working at the tattoo parlor allowed me more time to nest and soon the apartment was filled with crafts and my attempts at new hobbies.

I went back to making sourdough loaves for the bakery, which gave me plenty of time to hang out with Jazz and Brielle.

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