Page 96 of The Convict Gets His Girl

Jewel gasped, her body flaming as Destini laughed. "Love you, Mom. Bye."

She hung up before Jewel could get a word in, but for once, she didn't want to chastise her daughter about it.

The shift in her daughter's attitude felt fragile, like a delicate glass sculpture that could shatter with one wrong move. Moving to Crimson Creek wasn't just about her and Chase—it was about creating a stable environment for Destini. She was finally ready to move to Crimson Creek, and there was so much to do.

She tiptoed back into the main room of the cabin, but Chase pulled the blankets back without opening his eyes.

"You're thinking too loudly again," he murmured, his voice rough with sleep. "Come back to bed."

Excitement coursed through her along with to-do lists, but the way he ran his hand over the sheet beckoned to her. She slipped in to snuggle up against him.

"Am I that obvious?"

"To me? Always." He wrapped his arm around her waist, pulling her back against him. "What's running through that beautiful mind of yours?"

She explained the conversation with Destini, and they talked about the plans to move.

"So it's official? Y'all will move in with me?" he asked, his body going unnaturally still behind her. She hesitated.

Vulnerability didn't come easily to her, and revealing her deepest fears felt like exposing a raw nerve. But this was Chase. If she couldn't be honest with him, who could she be honest with?

"Yeah, but I'm still scared," she admitted softly.

Chase propped himself up on one elbow, his gaze softening as he looked down at her. "About what?"

Jewel took a deep breath. "I'm afraid of messing this up. Of hurting you or Destini. Of everything falling apart. What if we can't make this work? What if I'm not enough, and we stop whatever this is between us? What if Destini doesn't like the school? What if my health issues—" Her voice trembled slightly.

He leaned down and kissed her forehead, his lips warm and reassuring. "We'll figure it out together. One day at a time."

His simple words carried a weight of promise that made her heart clench. She turned in his arms, facing him fully. "Promise me we'll communicate. No secrets."

"No secrets," Chase repeated, his pinky finger linking with hers—a childhood promise, now renewed with adult understanding.

His certainty was both comforting and terrifying. Jewel had spent so long protecting herself, protecting Destini, that the idea of truly letting someone in felt foreign. Chase wasn't just someone—he was the someone who had always been there, even when she'd pushed him away.

She licked her lips as nerves swarmed her. "We need to take this slow."

He traced a hand down her arm. "Whatever you want, my Jewel. I'd give you the world if it was mine to give. If you want slow, we can do slow." His voice was a low rumble that vibrated through her.

Her breath caught in her throat. Her life had always been a series of urgent moments—teenage pregnancy, single motherhood, battling Lyme disease—always moving, always surviving. The concept of deliberately taking time, of savoring moments, felt almost revolutionary.

But when he pressed their bodies slowly together, aligning naturally as if they'd spent years practicing, her breath caught, and all doubts seeped away. Her leg draped over his, her head nestling into the curve of his shoulder.

Chase's hand slid down her side and over her ass to tease her slit from behind. She arched into him, her nipples pebbling as they grazed his chest.

"Slow," she murmured, the word on repeat in her brain. A cocky grin spread slowly across his face, and he pressed them closer, his mouth descending on hers in a kiss that took her breath away.

ChapterThirty-Six

The fluorescent lights flickered overhead, casting a sickly pallor across Jewel's trembling hands. After several days of working longer hours than normal, her body was betraying her. She gripped the manila folder tighter, willing the muscle weakness to subside.

"You work yourself too hard too fast," Henry said, leaning against the desk, his weathered hands drumming a steady beat. "What's really going on? You didn't tell us about not knowing who Destini's father was. What else aren't you telling me?"

It was the aching vulnerability beneath his gruff tone that made her pause in organizing the files and updating them in the computer system. She leaned back in the chair and tilted her head back, closing her eyes against the burn of tears.

With a heavy sigh, she finally told him the truth. "I picked up Lyme disease somewhere along the way. My bosses wouldn't let me do field work for six months once I got a diagnosis. Then they said I wasn't ever going to go back into the field."

Henry snorted, and her eyes flew open as he crossed his arms and scowled. "Well, that's a dumb thing to do. You're a great field vet. They were just shooting themselves in the foot by saying no."

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