Page 22 of Big Burly Foreman

With a quick motion, I bend his arm back and push him to the ground. He’s still struggling, but it’s obvious to everyone that he’s lost the fight. It would have been beneficial for him if he’d realized that before engaging me. Hell, he should have stopped long ago, when he first thought he could use Ashley to get rich.

I apply more pressure to his arm, then strike his head, and he goes limp. I let go of him, and he drops to the carpeted floor with a soft thud.

I turn around to find the Blackwells huddled in a corner, watching me with shock. Ashley is the first to break out of the trance they seem to be in as she steps up to my side.

“I-Is he dead?” she whispers shakily.

“No, he just passed out. He will be fine,” I say to her before looking over her shoulder at her parents. “Tell his parents the arrangement is off. I will not be as forgiving if he comes near Ashley again.”

With that, I grab Ashley’s hand and start for the door, and she follows without a word. It’s only when we’re outside that she asks where we’re headed.

“To get married,” I tell her. “The courthouse will be open today.”

“Wait,” she protests, tugging at my hand. She chews at her lips as she stares up at me, and for one scary second, I am afraid to think that I may have read her wrong.

“Ash . . .”

“It’s not that I don’t want to get married to you,” she hurries to say, her eyes darting over my shoulder, and I follow her gaze to the hay barn. “I just want it to happen there.”

“The barn? But your parents—”

“Will support us,” she says, nodding at her parents watching us from her father’s office window. “My dad is just brooding because he made a bad judgment call, but he will come around. We’ve waited for two years; can we please wait to have it in there?”

“You don’t want a grand wedding?”

“No, just a small, intimate ceremony in the old barn with the people closest to us watching from the hay seats as we exchange our vows.”

My gaze shifts from her dreamy eyes back to the window her parents are watching us from, and I realize I cannot say no to her. I draw her into my arms; the warm press of her body against mine has my hardened cock throbbing in its confinement.

“Alright,” I whisper, tightening my hold. “If they still fight us on this in a month, then I am dragging you to the courthouse and making you legally mine.”

“Deal!” She beams, wrapping her arms around my waist. “I love you, cowboy.”

“I love you,” I say gruffly, my heart hammering hard and threatening to burst out of my chest. Hearing her express her affection so freely makes me want to lay the world at her feet, but for now, I settle for kissing her temple and hugging her close to me.

I have the rest of my life to give her the world.

Epilogue

Logan

Five years later…

I’ve always loved summer.

If I ever needed a reason to confirm my wife’s undying love for me, I witness it on full display during the summer.

She drops everything and braves the harsh climate just to catch a glimpse of my shirtless torso, and I, like the smitten husband that I am, accommodate her.

It’s been like this for years, even before we got together. My precious wife would sit on her balcony with her little fan and watch me while pretending to be reading a book, but she wasn’t good at hiding the fact that her eyes were on me, and I would let her get her fill.

Back then, I would let my jeans ride a little too low to give her an unobstructed view of my V-line and leave my tattoos on full display, knowing as soon as I got back to the barn, she’d find some excuse to come find me.

It’s no different this year. Well, except for the tattoos. I’ve gotten a few additions, one of which is on my ring finger, a thick band tattooed on my hand so everyone knows I’m taken when I can’t work with my wedding ring on. The other one is a small crown, right next to the tiara I got six years ago. The crown is for our four-year-old son, who is no doubt sweet talking Magda into giving him ice cream right about now.

“Hey boss, let’s take a break,” Eric calls out to me, and I glare at him, which sends him cackling.

“I’m not your boss, asshole.”

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