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“You don’t always have to be nice. Or good. Or right or wrong. I don’t want to fix you or change you. Sometimes I will want to fixthingsfor you, but you are all I want. Just the way you are. I love you. And I am . . . I will be here whenever you’re ready for that.”

She chewed on her lip, studying him carefully. “Sometimes I’ll need you to let me take care of things on my own.”

“And sometimes I’ll need you to let me protect you.”

She waved a hand. “If snakes are involved, feel free.”

He wanted to laugh, but there was still so much fear inside him. So much worry this wasn’t what he wanted it to be. Mom said it would take time. Patience. He’d been so ready for that, but here Cora was . . . “So, you’re really . . . You want to work things out? Now.”

She nodded. “I love you. Iloveyou. I want to be your partner too. I don’t want fear to be the decision-maker in my life forever. I don’t want to be the kind of person who lets love go because something bad happens, or because we don’t agree, or because I’m feeling mixed up and don’t know how to say it.”

“I think you said it okay.”

“So why are you still standing all the way over there?” she asked, throwing her hands in the air.

He grinned and crossed to her in a flash, all those heavy bricks on his shoulders dissolving to dust and blowing away, because he didn’t have towait, and they would make it all work.

Together.

“Thank God,” he said into her neck, wrapping his arms around her and lifting her up off the ground. “I thought I was going to have to be patient and hands off for months.”

“Months? You were going to wait months?”

He met her gaze, those dark blue eyes so confused as if she’d never imagined this, as if she couldn’t fathom it.

He was going to damn well make sure she fathomed it.

“I’d wait years, Cora. However long it took.” He set her down, gratified when she slid her arms around his neck.

She studied his face, tears in her eyes. “You are the very best man I know, Shane Tyler.”

“Well, as long as I’m your man, that’s all that matters to me.”

She trailed her fingertips across his jaw, her mouthfinallycurving into a real smile. “Yeah, you’re mine,” she murmured.

He dropped his mouth to hers, but before he kissed her, he figured he might as well go for broke. “Hell, let’s get married.”

“What?” she asked on a breathless laugh. “Shane.” As though she was fully realizing he was serious, she shoved ineffectively at his chest.

He held onto her. “If you’re coming back to me this quickly, I’m going to push my advantage. I love you. I don’t want to be apart or to pretend like I need more time to know I want you by my side for the rest of my life. You take all the time you need to answer. I don’t plan on rushing you on anything. I just want you to know I want to. Whenever you’re ready.”

“I . . . I have to talk to Micah,” she said, pushing less and less hard against him.

“Just say yes!” Micah called.

Shane and Cora both whipped around to see Micah’s face pressed to the cracked glass of the window on the stables.

“Listen to the kid,” Gavin called.

“I don’t know. Marriage is kinda risky.”

“No one asked you, Boone,” Shane growled. Though he couldn’t see his brothers, they must have been standing behind Micah at the window. “Would you all go away?”

“Say yes, Mom!”

“He can stay,” Shane said to Cora, deadpan.

She grinned. “Oh, I’ll marry you. Though in fairness we have to get through your mom’s wedding first. I feel like I should get through planning someone else’s before I start planning my own.”