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“I can pick that up, too,” he said so softly she barely heard the words. He turned, catching her gaze. “Can I ask you a crazy question, but one that most couples eventually discuss?”
“Okay.”
They were a couple. That wasn’t weird or scary. But her pulse raced, and her mind scattered. She held her breath in fear of whatever this might be.
“Do you want children?”
“Someday.” This could be the beginning of the end. The thing that turned this beautiful beginning into a storm at sea. “You don’t want a family,” she whispered.
He inhaled sharply. “It’s been so long since I’ve thought about it. After Petra died, all the dreams of having kids went with her, so I never even considered it.” He ran his thumb across her lower lip. “I love you. I don’t want to be with anyone else. I can’t even imagine that. All of that is easy for me to say. To feel.”
“But the family part? That’s hard?” She swallowed her breath. While that hurt, she couldn’t blame him. That death had shaped so much of his life, and she’d be a bitch if she tried to take that away and change his reality and how it had affected who he’d become as a man.
“It’s not exactly like that. It’s just that I didn’t consider it. The idea never even entered my brain, partly because I can’t say I’ve ever been in a real relationship since Petra. While I never dated more than one person at a time, there still wasn’t any level of commitment, only an understanding that I was dedicated to being a SEAL, and that’s where my heart belonged.” He leaned in and kissed her softly. “But understand it’s something that’s now sitting in the front of my mind.”
“But only because I forgot my pills, and I didn’t do this on purpose. You’ve got to believe me. This isn’t something I want to deal with right now in my life. But I couldn’t not tell you. That would be wrong,” she said, practically begging him to hear her words. To not hold what happened against her and hopefully forgive her forgetfulness.
“You’ve been under a lot of stress.” He brushed his mouth over hers in a long, decadent kiss. “We’ve both been firing on half a tank.” He tucked her hair behind her ears. “I don’t honestly know where I stand on having a family in the future because I haven’t thought about it. We jumped into the deep end, and we need some time to tread water. But what I find fascinating about myself now is that I don’t seem to oppose the idea in the future.”
Her heart did a backflip in her chest. She had to be dreaming. “I don’t want you to change your mind because I was…reckless.”
“Babe, I don’t see it that way.”
She groaned. She wanted to believe him, but she’d been the one who’d forgotten—not him.
He cupped her chin. “And I’m not changing my mind about anything. I’m having a discussion with my girlfriend—whom I love—about something important. I don’t know if now would be the right time. We’ve barely even begun. All I’m saying is that I’m not freaking out.”
He had to be too good to be true. He would show his true colors and leave her, or he’d see how unworthy she was. That’s what her mother had always beaten into her brain.
“Maybe you're not, but I am.” She’d always struggled to fit in—to believe she belonged—anywhere. Returning to Calusa Cove had been one of the hardest things she’d ever done. She’d always loved the sleepy little town. It felt like home, and she wanted the people to accept her as she accepted them.
She’d seen the ugly underbelly of Keaton Cole. She knew some of his darkest secrets. And what she didn’t know, she could see etched in the scars on his body.
Keaton was the kind of man that what you saw was what you got. He spoke his mind freely, and perhaps that was one of the things she’d been drawn to—as strange as that sounded. He’d been hard on her for a long time.
But he’d also been right. What was she trying to prove? And to whom?
The people who mattered in her life—her father, Audra, Baily, Keaton, and his friends—gave her the respect she craved. She might not have a long history with them, the tight bond and inside jokes. But she had something special with each and every one of them.
For the first time in her life, she felt like she fit in, that she belonged, that she had foundherpeople.
“We’re in this together.” He pulled her close to his side, tucking her head onto his shoulder. “I look forward to the day this business with jewels is over so we can settle into whatever brand of normal we can find.”
“That is if the jewels haven’t curs?—”
“Don’t even say it. I researched that, and while I don’t believe anything I have read, there’s no point in putting it out in the universe.” He kissed her temple. “Now, get some sleep. It’s late, and we promised Dawson and Audra we’d be there by seven.”
Trinity snuggled in, her arm and leg draped over Keaton’s body as if that was exactly where they had always belonged. As if she’d found home. It both electrifiedand terrified her. She’d been searching for this feeling her entire life. She’d always had a safe place with her father. That was a given.
But what human—what woman—didn’t want more? She’d craved a life partner. Someone to share her dreams, hopes, and fears with. Someone she could be herself with. Someone who would accept her for who she was, faults and all.
A tiny voice in the back of her head worried that when all this business with the jewels was handled, Keaton would walk out of her life, that it was the danger that had brought them together and drove him to step in because he couldn’t let a bad thing happen to someone he called a friend.
She closed her eyes, holding on to the three lovely words he’d uttered more than once. They had flowed from his lips to her ears and hit her heart like a cannonball hurling through the air, smacking their target with precision. There was no reason not to believe he meant them—in the moment.
But moments tended to fade into the background.
Moments didn’t always last.