Page 124 of Cowboy SEAL Homecoming

He hoped.

He rolled off of her and off the bed. “Stay put,” he ordered, striding out of the room. Nerves threatened, but he wouldn’t have gotten to this point, wouldn’t have started a plan if he wasn’t sure. Even now, he wasn’t a man who did things without being sure.

He went to his bedroom and opened the top drawer with a jerk. Okay, so he was a little nervous. Didn’t mean he was wrong—just meant he was an idiot.

He grabbed the item and stalked right back to her room, propelled by…something. Those nerves, irritation at himself, whatever.

But she was sitting on her bed, braiding the hair he’d messed up, and that smoothed it all away. The fears or jitters or whatever else, because how could he not want this?

Every day. Always.

“So what am I screwing up my day’s schedule for?” she asked him with an arched brow, pushing to her feet.

He could have said a great many things, but he found his throat too tight to get any of them out. So he held out what he’d brought instead.

She fell right back into a sitting position on her bed. “That’s a ring,” she said on a shaky exhale.

“My mother’s engagement ring, actually,” he returned, twisting the ring in the light dappling the room. “She was buried with her wedding ring, but Dad thought I should have this.”

“Alex.” She fisted a hand to her heart.

“Don’t cry,” he said, walking toward her. “Just say yes. Please.”

She blinked profusely, clearly trying to keep the tears at bay. “You didn’t ask me a question.”

“Always so difficult,” he muttered with the shake of his head. Then he figured he might as well go whole hog, because he would, without a shadow of a doubt, do anything to make her happy.

He got down on one knee, wincing a little when he remembered it was his bad knee. “Hold on.”

“Oh, get up here,” she said, pulling him onto the bed before he could switch to the other knee, covering his face with sloppy kisses, wet with tears.

“I love you, Bec. I don’t know that the nightmares will ever completely go away, but—”

“Shut up,” she managed, her voice rough. “Like I care about that.” She kissed him on the mouth. “I love you. As you are, however you are,” she murmured into him, where it reached into his soul, his bones.

“Becca?” It was Jack’s voice echoing through the hallway.

“Go away,” Alex returned, because he was not going to be interrupted.

But Alex and Becca both grinned when they could hear Jack’s groan all the way through the door.

“Your damn goat is on the roof again, and I don’t care what you’re doing in there, but I am not touching that rooster.”

“Goat duty calls,” Becca said with a sigh, still touching his face, a few stray tears dotting hers.

“This first,” Alex said, slipping the ring onto her finger. “Proposal trumps goat.”

“Every now and again,” she returned, her grin wide and pretty and sure.

She’d healed him, in some ways, and he was still healing in others, but he knew he’d found where he belonged, and he was ready to take that leap of faith. Forever.