Page 12 of Marked by my Protector (Inked and Possessive. Rugged Mountain Ink #3)
Two Years Later
Sloane
The horses move like shadows in the morning light, their breath rising like soft clouds as they graze in the dew slick pasture.
I sit on the edge of the bed and watch from the back window as Tank crouches beside the smallest horse in the herd.
A five-year-old dapple gray with a cautious eye and a fondness for cupcakes.
Their early morning barn time is a quiet ritual now, one that Maisie can’t get enough of.
Boots too big, braid half undone, hands gentle but sure. She’s seven and everything we ever hoped for and more. It wasn’t easy getting the paperwork to go through with Tank’s record, but love has a way of making its case, and I swear the universe sent this little girl to us for a reason.
She bends down next to Tank and lands her hand on the dapple gray, offering him another bite of cake, a giggle in her throat as the mare lifts the treat from her palm with exaggerated delicacy, like she knows she’s being watched.
Tank glances up, his face split by that slow, crooked smile I fell in love with two years ago.
God, how could that be two years ago now?
It doesn’t seem possible. One second, I’m in a cornfield defending my life choices to my parents.
The next, I’m moving in with a man who makes all my dreams reality.
We got married by the creek next to Rocky six months after I moved in, and I started the farm stand a few months after that.
For the most part, it’s seasonal fruits and vegetables, but I’ve been known to do a bit of baking.
The people of Rugged Mountain love getting to taste Tank’s granny’s recipe again, along with a few of my own.
Somehow, all that made time fly, and Maisie’s adoption only made the time go faster.
The front door swings open and clomping feet come running inside. “Mama, Daddy and I were outside, and we found a baby possum in the feed shed behind the hay bales. He’s got the tiniest toes you’ve ever seen!” Maisie’s voice is breathless, and her cheeks are flushed with excitement.
Tank steps in behind her, hat in hand, baby possum sitting nose up. “She’s already named him Biscuit.”
I laugh the kind of laugh that bubbles up from somewhere deep and warm. “We’re not keeping a possum.”
Maisie pouts. “But he likes me. He blinked at me twice.”
Tank shrugs. “That’s practically a hug in possum language.”
And just like that, the morning folds into another memory.
Another story we’ll tell at the farm stand when the peaches are ripe and the regulars ask how we’re doing.
It’s moments like this that I’m living for.
Moments like this that heal parts of me I didn’t know ever would.
Moments that make me see how detached my own parents really were.
I don’t hear from them anymore. I suppose they’re busy doing their thing out in California or maybe they’re living in Belgium now, happily snacking on curated chocolate and fancy wine while they talk about their disgrace of a daughter who couldn’t bear children and married a criminal.
Truth is, they’d be right.
I did marry a criminal, and I couldn’t have babies, but I built a life that’s more honest and whole than anything they ever taught me to want.
I built a life based on love. A life filled with a family I found.
A man who can fix anything, makes me laugh, holds me tight, and puts a possum in his hat to make his daughter happy.
The daughter we brought in from foster care clutching a stuffed rabbit but now bosses Tank around like she runs the ranch.
So yes, I married a criminal. And no, I couldn’t have babies, but I have love. I have laughter, I have Maisie, and I have mornings like this, where the sun hits the pasture just right, and the sound of clomping boots and wild giggles fills the air like music.
If that makes me a disgrace, then I’ll gladly wear it like a crown and I’ll do it with my head held high, because this kind of forever is a gift. A gift I’ll forever be grateful for.
THANK YOU FOR READING.
READ DELILAH’S STORY HERE .