Page 93 of Never Stay Gone

Dakota could smell the cooking as he pulled in. He grinned as he strode up the porch steps. The doors were open to catch the breeze, and the scent of fried eggs, hash browns, and bacon wafted out. Shane was at the stove in the kitchen they’d designed and built together, cooking breakfast in jeans and no shirt. He danced back every minute or so to avoid the spitting grease.

“Mmm.” Dakota came up behind him and wrapped his arms around Shane’s waist. He set Shane’s coffee on the counter next to the stove, then buried his face in the back of Shane’s neck. “This is a damn good sight to come home to.”

Shane laid his hand over Dakota’s. “I thought Garth Brooks might be hungry.”

“You’re not mad? After soberin’ up?”

Shane lowered the heat on the stove, then turned in Dakota’s hold. He wrapped his arms around Dakota’s neck. “Not at all. I’m glad everyone knows. They should have known years ago—”

Dakota kissed him, cutting off the guilt he could feel rising in Shane. “They know now.” He grinned and tried to distract Shane as he fiddled the ring box out from his back pocket.

“Will you sing for me again?”

“I’ll sing you love songs anytime you want.” Dakota kissed Shane, then breathed in. He squeezed Shane’s hand.

Dropped to one knee.

Shane’s eyes went wide.

Dakota opened the ring box slowly. “Shane, I gave you a ring when I was a kid. I told you it was a good luck charm, but it was more than that. That was a piece of my heart I gave you. I’ve always wanted to give you another ring, one you could wear proudly. I’ve always wanted to marry you. Like I told you before: every beat of my heart is yours.”

Shane had stopped breathing. He looked from the ring to Dakota, and then Dakota stopped breathing.

Shane was looking at him like he had the day he’d first kissed Dakota. Like he had the first night they stayed up making out under the stars. Like he had at prom, when their song came over the speakers and the rest of the stadium faded away and there was nothing in the world but the two of them and their love. Like he had when they’d made love that first time—or, hell, the way Shane looked at him across the football field or the school parking lot or across his truck bed, so much goddamn love in his eyes he was bursting with it. Maybe Shane hadn’t said “I love you” to Dakota until this year, but Shane had felt it.

And Dakota knew.

Shane brushed his fingers over the ring. “I’ve wanted to marry you forever too.”

“Is… that a yes?”

“Did you ask?”

Dakota flushed, tried to fumble out the words, but Shane laughed and said, “Yes! Of course!” and Dakota rose and wrapped him in his arms as Shane breathed “I love you”into Dakota’s ear.

Dakota slipped the ring onto Shane’s finger. It was a perfect fit. He knew Shane, every part of him, maybe better than he knew himself.

“Do you remember your Texas history?” Shane asked.

“Umm…”

“Way back when, there weren’t enough preachers to marry everybody on the Texas frontier,” Shane said. “Common-law marriage grew out of that: as long as two people said they were married and they lived together, they were married. It’s still like that out here.”

For a man who’d fantasized every moment of a life with Shane, it was a little surprising that Dakota had never dreamed about a wedding. Never painted that day into his mind. Maybe because a wedding wasn’t something one person could plan alone. What did Shane imagine when he thought about marrying Dakota? Dakota wasn’t a big-ceremony kind of guy. But he’d do it if Shane wanted one.

“I don’t want to waste any more time without us being what we were always meant to be.” Shane cradled Dakota’s cheeks in his hands. The ring was cool against Dakota’s skin. A promise between them. A piece of Dakota’s heart forever with Shane. “Husband,” Shane breathed. “You’re my husband.”

Dakota kissed him, his arms going around Shane’s waist and pulling him in, pulling him close until they were practically one person, two halves of a whole. His whole life, he’d wanted to be Shane’s, to love Shane with everything he was, give everything of himself to Shane. Wanted Shane to love him back and call Dakota his own. Now Shane was calling him his husband, and he was wearing Dakota’s ring, this time on his finger.

“Husband,” Dakota whispered against Shane’s lips. “I love the sound of that.”

* * *