Page 93 of Where the Roses Bloom

Rhett kissed my cheek, my jaw, my lips. “You feel like home,” he whispered. “Like I was always meant to end up right here.”

We rocked together in the stillness of the house, wrapped in blankets and breathless joy. Not rushed. Not hidden. Justus. Everything we were and everything we were becoming.

“Gonna…” he trailed off, laughing breathlessly into my neck. “Was gonna ask if I can come inside you, but I guess it’s too late for that.”

“There will always be a next time,” I teased.

He turned his head slightly to meet my eyes, thrusting slow. “So…”Thrust. “This is the first…not the only?”

I bit my lip. “If you play your cards right.”

He laughed, kissed me, thrust harder, faster?—

We came together, Rhett whispering my name, holding me tight. Seconds later, he was keeping me close and rolling us both to our side, his cock still inside me, softening but still feeling so,sogood.

“Maybe we already scared off the ghost,” I whispered. “Maybe we won’t need this little potluck exorcism after all.”

Rhett huffed a laugh against my shoulder, his breath warm where it touched my skin. “I dunno, baby. June seemed pretty convinced we needed a crowd.”

“Mm,” I murmured, boneless and warm and wholly unconvinced we needed anything more than this. “I don’t think there’s anyone who wants to be in the room for this.”

He snorted. “You’d be surprised.”

We lay there for a while, tangled together, the kind of quiet between us that only came when every part of me felt seen—held. His hand drifted to my belly, resting there like it had a right to be.

Like it already knew this would be home.

“We really made a baby,” he said, soft wonder in his voice.

I nodded, sleepy and content. “We really did.”

CHAPTER 32

Willow

Preparations neededto be made for the exorcism—or, as we’d started calling it, thewexorcism.

“You should get outta the house for a little while,” Rhett said, brushing my hair back from my face after we’d hauled another round of chairs into the living room from Mabel’s truck. He kept telling me not to exert myself too much, which was grating on my nerves…but I couldn’t tell if that was just my hormones or if I was actually annoyed.

I raised an eyebrow. “You trying to get rid of me?”

“I’m tryin’ to keep you from overdoin’ it when you should be lounging around the house like the goddamn queen you are,” he teased, kissing my forehead. “We’ve got people comin’ to prep the yard for the weekend, and Silas is stress-cleanin’ the porch swing with what I’m pretty sure is holy water. Let me handle this side of things.”

I opened my mouth to argue—but then the door slammed open.

“Willow!” Delilah called from the front room. “I need to run some errands and you’recoming!”

I glared at Rhett. “Did you plan this?”

He shrugged. “‘Course not.”

“Why don’t I believe you?” I drawled, but I still pulled him in by the collar for a kiss. “Suppose I’ve been drafted…so I’ll leave you to it.”

“Just for a couple hours,” Rhett promised. “Go run errands. Eat a pastry, pretend we’re not about to host a shotgun wedding-slash-exorcism in front of half the town.”

“I think it’s gonna be a little more than half,” I said, grabbing my bag and heading for the door. “But if I come back to find Whit’s turned the altar into a beer pong table, I’m calling off the whole thing.”

“You should know I would never allow such a thing,” Rhett laughed. “Love you, rosebud.”