As Walker had asked of them ahead of time, everyone stayed out of sight and didn’t overwhelm them with congratulations.

He knew he needed to make his statement in front of their families, but the rest of this time was for them. And as he stole Ivy away from Rough Cut and headed onto the street, he realized he still had one problem.

Ivy read his mind as usual. “My house?”

He was already on the road. Ivy snuggled up against his side, the two of them quiet as he drove, when she tipped him for a loop.

“Wait. Not there. Where’s your horse trailer?”

He wasn’t about to argue with the lady, not now. “It’s back at Silver Stone.”

There was a smile on her lips. “I’m pretty sure we’re guaranteed privacy even if they do spot your truck. Plus, no one is going to give us hell this time if we lock the door.”

Walker put his foot down on the gas way harder than he should have, but he didn’t care. He parked his truck as far out of sight as possible, though, because he didn’t quite believe his brothers would be as charitable as she seemed to think.

Thank God he’d left the trailer in some semblance of order.

Ivy didn’t even notice. She stepped into the small living quarters at the front of the trailer where Walker lived while on the road, turned without a word, and threw herself into his arms. Their lips met, and it wasn’t hard to follow up on her encouragement.

Tangled lips rapidly became tangled limbs, and they were lying on his far-too-small-for-two-people mattress, not caring one single bit because they were content taking up only one person’s space.

Ivy broke away long enough for them to catch their breath, laughter dancing in her eyes. “You know why I wanted to come here?”

“That’s a trick question. I’m not supposed to say so we could have sex, right?”

She stripped off her shirt and her bra, straddling his hips as she did so, erasing his worries that this was going to be a figure-out-the-future, conversation-only time.

She dragged a finger down his buttons. “It’s a three-part answer. That’s the first part.”

“It’s really difficult to think when you’re right there in front of me, partly naked.”

“Then you better answer the question before I get all the way naked, or you’re going to get an F on this exam.”

“Tough teacher,” he complained cupping her breasts gently, sucking in a breath of air for control as her nipples tightened. “Part A. We’re going to have sex because we’re in love. Part B—this had better be the answer to part B—you want to fool around in a horse trailer because that’s where we had sex for the first time.”

“Made love.” She leaned over and pushed his shirt aside. Tricky woman had undone all his buttons without him even noticing. “Full points for part B.”

She pressed a kiss to his chest and then another a little higher, working her way up his neck to his jaw, biting down lightly before swinging up to look directly into his eyes.

Her bare breasts caressed his torso, and he was going to lose his ever-loving mind. “I need a clue for C, Snow. Let me look at your cheat sheet. I promise I won’t tell the teacher.”

She licked her lips, licked his lips, and then darted out of reach. “We’re here because while I can’t physically go on the road with you, if rodeo is something you need to do, I promise to support you. If travelling to be a singer—the same. Whatever it is, we’ll find a way to make this work.”

He lay there absolutely floored by the love in her eyes and the gift of her sacrifice, part of which he had no intention of accepting, and he planned to make that very clear right now. “I’m not leaving you. I still might do something with singing, but becoming a star isn’t my dream. Being on the road, and being away from you? Or down the road, being away from our family? I know some people do it, and I’m not saying they’re wrong, but it’s not right for me. It’s not right for us.”

She was staring at him as if he’d hung the moon, and everything in him that had ever been cold was now warm and happy. Content.

Enough talk. He rolled them, pinning her to the mattress so he could offer her a wicked smile. “That’s a sweet, beautiful gift to offer me. And I love you even more than I thought possible.”

“I want to—”

Her words vanished into a gasp of surprise as he stripped away her pants and left her naked on the mattress. Surprise turned into soft noises of pleasure as he dropped between her legs and used both hands to lift her knees into the air.

With gentle caresses along the outside of her thighs and then back again, he teased her, staring into her eyes as he touched her with increasingly intimate caresses. Closer and closer to her sex, then away, never quite touching.

Her belly was quivering by the time he actually let his fingertips make contact.

“Walker,” she begged.

“Nothing doing, Snow. The last time we fooled around in a horse trailer, it was all fast and fumbling. You’re going to enjoy it, more than once,” he promised before pressing a kiss to the inside of her knee.

It was fun to watch her wiggle on the mattress as he worked from side to side. One knee then the other, higher on the inside of her thigh. Closer, ever closer to where she’d grown wet for him. And when he used his thumbs to push aside the pale curls covering her, she damn near sang.

His tongue, his fingers, his whole body, every bit of him was involved in making love with her. When he teased her to a gasping release, it was just the first time.

Stripping off his clothes—

Coming to a rip-roaring stop. “Umm, Ivy?”

She looked at him with pleasure-glazed eyes.

“Condom?”

A soft laugh escaped her, and she pointed to her purse that hung from one of the wall hooks. “And before you ask, yes I always carry condoms with me. At least recently.”

He dropped her purse beside her, and she reached in, bringing out what he needed. He tried multitasking, pressing her to the mattress as he kept their lips together, but after he fumbled with the wrapper for the third time, cursing in frustration as he had to scramble to find it, Ivy pushed his hands away and took control.

She ripped the package open and slowly covered his hard length, teasing him to the point of no return. So when she lay back, opening her legs and welcoming him over her, he had no more control left to lengthen their lovemaking.

He pushed into her wet heat in one slow, relentless stroke until he was buried to the hilt, completely connected, his gaze fixed on her face.

She dug her fingernails into his shoulders, lashes fluttering with pleasure. “Yes.”

It was one word. One simple word, but it meant absolutely everything. It was them together. It was this act of intimacy they were involved in, but it was so much more. It was acceptance and joy in their past and their future all tangled together.

They moved together until they were one breath away from completion. He slid a hand between them and pressed hard over her clit, and that was it. She ripped a climax from him with her response.

A soft sigh escaped her, a hmmm of satisfaction, followed by a set of quick gasps as he pumped the last few times, pressing as much pleasure on her as possible.

When they were done, he held her and was held by her, in that tiny space that was a bit of him and that she’d turned into a bit of her.

Now they just had to decide their future.

---

The one small overhead light was not enough to brighten the inside of the trailer past candlelight levels, which was fine by Ivy. Maybe it wasn’t the most romantic of spots to celebrate getting engaged, but it was special for all the right reasons.

Walker’s heart was still pounding, and so was hers, but it was so right to lie there in the dark listening to each other breathe and feel the heat between their bodies. It had been such a long time coming.

The thought might’ve been hokey, but somehow it had felt different. Making love had been better than any time before.

But they did have to talk, and they did have decisions that needed to be made. “Thank you for singing for me. Was that one of your songs?”

He nodded. “I had the idea before, but today after talking to my brothers, it kind of all fell into place. All the words were right there waiting for me once I was ready.”

Ivy pushed up, one hand on his chest as shock struck. “You wrote that this afternoon?”

“Some of it. I already had the tune worked out, and the feelings have been there forever.”

She shook her head in amazement. “You have a gift, Walker. And I know you said you don’t want to go and travel, but I really hope you keep doing something with music. Songwriting or whatever it is that you can do and still be happy with your goals.”

“I know. I have to talk to Maxwell. I’m going to tell him no to the tour, but if they ever need me for studio work, I should be able to do that. At least until things change with our lives.”

He was talking about children, and she was fine with that. She had to make something clear to him as well. “I do want a family, but I might not be able to have babies myself.”

The look he gave her was pure admonition. “You of all people know that kids don’t have to come out of your body to make them yours. Your parents have been good examples of that for years. And I don’t see Tamara loving Emma and Sasha any less because she didn’t carry them for nine months.”

Ivy shook her head, loving him more every minute. “I knew it wasn’t going to be a problem, but it had to be said.”

“Then here’s another thing that has to be said. I have no problem planning to adopt from the get-go, because I don’t want to do anything to put you at risk.”

“You really are an amazing man.”

“What? Because I understand how precious you are? Because I know how precious every single baby is out there?” He pulled her tighter against him, the heat of his body like a furnace. “When we think the time is right, and we know we can keep a roof over their heads, we’ll do what we can to build our family.”

Lights flashed against the trailer windows—some of the hands coming home. Maybe Luke. “You locked the door, right?”

Walker laughed. “Yes.”

She sighed happily and snuggled up against his side. “You didn’t panic today.”

“I was looking into my happy place, and it didn’t matter how many people were around because you were there.”

My goodness, she was going to die of sweetness. “I really hope that they’re done and you never have another attack, even if we never figure out what caused them in the first place.”

“It was just recently they got bad,” he reminded her.

Something about his statement tugged hard, and Ivy sat up to concentrate. “Wait. Recently? Right. That’s what you said before when we talked. ‘Most recently it started in the fall.’ But Walker, when did you have panic attacks before that?”

He folded his hands behind his head, gaze lifting to the ceiling as he considered. “I don’t know if they were panic attacks, but I remember losing track of time. You know, like Ashton giving me hell for staring into space when I was supposed to be getting chores done, but I swear to God I wasn’t slacking off. He said I was daydreaming.”

“When was this? Because I don’t remember you telling me, and I’m sure you would’ve said something.”

His face tightened. “After Mom and Dad died, I guess, and the first summer after. It didn’t happen very often, and after a while it went away. I figured it had something to do with them dying so suddenly.”

Which made all sorts of sense, but now she had to wonder. “When did Ginny leave?”

“Last September. Right around now.”

“And when did Dare leave the ranch?” Ivy ignored the fact she was stark-naked as she grilled him.

He curled upright as well, his frown of concentration increasing. “July sometime.”

“And the first time you had a blackout was after that?”

He stared at her with growing disbelief. “You think this has something to do with the girls leaving?”

“The girls, me,” she stroked a hand along his cheek. “Your mom and dad. We all left you and didn’t come back.”

He leaned against the side of the trailer looking into the distance as if he were considering. “Makes me sound as if I can’t function without having you around.”

“What’s wrong with that? I mean what’s wrong with feeling something’s wrong because the people you love aren’t there anymore?” She shook her head, catching hold of his hand. “Maybe I’m off-base, but the timing makes sense.”

“Dare didn’t leave completely. I get to see her anytime I want. And I talk to Ginny sometimes.”

“Which also makes sense because you didn’t shut down one hundred percent. I mean, you’ve done amazing things.”

They stared at each other.

Then he shrugged. “You’re right. It’s possible I was thrown for a loop hard enough it came back and bit me. But I don’t really need to know why for sure because I know you’re not gone anymore. I still have you.”

“Forever. You’ve got me forever,” she promised.

He pulled her into his lap and kissed her, long, slow and sweet, until the heat between them rose again. Which was all of maybe ten seconds.

Then he murmured against her lips. “That means I know exactly where my happy place is. Let’s go there again, together.”