“So have you told her?” I asked.

Mattie turned around with the casserole in her hands and kicked the oven door shut with a foot. She lifted the top with a potholder and the scent wafted up. “No, I wanted you to be here when I broke the news,” she said. “It’s why I invited you.” She faced me squarely. “And have you asked her?”

I sighed through my nose. “Not yet.”

“I swear to God, you two are the most irritating…” She broke off abruptly as Angelina came back into the kitchen. “Did she go down okay?”

“Not a peep,” Angel said.

“Not that she would…,” Mattie muttered, bustled around us, putting plates of roasted vegetables and buttery rolls on the table.

“She’s an extraordinarily quiet child,” I added, pulling out a chair for Angelina. She looked pale and sat down. She and Mattie exchanged a meaningful glance.

“Violet’s mute, Will,” Angel finally said. She looked up from her plate to my face. “She isn’t quiet… She’s never spoken a word in her life. She communicates in other ways…”

“Her music,” I said softly, understanding. “And with her eyes…”

“And early intervention is really important,” she added. “That’s why I’ve decided to take her back to Seattle.” Angelina was pale, but she looked at me squarely, meeting my eyes with determination. “I can see that she gets therapy several times a week there. And the job here is almost complete. It’s not like you really need me to stay anymore.” She was talking fast, turning her fork in her fingers. “What’s left can be handled without us living here any longer… and you’ve been incredibly generous. I want you to know how grateful we are… and what a difference the money will make in her life…”

“We can do so much more for her together,” I said, taking her fork away and gripping her fingers with mine. “Did you think there’s anything you could tell me that would make a difference in how I feel about you… about wanting a life with you…? Did you think that telling me she doesn’t speak would scare me off?”

“It’s done, Will,” she answered quietly. “Mattie found an apartment and we’re leaving in the morning. She spent the day packing the rest of our things.”

I felt the weight of the ring in my pocket. “This is what you really want?”

“I’ve already told you… it’s the way it has to be, Will. It isn’t about wanting…”

“Angie,” Mattie said gently, slipping out of her chair and kneeling next to where Angelina sat, “I’m going to give you two some space… but there’s something I need to tell you first. Now I’m thinking maybe my timing might suck…

I shouldn’t have waited so long,” she went on. “I thought… I don’t know. I thought it would never come to this, I guess, that you’d be settled first. I should have told you sooner…”

“Told me what…?” Angel asked. I felt her grip tighten on my hands.

“That Rex popped the question,” she said, holding up her hand. On her finger she sported a dark metal band, set all around with blood red stones. “And I told him yes.” I could see happiness in her eyes, but concern, too. For her friend…

“You’re getting married?” Angel asked faintly. “When…?”

“Next weekend,” Mattie replied. “I’ll still be around whenever you need me… but we’re thinking about a place together over in Renton.” She stroked Angel’s blonde hair over her shoulder. “I didn’t spend today packing our things…,” she said carefully. “I only packed my things.

I love you, Angie. Always have, always will. It’s pretty fucking impossible not to. But I think maybe I’ve been holding you back.” She pulled up a chair and sat close to us both. “Our friendship has been safe and familiar. And in the beginning, when Jimmy left, you needed that. But now, I think I’m just a comfortable excuse to avoid taking a chance on love and a real life of your own.”

Mattie glanced at me and back to Angelina, who sat still and staring.

“Learning to let go of what’s safe is part of life,” Mattie said in a whisper. “For both of us,

for all of us…”

“Did you know?” Angelina demanded, letting her fists fly against my chest. “Did you know she was leaving me too, and you just came here to pick up the pieces?”

I took her wrists in my hands and held them tight. She was shocked, overwhelmed… angry. And I couldn’t blame her.

“I knew,” I admitted. I’d followed her outside into the darkness. A cold wind had started to blow and whistled through the eaves of the cottage. It was dark, but not so dark I couldn’t see the look of betrayal in her eyes. “I fully intended to be moving you and Violet into the main house with me before you found out.”

“I want you to leave…”

“I want you to marry me.”

For a moment she was still, blinking as the words settled in. “Because you think I can’t make it on my own? That I can’t raise my own daughter on my own?” She struggled against me and I gripped her tighter.

“Because I’ve spent the last half-decade trying to find you,” I said harshly, pulling her to my chest. “Because I love you and I want us to be a family… whether Violet is mine or not.” I kissed her roughly and the feeling of her breasts against my chest made me suddenly and painfully hard. “Fuck the test,” I growled. “We won’t take it. As far as anyone ever knows, she’ll only be yours. But I’ll be her father anyway, from this moment until the day I die. And your husband…,” I rasped out.

I pulled her hands behind her back and gripped them together with one hand. Her full, lush breasts surged toward me. I tangled my other hand in her hair and tilted her head back, forcing her to face me, aching for her to accept the truth…

“Marry me,” I demanded, using my lips and my tongue to tease her response. “Tell me now… that you love me as much as I love you, that you want me as much as I want you, that the bond we formed years ago is only stronger now…”

“But my daughter…,” she protested against my demanding mouth…

“Isn’t the one who’s afraid,” I finished for her. “Your father left. Jimmy left. And you’re the one who’s afraid, Angel.” I let go long enough to reach into my pocket and pull out the ring. It sparkled like a living, breathing thing, even in the inky darkness. “I never left you,” I said, bringing her hand around and slipping it onto her finger. “And I swear, that as long as my heart beats,

I never will.”

I waited, watching her face slowly begin to soften. The furrow in her brow smoothed… her body relaxed… she blinked, her eyes wide and so lovely.

“You could love her as your own,” she asked, “without knowing…?”

“That she’s a part of you is enough,” I answered honestly. I picked her up and cradled her against my chest. As I carried her back inside, I shot a glance toward the living room. Mattie, God bless her, had had the optimism to camp out on the living room sofa for the night. I looked only enough to see her lift her head and smile in satisfaction. And then I carried my woman to bed.

I smiled from between her heated thighs, savoring the trembling warmth against my face. She threaded her fingers through my hair and lifted my head until it rested on her sweaty belly. She watched me when I licked my lips, and a wicked shiver ran through her whole body and straight to the head of my waiting cock. I was leaking, hard and slick against her leg.

“So it was really all just for me?” she asked with a soft sigh. “The house… even the playroom?”

“Who the hell else?” I asked, with a smile of my own. I nuzzled her pussy and tasted her again, letting my tongue flick against her nub. “The prom with you was the first… and the last time for me, too.” I leaned up on one arm. “Did you really think I’d spent the last six years tying up random women and doing sinful, unspeakable things?” I gave a long, leisurely lick up the inside of her thigh.

“I didn’t want to think about it at all,” she admitted. “How could I have ever known it was only me?”

I rose up and climbed her body slowly, kissing and nipping and tasting my way up. My heavy cock dragged the length of her, jerking and bobbing in sweet anticipation. She spread her legs wide and inhaled. Her breasts rose to meet me…

“Only you,” I said, giving her my weight. “Forever you.” And I lifted her legs, pushing her knees up… spreading her wide. I felt her hands reach for my cock to position my head between her lips, and felt her diamond thump heavily against me. I sucked air through my teeth.

“Tell me you belong to me. Tell me you’re mine now and always.” I held back, throbbing with need, waiting for her to give me what I needed most. “I want all of you, Angel. Every inch of your heart…”

And her answer was everything I needed, everything I’d struggled for, everything I’d waited so long for. I was inside her in a single powerful thrust, consumed by her heat and by her love,

and by the unbreakable bond between us.