After leaving the hospital, Masyn and I met Beau for dinner at a barbeque place down the street from his house. It was okay, but definitely not worth the price. Another reason Atlanta wasn’t for me—paying more for lesser quality wasn’t my idea of living high on the hog…it was just stupid.

“Dinner was good.” That was Masyn’s way of saying she didn’t like it when it came up an hour later right before we went to bed.

Caging her in against the dresser, I kissed her and said, “You’re a shit liar.”

Her head fell back with laughter. “Okay, it wasn’t great, and who pays that much for a pulled-pork sandwich?”

“It was probably that fancy roll it was on.”

“Yeah, they’d be better off to head to Piggy Wiggly and pick up a bag of generic hamburger buns.”

“The tea was tasty.”

“It was ungodly sweet, I don’t know how you drank it.”

“That’s how Southern boys like their tea.” I nibbled her neck, not leaving her any room to move when she wiggled. “And their women.”

“Is that so?” Her words left her mouth in a wispy breath, and she angled her neck for more exposure.

“Mmm. At least for this one.” My lips trailed down her skin as I spoke.

Stopped by the collar of her shirt, I stepped back, setting her free, and took the hem to lift it over her head. She grabbed her hair to release the fabric, and I dropped it to the floor. The black, lace bra she wore underneath was sexy as hell, and I wondered how many times she’d worn stuff like this when I was around, and I had just never gotten to see it.

“Is this new?” I asked as I pulled at the strap before releasing it to gently pop her skin.

Masyn bit her lip and then slowly pulled it back out while shaking her head. I didn’t have a clue where she’d picked up this seductress bit she had going, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to ask, but I loved every minute of it. The soft, playful side of Masyn was something no one else got to witness, and now it was mine. As much as I hated what Alex did to her in high school, I appreciated that it kept her from sharing herself with anyone other than me. It was selfish, and I didn’t give a shit.

She reached behind her back, holding my eyes with hers, and unfastened the lingerie. It hung loosely on her shoulders until I pushed it down, and she added it to the pile with her shirt. I didn’t try to stop myself from taking one of her peaks in my mouth while cupping each breast in my hands. She clawed at my shirt, pulling it from my waist and up my abdomen. She couldn’t get it over my shoulders unless I let her go, and I couldn’t help but laugh at her struggle. Masyn wanted me to shed my clothing, yet not so bad that she was willing to let me stop showing her affection.

Without releasing the hold my mouth had on her, I reached over my shoulder and brought the collar to a point I was forced to let her go and then added it to the pile accumulating at our feet. Her hands raced over my skin and down my stomach. She wanted me as much as I did her, and our pants still stood in our way. While she fumbled with my zipper, unable to look at it with my lips occupying hers, I removed hers—along with her panties—with little effort. Once at her ankles, she stepped out of them and kicked them both away. All that was keeping me from her were my jeans, and her fingers weren’t getting the job done.

“Here, let me.”

She watched with anticipation. I stepped out of one leg, but my foot got caught on the other. Just as it came free from my heel, I lost my balance and hopped around trying not to fall. And somewhere, in the course of that clumsy dance, and whipping the jeans from my heel, they came off with a snap, and then I heard the ting of metal as each ring hit the hardwoods.

Masyn laughed and tried to help me up, but her stare followed mine, landing on the one thing I wished she hadn’t seen. Not because I was afraid of her knowing I had them, but because I’d wanted to surprise her and make it special. The thing that sucks about accidents is only having a split second to decide what to do. It wasn’t romantic. I hoped to God it wasn’t a story she told our kids one day or even Beau for that matter.

I was on my knees in nothing other than boxers. And Masyn stood before me as naked as the day she was born. But instead of trying to come up with an excuse to hide them, or deal with her anticipating when I’d pop the question, I leaned over to collect them, placing the two bands on the dresser behind her.

I couldn’t say for certain, although I’d bet money I was right, but Masyn hadn’t taken a breath or blinked since I’d fallen over. And lifting my leg, so I was on one knee, did nothing to initiate her filling her lungs.

Go big or go home.

“Masyn, I never imagined when we met in kindergarten that seventeen years later you’d be my best friend. But now that I’ve had you, I never want to let you go. I know it’s fast, although not really, considering how long I’ve loved you, and—”

“Yes.” She nodded her head, and her chest began to rise and fall again as she took in air. Tears filled her eyes, and she dropped to the floor, taking my jaw in her hands. “Yes. Yes. A million times yes.” And she sealed her declaration of acceptance with her lips.

The ring was still in my hand when she broke away breathless. Her cheeks were streaked with the only tears I’d ever be happy to see her shed, and I’d never seen her smile shine so bright. Lifting her finger, I placed my mom’s engagement ring on her hand.

“I know it’s not huge, and if you want something different, I’ll get it for you.”

Masyn attempted to stop my rambling by shaking her head, but I kept talking.

“But my dad scrimped and saved for a year to buy this ring for my mom on their first anniversary, and he’s always told me how much you remind him of her. I used to think he meant you looked alike, but I realized today—when you went on your coffee run—that he meant the way you and I were together. Are together—”

“Lee. It’s perfect.”

“Really?”

She nodded. “I love it. I don’t need fancy cars or big diamond rings. Just you.”

I picked her up, lifting her with me as I stood. I leaned over so she could flip off the light, and then I carried her to the bed where I made love to my fiancée, and we tried not to bother Beau.

* * *

Waking up, I still had Masyn in my arms, but she was flat on her back, and I was wrapped around her. She had her hand extended in front of her, tilting it from side to side and staring at the ring I’d put there last night.

“You regretting your answer?” My eyes were still clouded over and my voice groggy.

“Nope. Not at all. It’s beautiful, Lee. I can’t wait to thank your dad.”

“About that…”

She dropped her hand and turned to me, unsure of what I was about to add that I hadn’t told her last night. In my defense, she had been naked—and still was—and telling her she couldn’t move in wasn’t at the top of my priority list. Getting inside her was.

Granted, I was only heeding half of the old man’s advice, but I wasn’t sure how she’d take the conversation at all. I wasn’t willing to stop showing her how much I loved her body and taking her to places where she screamed my name like I’d never heard. So, not living together before we got married might sound like a copout.

“What?” she asked, hesitantly.

“With Beau moving in—” No, I wasn’t going to put this on him and make her resent him. “Scratch that. Beau has nothing to do with it.” I took a deep breath and started again. “My dad and I had a bit of a heart-to-heart yesterday. And he convinced me that living with you before you have my last name isn’t the reputation you deserved to have to carry around Harden.”

“Okay.” It wasn’t an okay like a woman says fine. She was sincere and perfectly all right with it.

“You don’t mind?”

She snuggled into me. “Well, I guess that depends on how long you’re going to make me wait to share that.”

“My house?”

“And your last name.”

“I don’t know how long it takes to plan a wedding.”

“Do you care about a wedding?”

“The question is, do you?”

She quirked her mouth to the side and lifted her should slightly. “Guys aren’t really into that kind of thing.”

“Sweetheart, I’ll do whatever you want to do. Even wear a tux if it means I get you at the end of the day.”

“Not you. My friends. They’re all men. Not to mention, my parents don’t really have that kind of money.”

“Masyn, if you want a wedding, we’ll find a way to pay for it.”

“I don’t. I wasn’t that girl who dreamed of Cinderella balls and lavish dresses. As long as my family, your dad, and Beau are there, we can have it at the courthouse for all I care. So…how long is it going to be before you make me a Carter?” She cocked an eyebrow and dared me to give her some outlandish date.

“If you want my dad to be there, I’d say that’s the only thing keeping it from happening.”

“So, then it’s settled. Once he’s out of the hospital and able to come to Harden, you’ll be stuck with me for life.”

“I hate to tell you, sweetheart, but even if you’d never agreed to be my wife, I wouldn’t leave your side.”

“Aww…Lee Carter, you’re a romantic at heart.” Her teasing tone and cocky grin earned her my fingers in her side. She struggled to set herself free and escape being tickled, but even on her best day, she didn’t have the strength to best me.

“I’ll show you romantic.”

Gasping for breath, she pleaded with me to stop, and her laughter danced in the air. There was nothing sweeter than hearing the sounds of her happiness and knowing I was the one who caused it.

“Come on,” she begged, still writhing in my arms like a puppy who wanted to be put down to run. “Your dad’s going to be up with no one to entertain him.”

“Nice try. It’ll just be more of the same, except you’ll have a partner in crime to help you pick on me. No dice, sister.”

“I’m going to pee on you.” Her uncontrollable giggles left me with doubt over her sincerity, but unwilling to chance her wetting the bed and us having to explain that to Beau, I relented.

She collapsed on the mattress next to me, her chest heaving—and fully exposed. Just as I rolled toward her, with my lips parted, ready to enjoy her again, she said, “Don’t you dare.”

I didn’t heed her warning. Instead, I playfully bit her tight nipple and popped her on the ass. “Come on, sunshine. The old man’s waiting for us.”

* * *

It turned out that Masyn’s family wasn’t as opposed to a wedding as she believed they’d be, and all those men she swore had no interest in attending a ceremony had a real issue with not seeing her walk down the aisle.

After spending the week with Beau in Atlanta, the three of us came back to Harden worn out. My dad was getting stronger each day, but he had an uphill battle to fight. If it weren’t for the drill sergeant responsible for his physical therapy, he would have had everyone on that floor living in fear. But, Patty didn’t put up with my dad’s shit or his sass. I didn’t want to leave him, and we’d argued over my need to be there—in the end, I lost. My dad thought it was a waste of my time and insisted we go home. Although, he didn’t have a problem with us coming back every weekend so he wouldn’t be by himself. I didn’t stand a chance in hell of telling him no. Masyn was practically doing cartwheels at the thought of spending the weekends in Atlanta.

By the time we’d spent the better part of nine days living in a hospital and a house that felt like it belonged to a stranger, and then driven three hours home, all I wanted to do was shower and hang out on my couch. Masyn didn’t stay long before she called it a night, and Beau wanted to get settled in his new room. He’d yet to tell his parents he was back, although I was fairly certain the guy he worked for spilled the beans. I stayed out of it. No need to cross Beverly Chastain before she came to hunt me down on her own—somehow, I’d take the blame for this.

I escaped to the shower after kissing my girl goodbye, and I stood under the stream until the water ran cold. It wasn’t until I got out that I heard the racket at the front of the house and yanked on a pair of shorts to see why all hell had broken loose in the foyer.

Less than an hour after Masyn left, her three brothers showed up on my doorstep. Beau happened to be the poor sap who greeted them, and I thought we might be saying our final goodbyes to him when he turned purple—not just splotchy, but all over. CJ had him by the shirt, while Ty and Kevin roughed him up a bit. They didn’t hurt him, but their interrogation tactics scared the shit out of him. Beau was a hair away from pissing himself when I interrupted.

“What the hell, CJ? Put him down before you hurt him.” I’d had a long week and wasn’t interested in dealing with Porter drama. They weren’t the mafia or Harden’s enforcers.

Those three terrorized kids when we were in middle and high school, but I thought they’d outgrown that shit before they each hit twenty. CJ pushed Beau against the wall—finally letting the soles of his feet touch the floor—and held his weight to Beau’s chest with his palm pressed firmly into Beau’s sternum.

Stalking down the hall to pull Masyn’s middle brother off my best friend, Ty came out of nowhere and planted his fist on my jaw. Stunned, I fell back and nearly landed on my ass before I caught myself with the doorframe in the kitchen.

“What the fuck is your problem, Ty? Jesus Christ, that hurt.” I rubbed the side of my face and opened my mouth wide to stretch out the muscles he’d just sent into spasms.

“What’s my problem? What the fuck is yours?” he screamed at the top of his lungs. The tendons in his neck stretched, and his blood pressure skyrocketed, by the look on his face. Ty had completely lost control, and the veins in his arms bulged when he grabbed me again.

I tried to bring things down a notch and return the noise level to an acceptable decibel. It took monumental effort not to retaliate, but three to one wasn’t very good odds, and Beau would be no help. I could hold my own, but the Porters wouldn’t fight fair. Together they were like a damn wrecking ball that never missed, and I sure as hell didn’t need to be their target.

Grabbing Ty’s wrist—the one that was attached to the hand wrapped around my neck—I pulled at it until he released the vise grip on my throat and stood to face him. I lowered my voice and evened out my tone. “If you’ll tell me what has you three patrolling the neighborhood, I’ll try to help you out. Right now, you’re trespassing, and assault probably wouldn’t make Donna all that happy.”

“You were gone a week, man.” He reminded me of Hulk Hogan when he’d talk through gritted teeth. Any minute now he was going to shake his head and rip his shirt down the middle.

Getting Ty a paper towel to wipe the spittle off his mouth wouldn’t serve to diffuse anything, so instead, I tried not to look at it. Unfortunately, that left me with CJ and Kevin who were never considered the rational ones in the group. These three were acting like goons, and I didn’t have a clue why.

“My dad had a heart attack. I went to Atlanta.” I hadn’t called Ty to let him know. I just assumed that news spread through Harden the way everything else did…like wildfire.

“Is she pregnant?” Ty didn’t really pronounce the words so much as breathe them.

“Who?” I’d been more confused in the last ten days than I had in my entire life combined. Riddles had to be a trait the Porters honed like an art because they all seemed to speak in them. At this point, I didn’t know whether to wind my ass or scratch my watch.

“My sister!”

“What? Hell no. Why would you think that?” Now I was pissed.

“Then why can’t the two of you have a proper wedding? Why rush down to the courthouse? She deserves better than that, Lee.” His shoulders dropped, and he unclenched his fists at his side.

Although, my laughter didn’t help ease the tension. But I hoped offering them something to drink would. I turned and walked into the kitchen as though there hadn’t just been an explosion of testosterone at my front door, and called over my shoulder, “You guys want a beer?”

It took a little coaxing, but CJ released Beau, who then promptly locked himself in his room, and the fight club followed me out back to sit by the pool.

“There’s a right way and a wrong way to do things, Lee.” Ty had taken the lounge chair next to me, and I couldn’t see the other two, but they hadn’t gone far.

“Are you mad because I didn’t ask your dad first?” Nothing happened in the order I thought it would, although I had to admit, getting her dad’s blessing hadn’t crossed my mind.

“I don’t want you to marry my sister just because you got her pregnant.”

“Whoa, who’s pregnant? Masyn sure as hell isn’t.” I wasn’t going to add fuel to the fire by telling her brick shit-house of a brother that even if she were, there was no way she’d know yet. Nor did I want to consider all the times we’d had sex and never discussed protection.

“Then what’s the rush to get married? Why won’t you let my mom plan a wedding? Masyn’s her only daughter, Lee. Women feed on this kind of shit.” Ty stared out over the pool and nursed his beer.

I heard CJ and Kevin pull up chairs behind us, but they left the conversation alone. They had alcohol in their hands and the sun on their faces. I hoped that would be enough coupled with their eavesdropping.

“I’m not the one racing down the aisle.”

“I don’t get it. The two of you haven’t even been dating.”

With my head against the lounger, I turned to stare at him, dumbfounded. “Really? You want to play that card? Don’t get me wrong, you’re right, there hasn’t been a label either of us stamped on our foreheads, but Masyn and I have been…us…for years. You had to know how I felt about her.”

“A blind squirrel could have found that nut.”

I would regret baking in the sun without a shirt or sunscreen on. The heat of the day was suffocating, and I desperately wanted to cool off in the pool, except I didn’t think my going for a leisurely dip would endear me to Ty any more than this conversation.

“Your sister isn’t pregnant. And I didn’t ask her to race down the aisle.” I didn’t want to admit how the events occurred because I still ran the risk of him beating my ass. And it was a beating I’d deserve and take if that’s what happened. “Everything kind of came to a head after Beau’s wedding disaster.”

“Doesn’t surprise me.”

“Would it surprise you to know that because of all that, your sister and I finally unloaded the emotional baggage we’d both carried for years?”

“Not really. Weddings make chicks crazy.”

“You saw how she was two weekends ago at your house. Masyn had never even hinted at jealousy. Once I saw it, I couldn’t let it go. And I forced the issue—Masyn and me, I mean. She stays here most weekends, and we work together, and in my mind, moving in together made sense.”

Ty growled beside me.

I raised my hand to stifle his complaint. “Hear me out, man. When my dad woke up, Masyn told him, and it didn’t go well. He didn’t say anything to her because she’s the apple of his eye.”

He snickered, knowing exactly what I meant, and took a long pull from his beer. “Donna’s got my dad on a leash like that. I’d hate to see how bad it’d be if he’d known her since she was little.”

“Yeah, well, the next day, he reminded me of the kind of respect Masyn deserved, and it wasn’t shacking up with someone like me and having everyone in town run their mouths about her.”

“Your dad’s a good man.”

“He is.”

“So how did my twenty-two-year-old sister end up with a diamond on her hand when no one knew you two were together?”

“It’s my mom’s ring. I proposed last Sunday. It wasn’t planned, it just seemed right. And after she accepted, I told her I wanted her to wait to move in.”

“How long?” He’d gone back to staring absentmindedly at the water or maybe the sky, hell, I didn’t know—it just wasn’t at me.

“Until I gave her my last name.”

Ty didn’t respond, and I didn’t hear anything from the peanut gallery behind us. It was one of those moments where the silence was painful, and the anticipation of Ty’s next move left me trying to fill the void, so he understood.

“She doesn’t want a wedding, Ty. The only thing she cares about is having you guys, my dad, and Beau there.”

“Mama ain’t gonna go for that,” he spoke into the beer bottle he held in front of his mouth.

“I don’t care how we do it, seriously. And if I have to wait a year, so be it. But, Ty, you and your brothers aren’t going to scare me off. I love her, and she’s going to be my wife. I hope you’ll give us your blessing, but I need you to know…” I took a deep breath and debated on finishing that statement. “Even if you don’t, I’m still going to marry her.”

He swung his legs to either side of the lounger and finished off the last of his beer. When he stood, he appeared more menacing than I ever remembered him, until he clapped me on the shoulder, and said, “You need to ask my dad for her hand, Lee. He’ll give you his blessing. Just do this right.”

I bobbed my head and acknowledged his request.

Ty gathered his crew with a snap of his fingers, and I heard their bottles clink in the trash can on the porch. Followed by the slide of the glass doors as they opened.

“Hey, Lee?”

I faced him and jerked my head up. “Yeah, man?”

“She’s lucky to have you.”

The smirk I gave him replaced my goodbye, and he disappeared into the house. Ty loved his sister almost as much as I did.