“I have to go home, too,” she pointed out. “I need my car.”
“You've got a mode of transportation.” Her sister pointed to her horse with a smile. “Use it. Show him what you've got.”
Bea froze for a moment, Lover Boy halting beneath her in response to her tension. “Seriously?”
“Less than a mile across that field.” Peyton pointed to the left. “Unless you don't think you can handle the ride. On second thought, you'd better come back. We'll get Milton up to the big house for the night, you can rub down your horse and pretty yourself up and . . .”
Peyton's words faded behind as Bea wheeled Lover Boy to the left and kicked him into a gallop across the field for Morgan's place.
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Morgan sat at the kitchen table, laptop in front of him, open to the shelter's webpage. Every day, the thing seemed to grow. Some small new feature, a little detail, a new design feature. Already, it was the most functional and user-friendly site they'd ever had. But Bea had taken it above and beyond what they'd needed. Now it was an attraction. Something to bring people in from farther than they'd ever reached before to look at their dogs.
He shut the laptop with a snap. He had to stop doing this to himself, punishing himself. It was like the guy who couldn't change his sheets for months after a breakup because they smelled like his ex. Not quite as creepy, but no less pathetic.
Coffee. He needed coffee. Morgan reached for the coffee filters, then paused. Caffeine was likely what he didn't need right now. His eyes hovered over the top of the fridge, where he kept the few bottles of alcohol he ownedâmostly unopened. Nope. Not there either.
Back to bed, then. He'd do better tomorrow, pretending to be a functional, not-heartbroken adult.
He made it halfway to the bedroom when he heard Bea's voice outside, shouting his name. To hell with pride. Morgan took off like a shot, sprinting to the side door and flinging it open.
He was nearly convinced he'd drunk himself into a stupor and was hallucinating things when he found Bea, in dingy jeans and a simple Western shirt, sitting atop one of the Muldoon horses like she'd been born riding.
“What . . .” He licked his lips and tried again. “What are you doing here? And . . .” He was losing the ability to string together coherent sentences.
“And why am I riding a horse, when I hate barns and animals and all that?” Bea grinned down at him, apparently enjoying his lack of speech. “Long story. I'll catch you up a little later. Suffice it to say, I'm not quite the equine hater I sort of led people to believe.”
She dismounted and walked the horse to his porch rail, where she loosely looped the reins. He could pull away if he needed to, but the pressure would keep him in check otherwise. Then she held out a hand. “Walk?”
He glanced down at his sweatpants, bare feet, and bare chest. “Um.”
She laughed. “Go get dressed, and then take a walk with me. I have things I need . . .” She bit her lip, looking a little uncertain. “Things I need to say.”
Was this the last good-bye? Her final attempt to make things even between them? Good luck with it, because they weren't even. He loved her, wanted her, was going to be broken without her. And she was walking away for a career she didn't even like in California.
No, he thought as he tugged on a shirt, nearly popping a seam in the process. She couldn't just tidy this whole thing up with a simple good-bye speech. He wasn't going to have it. If he had to get down on his knees and beg her to think it through, he would. Pride be damned. He could mend that. His heart . . .
That was a break too deep to think about.
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Bea dragged the heel of her riding boot through the dirt, making a square, then intersecting lines to create triangles. What the hell was Morgan doing in there? She was supposed to be the primper, not him.
His footsteps thundered down the porch stairs and he grabbed her wrist in a firm grip and started walking. She was tall, but she struggled to keep up with his long-legged strides away from the house and toward the open land that separated his place from his parents' home.
“Morgan, wait. What are you doing?” She shook her arm, and he immediately let go, but then bent and hoisted her over his shoulder. “Jesus! Morgan! Caveman much?”
He merely grunted, but she didn't think he was being funny. He was just that empty of words.
So she would enjoy the ride. Really, staring at his cute butt wasn't all that bad a view, and she wouldn't be busting ass to keep up with him. Who was she to look a gift ride in the mouth?
After he'd gone another few yards, he dumped her back on her feet with zero notice. She stumbled, but he held her steady, at arm's length. When she took a step toward him, he held her back.
“I have to say something.”
She blinked. “Maybe you should let meâ”
“No, dammit.” He raked his hands through his hair, knocking his glasses nearly off. He caught them and slid them back on, hopelessly smudged. She could see his thumbprint right in the middle of his left lens. Oh Morgan. “You're going to listen to what I have to say first. It's important and I won't be pushed aside.”
Wow. Forceful. Not Morgan's style at all. She took a step back and swept an arm in front. “Go right ahead.” This, she had to hear.
Morgan paced away, then back to her. He opened his mouth, closed it, and paced away again. She barely managed to wipe the smile off her face when he did another abrupt turn toward her.
“This?” He waved a finger between them. “This is important. This is something that doesn't just show up everywhere. We are important.”
She bit the inside of her cheek.
“So you saying what you're about to say? Not happening.” He shook his head with authority.
“Okay.” She used her best
I'm the student, you're the teacher
voice. “What is happening?”
He seemed taken aback that she didn't fight him, but recovered quickly. He held up a finger. “One? You're not going anywhere. You're staying right here, in Marshall. Visit LA when you need to. But you belong here now.”
She waited patiently. His cool façade slipped a little more when she didn't interrupt.
“Two, you're not quitting your job.”
“But Nancy has my job now,” she pointed out calmly. “That would be disrespectful and downright wrong to take it back from her.”
He grimaced, as if seeing the truth there. “Then we'll figure something else out.”
“Not going to keep me, like a sugar daddy?”
He scowled. “No, and don't play the âsimpering starlet' role. I know better. You don't want to live off me any more than you want to leave. You're fulfilling some predetermined role and it's annoying me. So stop.”
Now that . . . she had to gather herself. God, she'd thought he got her, but he more than got her. He wanted who she really was. Who she wanted to be.
“Three,” he went on, as if she hadn't just had the last in a long line of epiphanies for the day. “Three is, you marry me. Because I love you, and you love me, though you're going to make me fight to get you to admit it. But you're worth it, so I will fight. And that's what people do when they're in love. They get married.”
“Could you look any more pissed about it?”
Flatter a girl, why don'tcha?
“I'm pissed that you're making me propose out here in an empty field with my barn boots on and nothing around us when I could have taken you somewhere nice with candlelight and wine andâ”
She held out a hand to stop him. If he was going to start getting truly upset, she couldn't do what she wanted to. “Morgan, I appreciate your forthright list. But I came here to say something, so I'm going to say it now.”
He muttered something, but she couldn't hear what.
“One,” she said, taking a page from his own book. “I'm staying in Marshall.”
He looked like he wanted to argue with her, but then her words registered. “Staying.”
“Yes. I have things I want to accomplish here, not the least of which is dealing with my family.” She smiled a little. “We're a really screwed-up bunch. But we can be better.”
He nodded silently.
“Two, you're giving me a job. But not Nancy's. She's good at it. I'm going to keep working on the website, because I've come to find that I'm picky about it. And I don't mind coding.” Huh. That sounded practically nerdy of her. “But I'm also going to be taking on the job as full-time administrator for the shelter.”
His head tilted to the side, and his lips twitched a bit. “Are you? That position doesn't actually exist.”
“It does now. Or it will, as soon as you sign off on it. And you will,” she added with a pointed look. “And three . . .” She breathed deeply and closed her eyes. When she opened them, Morgan was standing right in front of her.
He looped his arms around her and pulled her tightly against him. “Three?” he asked, voice husky and full of emotion.
“Three is, you're going to marry me. And you're going to hate it sometimes, because I'm high-maintenance. And I'm going to hate it sometimes, because I'm selfish and I want what I want when I want it.”
“You're not selfish,” he whispered and kissed her temple.
Bea wrapped her arms around his waist and let her ear rest against his chest. His heart thumped erratically beneath. “I am. I'm selfish and sometimes I'm entitled and I'm pushy when I don't get my wayâ”
“Easy there, that's my fiancée you're talking about.” He tilted her chin up to brush a kiss against her lips. “Was this what you were coming over to say before I interrupted you?”
“Yes.” He kissed her fully then, tongue sweeping in until she forgot to breathe and had to pull back. “I can't promise I won't get bitten by the show bug sometimes. I might miss it.”
“So you fly out to LA for something. Commercials or whatever. Right?” He shrugged. “I'm not going to tie you up in the barn if you need to try something new. As long as you're coming back home to me, I'm happy.”
“Good.” She looped an arm around his waist when he guided them back toward his house. “Because I have this plan to advertise for the shelter. A commercial spot, local TV. See, I want to try my hand at directing now. Isn't this a great plan? I've already got the whole thing mapped out. It involves Milton, in a shark costume, and a baby duck. Maybe a Roomba . . .”
He kissed the top of her head. “Sounds great.”
She sighed when Lover Boy came into view. “I have to return him.”
“Like hell you do. I'll call Trace. He'll come get the horse in a few minutes.”
“But Morgan, I . . . ah!” She shrieked and laughed when he lifted her in his arms to walk up the porch steps.
“Just practicing for the wedding night.” He kissed her again. “I love you.”
“I know.” When he nipped her ear, she laughed. “I love you, too.”
She had love, and her family. And she was determined to carve out her own space in the place she'd been running from for so long.