Babies.

This made me ask, "Forever and ever?"

"No, baby," he said instantly, his hand moving to curl around my thigh, a gesture of affection and connection that he was spare in giving when we were not in bed, making each one he gave more meaningful. But at that moment I was glad he gave it because it was what I really needed. "You do not live in that world forever. You find your way in it while that way is healthy and then you get the fuck out."

That made me feel better.

"So, when-?"

"I don't know," he cut me off to answer my unasked question. "I just know for the first time in ten years, I got an incentive to find the door outta that world and use it."

There was a lot there even when there weren't that many words.

Most of it was good, that part being it was clear I was his incentive.

The ten years, though, that was intriguing.

"Bein' in that world, Cassie," he went on, "you gotta know, even when I find that door, in some ways, it'll always be with me."

"It's with you now," I noted. "And I'm with you now knowing it. So why would I care if it stays with you?"

His fingers squeezed hard at my thigh but he didn't say anything.

Back to nonverbal communication.

I drew in a breath and released it.

Then I asked, "Ten years?"

His hand left my thigh and went to his coffee. He took a sip, put it back in the holder, and put his hand back to the wheel.

Okay, that one he wasn't going to answer.

I looked to the road and took my own sip of coffee.

No music, no words, we sat there in silence. I didn't know what he was thinking. I was wondering if I was crazy at the same time knowing I totally was and not caring even a little bit.

This, of course, making me crazier.

"Magnificent."

Deacon said this on a mutter, breaking the silence.

I looked at him again. "Sorry?"

"The way you laid it out for that punk-ass bitch before you stomped outta that cabin. Fuck, so goddamned magnificent, if I wasn't fightin' the urge to rip five teenage fuckwads' throats out, I would have clapped. "

I grinned at him, feeling the heaviness in the air dissipate and going with that flow.

"That was good, wasn't it?"

"Nope," he disagreed. "It was magnificent."

I kept grinning but did it at the windshield. "I find it amusing that you call them punk-ass bitches. Not to mention apropos."

"Apropos?"

"Fitting," I explained.

"Know what it means, woman, just don't know a single person who would use it."

"I'm full of surprises."

There was a slender thread of humor in his voice when he muttered, "Look forward to that."

I liked that thread of humor. Even slender, I didn't care. It was there. And I gave it to him.

"That's why," he stated confusingly and I looked to him again.

"What?"

"That and your eyes."

I didn't say anything, just watched him drive.

He said something. "And your Christmas kiss."

Oh my God.

My Christmas kiss. He remembered my Christmas kiss.

"Deacon," I whispered.

"And a hundred other things," he stated.

I went silent again.

He kept talking.

"That's why I'm bein' a dick. Why I didn't leave you on that table and walk out, like I should. Why I kept comin' back when I knew I shouldn't, every time courtin' my control slippin' so I'd be in the place where things got outta hand and I got your back on that table. Why cabin eleven was home to me for a few days every year, the only home I had, 'cause you were there."

"You're gonna make me cry," I warned on a whisper, my voice already clogged with tears, feeling that emotion at the same time being annoyed that he was again doing way better at making me more and more happy.

He didn't look at me.

He said to the road, "You gotta know." He reached to his cup, took a sip, and finished on a murmur, "Now you know."

"Now I know," I replied, still whispering.

He finally fell silent.

I put my coffee in my cup holder, undid my seatbelt, and leaned across the cab where I kissed the hinge of his jaw then said in his ear, "Thank you for telling me."

"Gotta know something else, Cassie," he told the road.

I dropped my forehead to his shoulder. "What?"

"Anything. You want it, I got it in me to give it to you, you got anything from me."

My hand darted to his thigh and curled tight as tears pricked my eyes.

"Now, baby, sit back and belt up, yeah?" he ordered gently.

"Yeah," I said to his shoulder, shifted to touch my mouth to his neck, then I sat back and belted up.

I looked to the road.

Deacon drove.

Silently.

"So badasses play footsie," I noted, my ass on the pad in my sanded and repainted Adirondack chair, my stocking feet up on the railing, tangled with Deacon's.

"Yup," Deacon replied nonchalantly and I looked his way to see his gaze to the trees, his hand wrapped around a glass of my good Kentucky bourbon, his profile soft and at peace.

I liked that look so I kept teasing.

"And they melt when confronted with a pregnant German Shepherd."

He'd done just that. Badass one-name Deacon melted right before my eyes. I watched and did it almost having an orgasm, at the same time wondering if you could fall in love in an instant.

He took a sip of his bourbon before he replied, "Man's no man at all, he doesn't like dogs."

I started giggling.

He looked to me. "Disagree?"

I stopped giggling and replied, "I think people can like what they wanna like. Though, I don't really understand not being a dog person. Or a cat person. Actually, an animal person."

Deacon looked back at the trees, asking, "So why am I buyin' you a dog six years down the road?"

He'd done that too. Bought the dog for me.

Pure breed dogs were not inexpensive. Pure breed dogs with an incentive to jump the list and get first pick cost fifteen one-hundred-dollar bills.

Fifteen.

When I saw the cash, I'd wrapped a hand around Deacon's forearm and opened my mouth to protest. But the second I touched him, he tipped his chin down at me and gave me a look that needed no words whatsoever. So I didn't say anything.

At the time.

I brought it up in the Suburban.

His response was, "Done, woman. No use talkin' about it."

This was true.

And false.

I went with the false bit, continued my protest, and got a different response.

"Right. What I meant by no use talkin' about it is we're not talkin' about it."

And then he didn't talk about it.

At all.

Even though I did.

Which meant I had no choice but to quit.

He wanted to buy me a dog, I'd let him do it, partly because it was sweet, but mostly because I had no choice.

"I didn't have the time for a dog," I told him.

"Cabins take a lotta upkeep?"

"Not really. I have them the way I want them. It's mostly puttering around, making the space nice, welcoming. A place people drive up to that makes them think immediately they made the right choice. And Milagros helps a lot. It's just that, once I got the cabins the way I wanted them, I started working on the house."

"House looks sweet, Cassie," he said softly.

I was glad he felt that way. Actually, I was glad he noticed at all.

"Thanks, honey," I replied softly. Then I sighed and said, "I guess what I'm saying is, I didn't think I had the time. But now that I have pick of the litter, the time is right."

He didn't reply. He just took another sip of bourbon.

I did too.

We lapsed into silence.

I broke it.

"Since I was thirteen, this was all I wanted."

I felt his eyes on me but I kept mine on the trees and continued speaking.