Page 154 of Dust Storm

“Cass, please,” he begged.

“No.”

He was arguing, but I could hear the tightness in his voice easing. “Have I told you how much I love you?”

“Not since last night, so feel free to tell me again.”

“I love you.”

I closed my eyes and reveled in the comfortable silence that lingered between us. “You know, I actually believe you when you say it.”

“Yeah?”

“Mhm.” I chewed on my lip. “Your—um…” I took a deep breath. “Your girls said ‘I love you’ this morning… to me.”

There was a slight note of surprise in his voice. “Really?”

“Yes. And I said it back. But it was just kind of a spur of the moment thing. And if you’re not cool with that, then you might need to have that conversation with them,” I blurted out.

“Cass?”

“Dear God, yes. Please say something. I hate rambling.”

Christian chuckled. “I know.”

“Wait…” I blinked. “What do you mean you know? You know that they said it or you know that I hate rambling?”

“Bree has been standing in front of her mirror, practicing saying it for about two weeks. They finally brought it up, and we talked about it when I called to say goodnight yesterday.”

Oxygen leeched from my lungs. “Oh.”

“Gracie wasn’t a surprise,” he admitted. “She’s adored you since the moment you met. But Bree…”

“Bree remembers Gretchen,” I said.

“She and I had a long talk about it,” Christian said.

I didn’t realize that his reassurance was exactly what I needed.

“Are you sure this is okay?” I pressed. “I’m not trying to put myself in the middle of your?—”

“I want you in the middle of it, Cass. So do the girls. We’ve just been waiting on you.”

Before I could come up with something to say, he butted in.

“Hey, a doc’s coming in. I’ll call you back.”

“Okay, I love you,” I said. Goosebumps tickled my cheeks when he said it back.

The grocery store was nearly empty, so I ran in and out as fast as humanly possible.

When I made it back to the ranch, Becks was on Christian’s couch with the TV on.

“I got your toilet paper,” I said, hauling the bags in and dropping them on the kitchen counter.

“Get over here,” she said, her eyes locked on the TV.

I pulled the milk out and slid it into the fridge. “I gotta go check in with CJ to make sure he’s good, and then get to the office to do payroll.”

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