Page 101 of Claiming Their Omega

I finish up my sweeping, double check that all the animals are good for the night, and head into the house to wash up and then join everyone for dinner. The moment I get inside, I can hear humming coming from the living room.

When I go in, I see Grace sitting there, writing on a laptop while a notebook filled with scribblings sits beside her.

My heart aches, looking at her. I wonder if she has any idea what sort of difference she’s made in our lives being here. Everything feels better with her here.

Grace sets the laptop aside as an alarm goes off on her phone, then gets up from the couch with a smile. She hasn’t seen me yet, and I grin as I take the opportunity to surprise her and stride forward to sweep her into my arms.

I plant a kiss on her, dipping her, and Grace laughs into my mouth, kissing me back. She playfully pushes me away. “You’re filthy, you’re dripping in sweat.”

“You like me all sweaty,” I point out with a growl. “I can help you get dirty too. Make us even.”

“Not tonight, you won’t.” She hesitates, then blushes as she adds, “Okay, maybe later.” She kisses my cheek. “But right now, you need to get ready, because we’re going to the county fair.”

“Well, you can just join me in the shower then. Help make sure I’m all presentable.”

“You know that if I joined you in the shower, the last thing you’d get is clean,” Grace tells me playfully.

I make a noise low in my throat, heat sliding through me as my cock twitches. Yeah, I’ll get dirty all right. I’ll make both of us dirty—

“You need to get cleaned up,” Cade grunts as he enters from the doorway. “Or we’ll be late.”

I roll my eyes and step back from Grace, letting her go. “All right, all right, I’m going.”

She playfully shoves me up the stairs, and I go up to get ready. The county fair isn’t a fancy event or anything, but I do still put on a slightly nicer pair of jeans and quickly iron my flannel shirt before I put it on, so it’s not a mess of wrinkles. I want to look good for Grace.

When I get back downstairs, everyone else is ready to go. Grace looks sexy and adorable in a cute yellow dress that she and Hendrix got when they went shopping together. The skirt flares a little when she twirls, showing off her legs. She’s got a pair of cute cowboy boots to go with it, and I grin at her.

“Seems like you found your country roots again,” I drawl.

Grace sticks out her foot to show off her boot. “Sure did.”

“There is one thing missing, though.”

“What?”

I take my cowboy hat from where it’s hanging on the line of pegs by the door and plop it on her head. “There. Now you’re ready.”

Grace adjusts the hat on her head and grins up at me. She has to know what it means by now, since we’ve all told her. I can remember us flirting with her that way at the bar, the heat that ran through me at the sight of her wearing my hat for the first time.

I want the world to know that she’s mine. Ours. That she belongs with us. Maybe if she wears my hat, she’ll feel it too, and she’ll realize that this isn’t fake anymore. Not for us. This is real.

The fact that she still might leave us—that she might think this is all casual for us, or that she might not care, that her career and life in New York is still more important to her than anything else—haunts me.

I swallow hard and shove those feelings down. I’m not going to let my concerns ruin the night.

“Let’s go,” I say out loud, keeping my voice cheerful.

Grace tips my hat at me, like a proper cowgirl, and I grin. Whatever else happens, I know tonight will be fun.

Chapter 36

Grace

I’m so excited to go to the county fair I can barely sit still in the pickup. The men tease me, but I don’t care if I’m acting like a five-year-old—and besides, I know they really think it’s cute.

I always loved the county fair growing up. It was one of the big events of the year. The renaissance fair is a lot of fun and we’ve had that every year too, but that was more of a place to go for art and theater-esque performances, and a lot of the people who came in were artists and performers from out of town who will travel from fair to fair all through the year.

It was great, but it’s more Aiden and my mom’s thing. My thing was always the county fair. It’s everyone from all over, all the people in the 4-H clubs, the local knitting societies, the ranchers, the Girl and Boy Scouts… all the people I knew from the local area coming in and having a crazy fun time. There are rides that feel like they’re going to shake apart while you’re on them, tons of cute animals to pet and enjoy, fun competitions, and all the bad-for-you guilty pleasure food you can stomach.

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