“He did it!”

“Go Max!”

Our little section of the crowd went wild, and I stuck my fingers in my mouth and whistled loudly for him.

He turned his head, his electric blue eyes finding mine immediately and I swear, my heart felt so tight right then.

“I love him,” I said aloud as the realization struck.

He’d mentioned loving me once or twice over the past week. But honestly, between my new senses and trying to get my Devil under control, I guess I’d been putting off thinking about this.

“I LOVE HIM!” I yelled.

Max’s eyes widened and before I knew it, he was headed right towards me instead of standing by to wait for the winner announcements in the circle with the other cowboys.

Stephanie looked at me and laughed.

“Just found that out, did you?” she asked with a knowing grin.

Avery returned then, checking on Rosie before she looked at me and Stephanie.

“Found what out?”

“She loves him,” Stephanie said.

“Duh. He asked her to marry him, and she said yes,” Avery replied and rolled her eyes.

But I didn’t care what they were talking about. My mate had just jumped the fence and was striding towards me. I ran down the bleachers to meet him, saying sorry to the people I pushed out of my way or accidentally stepped on.

“My bad!”

Then I was on the ground, and he was just inches away.

“I love you,” I said, looking up at Max.

Sweat dotted his brow, and he smelled of horse, and man, andother. The spicy familiar scent of my mate filled me, made my pulse race, and my heart pound.

“Come here,” he growled and pulled me to him, wrapping me up in his embrace.

“I love you too, Sugarplum,” he growled and then his lips were slamming into mine.

I knew we had to wait until the entire Crew finished their events to go home. But this right here, this was what made it all worthwhile.

“You know you’re never getting rid of me, right?” I asked Max seriously a few hours later.

We were eating some really good barbecue, and the guys had all collected their awards. The cool thing about this rodeo was the local farm stands and contests. There were small competitions for foods and goods.

Max wound up winning second place, which was awesome. Emmet had come in first for bull riding. Dante was first for steer wrestling. Zeke came in third for roping.

But Jed took the cake. The Prairie Dog Shifter had actually won the most today, bringing in three separate blue ribbons for the Motley Crewd Ranch goat cheeses.

Overall, it was an excellent day. And my heart never felt so full.

Later on, we walked Avery to her car, which didn’t start.

“I can get you home. I’ll come back for the car later,” Dante said, offering to take Avery and Rosalie back to their place.

It was a nice gesture. I knew it was only because Rosie was sleeping that Avery took him up on it. But I had an inkling about those two.