Page 59 of Run Free

I sighed. It was true I was the quiet one of the family. It wasn’t that I didn’t have things to say, it was just that everyone else was already louder and more outgoing. I was an introvert by nature and my job pushed me beyond that, so when I was home it was my downtime to recuperate before they called me in again.

Gage burst out laughing. “Clara. My Clara? Quiet?”

I elbowed him in the stomach as I felt my cheeks start to burn. That was true, too, but he had never really seen that introverted side of me.

“Are you saying she’s not?” Shelby asked.

“No,” he assured them. “She’s one of the most stubborn and opinionated women I’ve ever met. She doesn’t have any trouble talking. And is definitely not quiet.”

I turned and gave him a stern look to shut up as he wagged his eyebrows up at me. My sisters weren’t the ones that were going to embarrass me, he was.

Lizzy burst out laughing, as the others joined in, caught off guard by his subtle insinuation.

I shook my head. “I cannot believe you just said that. You’re going to scar them for life. No sex innuendos. There’re kids on the line.”

That made Ruby laugh even harder. “She actually said the ‘s’ word. Normally she’d spell it out for us.”

I rolled my eyes and sunk back against Gage with my arms crossed over my chest.

Baby Sara chose that moment to wake up with a scream. Maddie bounced her lightly, trying to calm her down, but she was clearly not having any part of it.

“Sorry, guys. Guess that’s our sign to say goodbye,” Liam told us.

“She’s not going to calm down until her diaper’s changed and she has a full belly,” Maddie added. “Please tell me we’ll do this again soon.”

“Definitely,” Lily assured her, and I even managed a little nod, still stewing in my embarrassment.

“Bye,” Oscar yelled, waving to the camera just before they disconnected.

“We probably should go to. You look really happy, Clara. I’m so glad things worked out,” Lizzy said.

We said goodbye to Cole and Elizabeth as they signed off, too.

“What did Lizzy mean by she was glad things worked out? It sounded like everything went smoothly for you two,” Peyton observed.

I laughed. “Hardly!”

Gage shrugged. “She handled it fine, but I completely freaked out. Let’s see, I kidnapped her, then let her leave. Hardest seventeen minutes of my life, and that’s saying a lot, coming from me.”

I gave him an incredulous look. “Seventeen minutes? That was it? I thought it was a couple of days,” I confessed.

He shook his head. “Nope. I couldn’t stand the thought of you going back to that place. After that, I hid from her and hoped she didn’t know I was there. Yeah, I guess you could say I resorted to stalking for a few days.”

“Don’t forget creeping around outside my bedroom window,” I reminded him.

“No, I slept outside your window. I refuse to think of it as creeping.”

“So kidnapping and stalking are okay, but creeping is beneath you. Got it,” Shelby teased.

Gage just grinned at her. “Exactly.”

“So why were you doing all this?” Ruby asked, and I could see the curious looks on all my sisters’ faces.

“Because he didn’t want a mate and couldn’t walk away from her, either. Probably pissed him off a bit, but he still couldn’t control his actions,” Thomas clued them in. “It’s a mating male thing, you girls could never understand.

Gage agreed.

“But you finally did change your mind and went to her and swept her off her feet,” Peyton added with a dreamy tone to her voice. She had always been the romantic in the family, obsessed with fairytales and princesses as a child.

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