Page 41 of Finding Forever

Lennox lifted his head and made abrupt, unnerving eye contact with her. His brows lowered, and his head tilted as if he wasn’t sure what to make of her, but he released her gaze as abruptly as he’d snagged it and his eyes drifted over to Beth. Something painful convulsed in his face, and he removed himself from the tight huddle with his brothers and sister, to step toward Fern and Beth.

“Elizabeth Anne Finch!” he boomed, making both women jump.

“Nox,” Gideon began a little uneasily. But Lennox ignored him and swooped toward the two women standing on the outskirts of all that familial affection. He wrapped his big, brawny arms around the tiny Beth and lifted her off her feet. Beth gave a muffled squeak against his chest, which morphed into a giggle.

“Fuck,” Gideon muttered in exasperation, stepping toward them to extricate his wife from the bear hug. “Back off, you numpty, you’re smothering her.”

“Gideon, it’s okay,” Beth assured him with a laugh, patting her hair back in place.

“You and me, we’ve got some talking to do, lass,” Nox told her, and she smiled and nodded.

“Later, okay? I’m just really happy you came today. Your brothers and sister have missed you.”

Something unspoken passed between them, leaving Fern mystified, but the full force of Nox’s gaze swung back to Fern a moment later.

His eyes narrowed as they swept over her face and body.

“You’re the Lambert girl?”

Fern gulped and nodded wordlessly.

“Hawthorne,” Cade said, the first time he’d spoken in nearly five minutes and all eyes immediately went to him.

“What?” Lennox asked.

“She’s a Hawthorne now.”

“Saying a thing doesn’t automatically make it so,” the other man corrected mildly and Fern found herself nodding in agreement—that’s exactly what she’d been thinking this entire morning so far—until Cade’s censorious gaze latched onto her.

“For all intents and purposes, Fern is a Hawthorne for the next three years, and she’ll be treated accordingly.”

Lennox’s eyebrows elevated nearly to his hairline and he lifted his hands, palms up, in surrender.

“If you say s?—”

“I do,” Cade’s unequivocal assertion cut his brother off.

Lennox stared at Cade’s face for a long moment, something flashing between the two men that snagged Fern’s breath and created a strange tension within the entire group.

That tension was broken when Lennox lowered his still upraised hands and dipped his chin in brief acknowledgment.

“Then so it shall be. Welcome to the familyuh?—”

“Fern,” Cade interjected and Lennox’s beard twitched, while the smallest of smiles lifted the corners of his lip.

“Welcome to the family, Fern.”

Fern nodded.

“Welcomebackto the family, Lennox.” Her pointed retort, quiet, yet tart seemed to startle the man. Nox’s head canted as his eyes took on an assessing gleam while they once again scanned her face for God knew what.

He broke out in a full-on grin and nodded appreciatively, before bursting into waves of appreciative laughter.

“Not quite the tentative little mouse you appear to be, are you?” He hooted, dropping a heavy arm around her shoulder and reeling her in for a tight one-armed hug, after which he held her tucked into his side.

“Call me Nox. Y’know that if I’d been here, I would probably have been the one you wound up trapped within unholy matrimony?”

The comment deeply unsettled Fern, and she jerked her head up at him in shock. The thought of marrying anyone other than Cade had never occurred to her and—attractive though he was—she found the thought of a union with this man slightly repugnant.

---