Page 23 of Sofa King Devotion

Chapter Sixteen

SAWYER

Surprisingly, it doesn’t take long to get the horses back into the barn. By the time I got there, my foreman told me Rhodes had the horses and was already on his way back with them.

Rhodes lives on the property next to us and said he found them in his pasture eating the hay. The weird thing was the door to the barn was fine but somehow didn’t close properly.

After we closed up the horses, I hurried back to the house. All I’ve been thinking about is Lane naked in my bed, and I’m hoping she’s still in it when I go through the front door.

I stride through the living room so fast, dead set on getting to the bedroom as fast as possible, that I don’t catch the two people standing in the kitchen until I hear Lane calling my name. I stop in my tracks and turn around in time to see her and my mom standing a few feet apart.

“Oh, hey.” I’m surprised she’s already out of bed, but I guess it’s a good thing since my mom showed up. “Mama, I didn’t know y’all were back already.”

“First thing this morning,” she says, but there’s tension in her words.

Glancing at Lane, I see worry in her eyes, and I go straight to her. I pull her against me and kiss the top of her head. “What’s going on? Why are you upset?”

“I’m fine.” Lane smiles up at me, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. She’s lying.

Proof that something is definitely off, I face my mom. “Why is my fiancée upset?”

“Fiancée?” they both say in unison.

I glance at Lane and give her my biggest smile with all the dimples. “You’re so damn cute, thinking you’re going to marry anyone else.”

She softens a little at my words and puts her hand on my chest.

“You know I love you with my whole heart, kitten. There’s no getting away now.”

Her cheeks blush with color. “I thought maybe when you said it before...” She trails off, and I know she’s thinking about last night.

“That it was in the heat of the moment,” I whisper, and she slaps my chest. “Come on now, you know I love you.”

Lane nods and looks up at me through her lashes. “And you know I love you too.”

“Thank god!” We both snap our heads in the direction of my mom, and she’s got tears in her eyes. “It’s about damn time.”

“Wait,” Lane says, stepping back from me. “I thought you didn’t like me.”

“Like you?” My mom sniffs as she comes around the island to pull Lane in a hug. “Honey, I’ve loved you longer than Sawyer. Since the moment your mama let me babysit you and Liv while they went on date nights. You were like my own baby too.”

“Then why were you ignoring me in town? Why did you come here today like you were angry?”

My mom’s expression turns sheepish as she takes a step away from Lane. “Well, honestly, I went this morning and picked up our cat from Quinn. You know her, she’s the one that owns the cat grooming place, Clean Kitty.”

“Get to the point, Mama,” I say, trying to understand what’s going on.

“Anyway, she watched Milo for us while we were out of town, and when I picked him up this morning, she said something about Sawyer being in an auction and taking the woman home.”

“Here we go,” I say and pinch the bridge of my nose.

“Well, Quinn is still new and couldn’t remember the woman’s name, so I marched right in here with the plan of telling whatever skank was in here that they needed to get the hell out of my future daughter-in-law's house.”

“So I was the skank?” Lane says softly, and I move in front of her to face my mom.

“Wait, you were mad Lane was here? What the hell?”

“No, not a skank, and I wasn’t mad Lane was here,” she rushes to say and then sighs. “I’m not explaining this right. Let me start over.”

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