Page 48 of A Montana Secret Admirer
He loved how invested she seemed to be with his interests. No one had bothered to ask him what mattered to him beyond the surface level. “I don’t know, actually. I wasn’t thinking ahead that far.”
Her smile was reassuring. “I’m sure they’d let you know if you needed to do something before attending.”
She was right. And honestly, he could have done a little more research to find out what he’d have to do to attend. He hadn’t, and there had been one very specific reason as to why.
Serenity.
He was loving his summer too much—loving spending time with her, loving teaching her boys about the life of a cowboy, loving it all.
Why would he want to mess any of that up by taking off and going across the country? The answer was simple. He wouldn’t. Reese had finally gotten Serenity to lower her defenses just enough that he had the chance to win her over. There wasn’t anything worth the risk of losing that opportunity.
“And what about you?”
“What about me?”
“Do you have plans for after this summer?”
She frowned.
“Meaning, was there a job you were going to go back to?” He couldn’t believe he’d gone this long not asking about her own plans.
“I… I haven’t worked since before Tegan was born.” The tone of her voice reeked of embarrassment. “I didn’t finish college, and we started our family so early… I was a stay-at-home mom.”
It was subtle. The way she ducked her head away from him as if she could hide how disappointed she was in herself.
“Hey,” he murmured, pulling his horse closer to her. “There’s no shame in that.”
“I know,” she muttered, but even so, she shook her head. “When we chose—Finn and I—that I’d be staying home with the children, we hadn’t been expecting…” Her voice cracked, and she huffed out a sad laugh. “For heaven’s sake. This doesn’t matter. It’s certainly not worth getting bent out of shape over.”
“It’s fine,” Reese insisted. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. I was just curious.”
She looked at him, her eyes shining with emotion. “I’ve been living off his life insurance policy for the time being. I… I just haven’t been thinking that far ahead. I figured there would be time to hash it out, but lately, all I’ve been doing is going through the motions. One day at a time and all that.”
“Of course.”
Her smile was a sad one, and it made him want nothing more than to jump from his saddle and pull her into his arms. She heaved a sigh and reached to tuck some hair behind her ear, but there was none. “I think I’ve been ignoring thinking about it too hard because I don’t want to take something away from Jessi.Tegan got to have me home all through his childhood. He’ll go to school in the fall, and it won’t matter what I’m doing at home or at work while he’s there. But Jessi? I think he would struggle if I put him in daycare.”
“That’s a really hard decision to make.”
“It might not be a choice no matter what,” she sighed again. “I can’t live off of what I got from Finn’s death forever. I’ll need to find something. I just don’t know what.”
“There are a lot of work-from-home gigs these days. Is there anything you would feel comfortable doing behind a computer?”
Serenity shrugged. “I don’t know. Like I said, I never finished college. All I really have is my high school diploma.”
“Maybe one of these days, we can sit down and see what options there are. I’m sure we could come up with something. And if not, then it wouldn’t be the end of the world if you had to find a job. Just make sure it’s something you like. That’s what’s important.”
“No, I think having the money to put food on the table would take precedence.”
Not if you were to marry me. The thought was almost too easy. And definitely too hard to keep to himself. He’d known she was special from the moment he’d met her. And the more time he’d spent with her, the more he knew he wouldn’t regret asking her to marry him.
Not ever.
Instead of blurting the one thing capable of scaring her off, he shrugged. “It’s been my experience that mothers specifically are resilient. And you’re no exception.”
“Thank you, Reese,” she murmured.
They made it to their destination, and the second the pond came into view, Serenity gasped. He knew she’d like this little piece of paradise. It didn’t exactly fit in the rough and tumble backwoods of Montana, but here it was.
