Page 110 of The Troublemaker

“I’m glad.” She reached out and touched his face. And he put his hand over hers. She was never going to say good night to him and go home again. Because this was her home. Her place was with him. And he was... He was pretty damn thrilled with that.

Right now it felt like it might work. As long as he did what he’d done with her from the beginning.

As long as he kept the right boundaries in place.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

SHEWOKEUPthe next morning and looked at the ring on her finger. Then got up, and decided to make some breakfast.

Lachlan wasn’t in bed, but she assumed that he was out working on the ranch.

She shot him a text and asked him if he was coming back for breakfast, but she didn’t hear anything.

So she just made herself some eggs and got ready to go to work.

She went to Ed Forsyth’s and checked in on his horse. To her annoyance, he was nicer to her. She had to wonder if that was Lachlan’s influence. Either the talking-to he had given the man, or the fact that she was now hiswife.

She supposed she shouldn’t be defensive about that. That people might treat her a certain way because she had married Lachlan. Or because she was married at all.

But she did resent the fact that attachment to a man, whether it be her father or her husband, seemed to affect the way that some people treated her.

It was difficult not to let it feel insulting.

She supposed because itwasinsulting. But she did the work anyway, and she did the best job she could, because if there was one arena it wasn’t worth being petty in, it was most definitely her job. Where her patients didn’t have anything to do with the cruddy behavior of their owners. It wasn’t their fault.

By the time she got back home it was getting dark, and she was exhausted. Lachlan’s truck was in the driveway, and all the lights in the house were on.

She walked in and he smiled. “How was your day?”

“It was good. Good. I guess maybe we are a little bit unexciting considering we worked the day after we got married.”

“I don’t know. I think we’re pretty exciting.”

Silence stretched between them.

She wasn’t quite sure why she felt...like there was more. Especially after last night.

What he’d said to her had been deep. Honest.

But she had the sense that there were walls all around his heart still and she didn’t quite know why.

It made her feel this need to do...something. He was trying. She knew that.

He’d taught her so much about life. Sarcasm and swearing and sex.

She wanted to find a way to lead him here, but she didn’t know how. She wanted to give to him the way he had to her.

This didn’t quite feel like their friendship, but it didn’t quite feel like... Like what she was looking for, either. Last night she said again that she loved him. He hadn’t said it back. But he had said it before.

He’d said that he did.

But she was still turning over the concept. Because she had loved him all her life. At least, all her life that she’d known him, and that was real. But it had changed.

It wasn’t just sex. Wasn’t just saying vows to him. There was something that grabbed hold of the deep part of her soul and took anchor there.

It had happened before they’d ever kissed. There was something about Lachlan McCloud that held her to the earth.

Something about him that made her a better version of herself, and that she thought might be where love metinlove. Plus, there were butterflies.

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