“Katherine…that’s not something you will ever have to worry about.”

She took a deep breath, shaking, and on the exhale said, “I’m in love with you. I know I’ve said the words, but you need to hear me. You need to know…I…”

Her eyes filled with tears, and my response was to fill her in every way I knew how. I moved her to lay on her back and fell between her legs. Her arms instantly wrapped around me, her feet at the back of my thighs, urging me on as I pushed inside.

She gasped as I entered, keeping our eyes locked as she asked, “What made you fall in love with me?”

“For me, my Katherine, it was your heart. The day in the bridal shop, standing in that dress…I discovered treasure…I knew, in that moment, I’d found treasure. You were my Katherine in gold.”

My lips and tongue gathered every tear that landed at her temples as I made love to the woman I loved. All we needed now was time, for her to trust my feelings for her were genuine, to know I would never do anything to hurt her, and to build a foundation for both of us, for our futures.

Together.

Katherine

Bear Claw was busy. Not people lining down the street busy, but steady for sure. We hired Leo full-time, and Gloria was now on twenty hours a week. I was so fucking happy I hardly recognized myself. I doubted anyone else really noticed, because the novelty of happy-Kath had worn off. But for the first time in years, thirteen to be exact, I was happy, I was in love, and I’d followed my dream.

Keeping firm on my determination to maintain that happiness, I didn’t return the forty-four messages my mother had left hot on the heels of the conversation with my dad. Six months ago, I would have returned a text or email to my mother, feeling obligatory daughter guilt. I supposed that was what I should feel, but no more. I had nothing to say to her or to him. If they happened to stop by the shop, so be it, but I was done taking his abuse, and though I’d like to think differently, I was sure my mother didn’t call because she wanted to; she called because Dad told her to.

Fuck ‘em.

It had been four days since the tiff with Dee, and I finally decided to bite the bullet and walk up the stairs to Beachy Bride. I needed to make the first move, and Tori was right; Dee didn’t have a lot of friends, except for us. When she left England and her asshole ex, she left that life and the friends she’d made there, too.

“Hey.” I bumped Holst with my hip and smiled up at him.

He leaned down and said into my ear, “I think we need a week somewhere with complete and total privacy.”

“That’s so spooky, it’s like you’re reading my mind.” I laughed. “Listen, I’m going upstairs. I gotta make the Dee thing right. You cool?”

“I’m cool. And, uh, Katherine?” he asked as I grabbed my purse from under the counter.

“Yep?”

“Thanksgiving. I know we’ve been invited to spend it with your friends…”

“They’re your friends, too, Holst.”

He gave me a small smile and asked, “Do you mind if it’s just us this year?”

This year. Meaning, there were going to be more.

I put my hands behind his neck, my purse hitched on my shoulder, and stared into his beautiful brown eyes. “I think that’s a great idea.”

His thumbs moved in circles on the sensitive skin of my ribs. “Dee probably feels terrible, baby.”

“It’ll be fine. Besides, I’d like to go in and check on my dress. It might be wondering where I went, and I would hate for something so pretty to have abandonment issues.” I giggled, not really even thinking about what I’d just said to him.

“Katherine.” He squeezed me in his hold, his face stern, all signs of happiness gone.

“Whoa, what just happened?” I asked.

He shook his head then pinned me with his eyes. “Buy the dress,” he ordered.

“What?” I asked, like he was suddenly speaking to me in Greek.

“You heard me. Buy the dress.”

I tried to take my hands away, but he held my arms tight. “Remember when I said you need to piss me off more?”

I tried to shake off his hold again, but nope, no good. The man was stronger than me.

“Katherine…” he began, still not letting me get away.

I didn’t want to make a scene since there were customers and Leo was only standing a few feet away.

“Katherine…this is happening.”

“It’s barely been three months,” I countered.

“And it’ll be many more.” He squared his shoulders, actually growing in power right before my eyes. There was no denying this man was in love with me. He saw marriage and babies, the whole enchilada.

“What happened to taking things slow?” I asked.

“You didn’t want slow,” he reminded, his lips curving into a small grin.

“You’re right,” I agreed and grinned as heat hit the back of my eyes and tears threatened. “You fucking motherfucking fucker.”

“Buy the dress,” he said with a full smile then let me go.

“Okay, but just so we’re clear, fuck you.” I giggled and wiped under each eye.

“I understand you feel the need to keep the emotional playing field level by swearing at me, but what I just heard is that you’re madly in love with me and cannot wait until I kneel in front of you with a ring and ask you to be my wife. Am I wrong about that?”

I nodded and flipped him off at the same time.

“I didn’t think so.” He chuckled.

With my purse over my shoulder, I went out the back door, behind Bear Claw and Coastal Ink, and up the stairs to Beachy Bride.

First, I stopped in to see Ruby and check on my always nauseous bestie. “Hey, what’s happening?”

Tori looked miserable. The kind of miserable you see on a commercial for cold and flu medicine.

“If you whisper the words egg roll, I’m gonna throw up everywhere,” she warned. Her face was actually a very pale shade of sage green. I’d never seen anything like it.

“Did you have a craving?” I asked.

“Don’t talk about it,” she whimpered and tried to make a paper crane, which I assumed was for wedding favors…or Chinese New Year.

“Why don’t you go home? Ruby’s here. She can make paper cranes in her sleep and run the shop.” I nodded to Ruby, who saluted me with a hot glue gun in one hand and a white cardboard butterfly in the other.

“I need to be productive,” she moaned.

I dropped my purse on the closest chair and moved behind her. She’d been leaning over at the big table, probably uncomfortable considering her body was accommodating another person now.

I put my hands under her armpits. “Come on,” I coaxed.

“Where are we going?”

“Slowly now. I like these shoes, so don’t get semi-digested egg roll on them.”

“Don’t…just…don’t,” she begged.

I moved her to the corner, where her big comfy armchair sat, and held onto her arms until she was settled. Then I pulled off her shoes, one by one, wrapped her afghan over her and started to rub her feet.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Close your eyes, babe.”

“Really, I took something for the nausea. It just hasn’t kicked in yet,” she said.

“Then when you wake up, you’ll feel like a million bucks.”

“Kath—”

“Don’t argue with me, and I promise, when you wake up, Dee’ll have some gossip for you. You don’t get it unless you go to sleep.”

“I am pretty tired.”

And not two minutes later, she was sleeping soundly, her hands under her cheek in her big-ass flamingo-colored armchair.

I walked back over to Ruby and sat across from her. “You’re, like, the greatest friend ever,” she told me.

“That chick over there would walk through fire for me. The least I can do is rub her feet. Listen, I’m going next door. I need to make things right with Dee…and I was told to buy that beautiful gown in the window.”