Tom took a swig of his beer and looked very serious. “I have to think of Kate’s best interest, you understand that?”
“No, Tom,” Kate interrupted. “Butch, I didn’t mean now. I meant later, in a few years.”
Butch raised an eyebrow to Tom, ignoring Kate. “Sure,” he said warily.
“So, what are your prospects?”
Butch frowned. “My prospects? What kind of stupid question is that?”
“It’s a good one. How do I know you can provide for her?”
Kate rolled her eyes. “I provide for myself.”
“Hush, Katie,” Tom said. “The men are talking.”
Kate launched herself at Tom, but Butch’s arms snapped down like steel bands. “I have two houses and enough money for us to live on for the rest of our lives. And I have fast enough reflexes to keep her from kicking your ass.”
Tom tipped his bottle to Butch. “That is worth bonus points. Where do you stand on kids?”
“Definitely pro.”
“How many do you want?”
“Oh, five or six would be fine.”
Kate clutched her arms protectively over her flat stomach. “Five or six? Are you nuts?”
“You know she’s a little crazy, right? And she can’t cook. Are you prepared to handle her?”
Kate whipped her head back to Tom. “Handle her? I’ll handle you, you sorry excuse for a cousin.” When Kate tried to come off the chair again, Butch shifted his legs, trapping her legs and leaving them uselessly kicking in the air.
“I can handle her,” Butch said. “This woman is pure trouble, and I’m looking forward to each and every minute.”
“I want a wing in the house. If my nephews and nieces are going to be here, I need a place nearby.”
“Done.”
Tom winked at Kate. “Well, as long as you know what you’re getting into. And you understand if you break her heart, lots of pieces of you are going to get broken.”
Butch nodded. “I would expect nothing less.”
Tom laughed. “Fine, go ahead and marry her.”
“No.” Kate squirmed on Butch’s lap, trying to find some purchase to push herself up. Furious, her blood boiled. How humiliating! Butch and Tom haggling over her like she was the runt of the litter. They were mocking her about one of the most important decisions of her life.
“Where are you going?” Butch pulled her back against him. “I haven’t asked you yet.”
“I don’t want you to ask me. You’re a pair of idiots.”
Tom looked to the woman under his arm. “Don’t pay any attention to her. She’s always bitchy when someone is going to propose.”
Kate glared at Tom, but her response was cut short when Butch took her chin in his hand and turned her to face him. “Katie—”
Kate slapped at his hand. “No, this isn’t asking me properly. You aren’t taking me seriously.”
Butch slid out from underneath her and went down on one knee. He took her hand and kissed her fingertips. “I take everything about you very seriously. I’m here, on my knees, in front of all my family and friends, telling you I didn’t know what love was until I met you. I’ve never had anyone love me the way that you do. I’ve never had anyone willing to stand beside me, to stand in front of me the way you do. My life had no color, no texture before you. In the short amount of time we’ve been together, you’ve become such a part of my life I can’t imagine a single day going by without seeing your smile, without tasting your lips. I love you with everything I am. If you love me the same way, please do me the honor of marrying me.”
Poetry, Kate thought. Butch gave her romance and laughter and everything beautiful in the world. And she wanted it, just as he did, every day for the rest of her life. Butch filled the holes she didn’t know she had. With him, she was happy and complete, and she realized in that moment, it was enough. Kate knew her love for Butch was enough for her today, and she knew it would be enough for every day for the rest of her life.
While she stared, Butch pulled a ring from his pocket and slid it onto her finger. Kate’s mouth fell open as she stared at the glittering square diamond nestled between two smaller stones in a simple, elegant setting. She choked up.
“You carry a ring in your pocket?”
Butch smiled and tucked her hair back behind her ear. “My granddaddy gave this to my grandma on their thirtieth wedding anniversary. They were together fifty-two years. I’m betting we can beat their record. What do you say?”
“It’s beautiful. It’s so beautiful.” Kate’s eyes welled up, and she bit her lip. “We shouldn’t, you know. We haven’t known each other very long.”
“I’ve been looking for you my whole life, Kate. I understand why you would doubt me. I’ve had three wives, but you’re my first love. I love you with all of my heart, Kate.”
John, Emily, Jeb, and Tom all nodded their approval. The love and acceptance of the people who were important to Butch, important to Kate, made her brave.
She brought Butch’s and her joined hands to her lips and looked into Butch’s eyes. “I have longevity in my genes. I’m betting we make sixty years easily.”
Butch closed the distance between them, smiling. “That means ‘yes,’ right?”
She fell into his arms, burying her face in his throat while she fought back tears of joy. “That means yes. I want you, Butch. Only you. I need you, but most of all, I love you very much.”
A round of applause welcomed the committed lovers’ first official kiss.
Chapter Nineteen
Kate slept with her ring on, afraid the fairy tale would disappear if she didn’t. She woke completely happy and wrapped around the man she loved. The sparkle of her ring in the early morning sun mesmerized her. She turned into him, kissed his chest, and worked her way up along his throat to his jaw. She felt so much and wanted to share it all with him. So she woke him, using her body to express the depth of the emotions that drowned her. She ended face down on Butch, both of them purring contentedly. He quickly morphed into a soft snore while Kate lay wide awake.
Kate bounded into the kitchen behind schedule but uncaring. Tom and Jeb sat at the kitchen table enjoying the box of Cheerios Jeb bought when he shopped.
“Fruity Pebbles,” Kate said. “They were my absolute favorite when we were little.”
Tom shook his head. “Give me Count Chocula any day.”
“Never had them,” Jeb said. “Mom always made us breakfast. Monday was scrambled eggs, Tuesday pancakes, Wednesday oatmeal, Thursday hard-boiled eggs, Friday raisin bread.”
Tom drained the milk from the bowl and set it down. “I don’t know if I feel sad for you that you’ve never had Count Chocula—one of the finest breakfast cereals ever created—or jealous that your mama made you a real meal every day of your life.”
Kate rolled her eyes. “You didn’t miss out on anything, Jeb.”
Butch stumbled into the kitchen. Just like every morning, he found Kate, pulled her onto his lap, buried his face in her hair, and breathed her in. “What did Jeb miss out on?”
“Count Chocula and Fruity Pebbles,” Kate said.
Jeb sipped his coffee. “Mom never would let us buy those. She said they were boxed sugar that would rot our teeth.”
“I had Honeycombs a few times when I slept over at Hyde’s house,” Butch said.
Kate leaned back into Butch. “I’m going to go visit him today. We didn’t get over yesterday with everything going on.”
Butch lifted her hand and kissed the ring on her finger. “You ready to become Mrs. Katie McCormick?”
“Wow. That would take some getting used to. Maybe I should keep my name.”
“Hmmm. You could do that, or consider sharing mine with me.”
“Is that important to you?”
“It is. You said you were traditional. Well, I am, too. I want us to be together. One house, one family, one name.”
Kate hadn’t anticipated how she would feel about giving up her name. She’d sp
ent a lot of time and effort making something of Kate Riley. But this was important to him, more than he said. “Maybe. I’ll work on it. I mean, it’s not like it’s changing next week. I’ll have a long time to get used to the idea.” Kate laced her fingers with Butch’s, admiring how nicely they fit together.
“Why would you have a long time?”
“Well, it will be a while before we actually get married. So no need to panic yet.”
“Uh huh. How long is ‘a while’ to you?”
Kate pulled his arms around her waist. “A few years.”
Butch crossed his arms over her and spoke softly. “In my book, that’s quite a while longer than a while. I was thinking we’d get married when I finished my tour in the fall.”
Kate’s feet turned to ice. The fact that her heart stopped might have had something to do with it. “That’s only, like, five months away. What’s the rush?”
Butch didn’t quite fight down the smile that crept onto his lips. “I love you.”
Kate jumped up, bumping the table hard enough to rock the coffee cups. “I love you, too, but what’s the rush? We can live together, build the house, you do your thing, and I’ll do mine, and then when everything’s good, we can get married.” She back-pedaled until the counter brought her up short.
Butch stalked her, the kitchen island providing her only shelter. “If you ask me, everything’s good right now. We can talk to Reverend Marcus and see when he’s open before I leave.”
“Before you leave?” Kate’s voice was too high, her air choked off by the lump in her throat. “Everything isn’t good. Hyde. Hyde’s still in a coma. You would want him there, right? You haven’t finished settling Fawn’s estate. You’ll have to go back to California, and then you have a tour.”
Butch walked after her, his long, slow strides navigating around the chairs she put in his path. “Any more excuses?”
“Reasons. Hundreds of reasons to wait.” When his smile just grew, Kate knocked over two chairs and skirted by him.
Tom went to the sink and washed his bowl. “You do know how to keep her on her toes. I’ve never seen her run scared before.”
“I’m not running.” Kate kept the island between her and Butch.
Jeb raised his coffee in salute. “It’ll be nice to actually be at one of your weddings.”
“My last wedding. You’ll be my best man, right? Whenever we have it?”
“I’m here for you, little brother.”
Kate made a break for it, skirting by Tom for the door. “You plan your Mad Hatter Tea Party. I’m going to work.”
Kate’s palms sweated as she drove along the country roads. It was crazy to get engaged after knowing Butch for just a few weeks, but did he really think she was nuts enough to marry him in months? They loved each other, so she didn’t see the hurry to make it legal. They did the important part. They committed to each other in front of God, family, and friends. She didn’t really give a rat’s ass whether the government recognized it or not. They could take the time to get to know each other, to build a house and a life together. If or when they were ready for kids, well, then they could get married. It wasn’t like getting married made things permanent. Butch was living proof of that. So were her father and uncle.
Kate turned into the site to find the crew gathered around the main trailer. Every window was broken, and the white walls bore the ugly scars of hate. “Die Bitch” was scrawled in black spray paint. The shaky letters proclaimed that “I know what you did” and threatened “An eye for an eye.”
Kate stared with unseeing eyes at the repulsive graffiti. Her face warmed, and her fingers flexed around the steering wheel. She was being threatened. Her. Personally. Somebody came onto her site and threatened her. They didn’t even have the balls to do it to her face. Well fuck that.
Kate slammed out of her truck and barked at the crew. “Get me new glass now. I want those windows replaced by noon. And get me paint. Dark blue like our logo. Paint it today. We are not looking at this one minute longer than we have to. This is our house. Nobody comes in and messes with it. How did they get in? Didn’t the alarm go off?”
Waters came toward her with his hands out. “I was first on site this morning. The gate was closed, but yes, the alarm on the trailers was going off. I shut it down and called the police. If they came through the gate, they closed it when they left. Could have come over the fence, I suppose.”
Kate flung her hand out at her violated trailer. “Look at that. I want it fixed. Now.”
“We’ll get it fixed, Kate, but the sheriff needs to see it first.”
“The sheriff can—” She cut off when Jeb’s SUV turned in with the lights flashing. “The sheriff can get to work now, because that shit isn’t staying there.”
Tom had pulled in behind Jeb, and the two men stood looking at the damage.
“I’m spending a lot of time out here, Kate. ‘I know what you did,’” Jeb read the accusation. “Any idea what it means?”
Kate kicked a stone, sending a plume of dust into the air when it landed a good fifteen feet away. “If you are asking literally, no. I could speculate that somebody still thinks I had something to do with Fawn’s death, which I didn’t. But whoever it is has no concept whatsoever of what I’m going to do once I get my hands on them. I’m going to sit up in that tree with a rifle and the next time they set a toe on this property, I’m blasting it to kingdom come.”
“You’re going to do nothing, Kate.” Jeb spoke plainly, sternly. There was no give in his tone, no room for negotiation.
Kate growled her frustration to the sky, spinning in a slow, controlled circle that was very much the opposite of the out-of-control rage consuming her. “You can’t expect me to do nothing. This is personal.”
“You’re damned right it is. Somebody is baiting you. You rise to the bait, you’re going to be caught. If you won’t think of yourself, think of Butch.”
Kate bit down on her lower lip hard enough to leave marks. “That’s not fair.”
“I don’t really care about being fair right now.”
Kate kicked three more rocks before stomping off.
Kate walked calmly into the trailer some twenty minutes later. A sweaty sheen covered her. Tufts of hair pulled from the band and matted to her face.
Tom cocked his head. “You hit the rock pile?”
Kate pulled a bottle of water from the full-sized refrigerator. “Yeah.”
“That’s what I guessed. It do any good?”
“Took the edge off. How bad is the damage?” Her voice matched the calm in her body. Her hands didn’t clench or flinch as they hung at her sides. She didn’t dance, shifting from one foot to the other. She stood with her shoulders back and chin up in an exhausted calm.
“Minimal. The stuff inside was moved around but nothing broken. I talked to Jeb about beefing up security around here. He has some ideas. Good ones.”
Kate picked up a folder from her desk and poured the glass shards into the trash can. “I’m going to call home.”
“I can call, Kate. My father won’t flip out the way yours does.”
“I’ll take care of it, but I will call your father instead of mine.”
“I’ll be outside if you need me.”
She picked up her desk phone and dialed the number. “Uncle Mike? It’s Kate. We’ve had another problem.”
Michael Riley was ice to her father’s fire. He never yelled, and he seldom swore, but that didn’t mean there were any soft edges to the man. She reported the incident, repeating the same answers she had given Jeb. She finished when her father had come into the room. She could hear him in the background, arguing with Mike. Her father wanted to bring Kate home and leave Tom down in her place.
Kate hung up before a sentence was rendered and pulled the phone cord from the wall. She turned off her cell phone and nearly ran out of the trailer, wanting to be legitimately unavailable when one of them called on a working line. Outside, three men painted the trailer white. Kate r
ecognized them as the three she had nearly fired for dumping into the stream.
“They volunteered,” Tom told her when she raised her eyebrows.
“Whoever did this, it wasn’t one of us,” one of the painters said.
Kate wasn’t sure if he meant the vandal wasn’t one of the three of them or, in a bigger picture, one of the locals. Either way, she appreciated the sentiment. She appreciated someone saw what they were trying to build when it felt like everything was working against them. The laborers prepped the paint.
“I wanted it painted dark blue.”
“Not in Tennessee,” the second painter said. “It’ll turn into an oven come summer. White is better.”
“An oven. Good to know. Thanks. I’ll pay the overtime if you can get it done today.” Kate turned back to Tom. “Where’s Jeb?”
“He left while you were on the phone. How did it go?”
“Fine until my father walked in. I hung up before he could attempt to revoke my travel privileges and order me back to Michigan.”
Tom’s cell phone rang.
“You might not want to answer that.”
Tom rolled his eyes. “He has a hard time remembering we have our own company and don’t actually work for them anymore.”
“I know. You’d think he’d be happy we’re off the payroll.” Kate ran her hands over her messy ponytail. “Maybe it was a mistake going after the design-build with them. It just seemed so…”
“Obvious,” Tom finished. “Riley Brothers have always built some of the finest buildings around. It was a natural to think that matching our brains with their expertise would create something extraordinary.”
“Yes. But so far, the only thing extraordinary is the pain in my ass.”
Tom chuckled and stroked Kate’s arm when she didn’t smile. “I have some good news for you.”
“You have video evidence that the rat bastard who did this fell face first into a patch of poison ivy?”
“We don’t have cameras, so no, but hope springs eternal. Jeb said we can pick up your truck from the impound lot. You’ll have your own wheels again. Let’s celebrate the little things. I’ll take you into town and buy you lunch, we’ll swing by to visit Hyde, then I’ll take you to get your truck.”
Lost in Tennessee Page 29
