“So thank you for giving it to me, but also, thank you for giving it to her too.”
“Shit, you’re sweet,” he muttered.
“That’s what I’m always thinking about you.”
With that, he closed his arms around me and we made out.
When he let me up for air, I told him, “But, just saying, the way other people behave doesn’t affect your hero status.”
His brows shot up. “My what?”
“You need to be the hero, Boone,” I replied. “I get that. I love that about you. And not to be too gushy, but you’re that to me and nothing they do affects it.”
“I need to be the hero?”
I wasn’t able to put my finger on his tone.
So I said cautiously, “Baby, before we were even together, you looked into things to find out what was going down with me so you could step in and help. You heard Brian talking smack to me and laid him out. You mow Whitney’s lawn because her husband isn’t there to do it. We haven’t gotten into that sitch with the sheikh’s son. And you’re a freaking commando. I think evidence is strongly suggesting you have a hero complex, and that is not a bad thing.”
He stared down at me.
Then he actually threw his head back and burst out laughing.
I wasn’t sure what I was saying was funny, but I still smiled at him while he did it.
When he sobered, he gave me a squeeze and said, “I’m takin’ this serious because you would know.”
“Sorry?” I asked.
“Babe, you race in to save the day every freaking time. Even when people are treating you like shit, you go for it.”
Hmm.
“It’s not about being a hero though,” he went on. “It’s about being a decent person.”
Hmm again.
“But I got the sense you were a little miffed that Brett got in there first, helping me out with the house,” I noted.
“That’s different, Ryn, because you’re my girl and no guy wants some other guy to lay tens of thousands of dollars of anything on their girl.”
Oh.
Right.
“That makes sense,” I muttered.
He was grinning at me, and through it said, “But in the end, it was about what was best for you and what you want out of life, so I’ll remind you I did not swing my dick and push you into giving it back.”
No, he didn’t do that.
I pressed closer to him.
Boone took the hint and started making out with me again.
We did that until Mo showed to take my security detail for the day.
After Boone shook hands and bumped forearms with Mo on his way out, he turned to me and gave me a chin lift and a tender look before he walked out the door.
And I knew.
I was in love with that man.
I was going to live my life with him.
I was going to give him babies.
I was going to die (years and years from then) loving Boone Andrew Sadler.
And I knew from our morning conversation that he would disagree, but in a roundabout way, I had Angelica to thank for putting in motion the breakdown of the wall I’d built between him and me.
Of course, I’d never tell her that.
Or Boone.
That didn’t make it untrue.
But in the end, it didn’t matter.
Because he was mine.
That was all that mattered.
And as gross and gushily romantic as it sounded, I didn’t care.
I was going to remember that morning, that chin lift and look he gave me before he left, and I was going to do that for the rest of my days.
Because it was the moment I realized that Boone was all that would matter for my eternity.Chapter Twenty-TwoThe Widow and the RatBooneBoone’s phone ringing pulled him from sleep.
Ryn’s hair was all over his chest, her scarf was dangling down his stomach and over his side that she wasn’t dangling over, and he’d worked her over so good that night, she didn’t even twitch with the noise.
Which made him want to smile even when he wasn’t feeling like smiling when his phone was ringing—he turned his head and checked his clock—at nearly three in the morning.
So not to wake her, he moved carefully, but quickly, to end the noise.
He checked the screen.
The call was Hawk.
Boone did a quick mental scan of jobs they were on, and outside Jorge, Auggie and Zane (another member of Hawk’s crew) being out of town on an assignment, there was nothing anyone was on that required night work.
He took the call warily but alertly with a “Yo, Hawk.”
“I’m texting you an address. I need you here. Fast. And stealth mode, Boone.”
Boone tensed and that’s what made Ryn stir.
“Is everything okay?” he asked Hawk.
“Yes, and no. Mueller and Bogart are both dead,” Hawk answered.
At this news, Boone couldn’t stop himself from shoving three inches up the bed, which didn’t stir Ryn.
It roused her.
Her head came up.
But fuck.
Goddamn Cisco.