And then Kick made my heart expand and find more space inside it to fill with love for him. With his eyes firmly on me, he reached his hand out to Devil who placed a box on his palm.
A ring box.
He took it and got down on one knee. Devil put his fingers in his mouth and whistled loudly to get everyone’s attention. Kick looked up at me through eyes that were full of love. Taking my hand, he said, “Evie Bishop, I’ve loved you since I was a kid. I’ve never stopped loving you. And I never fuckin’ will. I can’t live without you, and I’m not just saying that. When I don’t have you, I wander aimlessly; I have no purpose. But with you by my side, I belong, and I know what I’m doing. And as far as there being any other woman for me . . . no woman even comes close, never has, and never fuckin’ will. I could be in a room of women and all I’d see would be you, and all I’d want would be you.” He paused and pulled the ring from the box. It was a really fucking huge diamond ring. “Sweetheart, will you let me get us some matching rings? And then spend the rest of your life with me?”
Tears threatened to fall down my cheeks. I smiled through them, though, and nodded. “Yes,” I whispered, and as he slid the ring on my finger, the room erupted with whistles and cheers, and lewd comments being yelled out at us. I was too damn happy to pay any attention to any of it. Instead, I threw my arms around Kick when he stood. I ignored the pain shooting out from my ribs. This wasn’t an occasion to let a little bit of pain interfere with. “I love you, Kick Hanson,” I said as his arms came around me.
He kissed me, and when he ended it, he said, “I love you, too, baby. And I’ve always known we’d be together forever. It just took us a little time to figure our shit out.” He grinned and added, “You made me work for it, but I knew you still loved me, and that I’d eventually get you to relent.”
“You’re a sneaky bastard,” I chastised him.
Grinning harder, he admitted, “Only where you’re concerned. Anything for you, Evie Bishop.”
I let the tears fall then.
Tears of happiness.
It had been a long, hard journey for us, but we’d eventually made it to where we were meant to be.
And I was so damn glad he’d made me relent.
Epilogue
Kick
I listened to the words coming out of Devil’s mouth, and let him get them all out before I said anything. “It’s been three months of bloodshed and loss, at their fuckin’ insistence, and now they want to call a truce?” I flicked my gaze to King. “What the fuck do you think, Prez? ‘Cause, for the record, I am against it. I say we bury those fuckers. And if you ask Nitro, he would say that, too.”
King contemplated this new information regarding Silver Hell. I’d expected him to agree with me, but he threw me off when he didn’t come straight out with it. Fuck, he’d experienced loss at their hands, too. Why the hell wasn’t he saying ‘fuck yes, bury them’? Instead, he said, “Kick, it’s your wedding day. Can we just get you the fuck through this and then make a decision?”
Devil seemed as stunned as I was. “I’m with Kick, I say bury them,” he said.
A vein in King’s neck ticked and he lost his loosely contained shit. “I say we don’t fucking decide today!” he roared. “I just want one fucking day without those motherfuckers ruining it. Do you think we can have that?”
Jesus.
I shoved my fingers through my hair and then stretched my back and arms. Nodding at King, I agreed, “Yeah.”
King huffed out a harsh breath and desperately tried to shake some of the tension out of his tightly wound body. “Good. Now let’s get this wedding underway.” He slapped me on the back as he pushed past me to head out of the clubhouse bar to the marquee we’d set up on the land we owned out the back of the clubhouse.
We watched him leave, and then Devil asked, “You ready for this, brother?”
I grinned. “More than fuckin’ ready.”
“You’re a lucky asshole, to find a woman as good as Evie.”
Fuck yeah.
“Kick!” We turned to see Lina rushing into the bar, looking stressed.
“What?” I asked, my own stress levels rising. Fuck, with all the shit we’d been through over the last three months, every little fucking thing stressed me.
“Evie’s here. You need to get outside so you’re waiting there when she walks in.”
“For fuck’s sake, Lina, don’t do that. You had me worried something had happened to her or to someone else,” I complained.
She pursed her lips. “Just get your ass out there.”
I did as she said and walked out to the marquee to wait for Evie. I hadn’t seen her since yesterday morning and, fuck, I ached to see her. How the hell I’d gone three years without her, I had no clue, because these days, being away from her a mere twenty-four hours was hell.
I’d asked Braden to be my best man, and he leant next to me now and said, “Never thought I’d see the day.”
“What?” I asked, not taking my eyes off where Evie would enter from.
“The day my brother got married.”
Something in his voice caused me to turn and face him. He was emotional about this. “Yeah, me either,” I admitted, “but thank fuck she came back to me.”
“Who would have thought, all those years ago when you two were kids, that you’d end up married one day?”