“I thought about her a lot today, baby girl. I wished she was there with us, playing her guitar, getting to know you and them.” He shrugged. “But wishin’ won’t make it happen, and I don’t want to bring you down.”

“When you open up to me like that, it brings us closer together. That could never bring me down. It lifts me up.”

“God, Trace,” he said with disbelief, a little gruffly. “The things you say.”

She traced the ink on his shoulder. “Do they sound weird?”

“They sound unreal, but coming from you, they feel real.”

“Because they are real, but I know what you mean, because it’s just like your feelings for me. You may not tell me in words, but you say it in other ways, and I hear it and feel it loud and clear. That lifts me up.”

His brows twitched again, and he brushed the back of his knuckles down her cheek. He didn’t say anything for a minute or two, and when he did, his voice was husky, emotional. “After dinner, when your sisters were showing us their yearbooks, I missed the sense of home. That feeling when you walk in the door, kick off your boots, and everything just feels right and comfortable. I haven’t had that feeling since before my mom got sick, because after that things went to shit. But then I looked at you, and I didn’t miss it anymore.”

He’d stunned her speechless again, her heart scrambling to climb out of her chest and get to him. She tied a ribbon around his confession and tucked it away.

“So yeah, babe. It’s funny how quickly things can change. One day I’m working at Whiskey Bro’s, thinking I can hang there for a while, help out the Whiskeys, and the next day you walk in and knocked me on my ass, making me feel like my fucking heart is going to explode.”

“Really? Because you gave me dirty looks, and they weren’t the good kind.”