Page 132 of Trigger Happy

“What?”

She turns around so fast I barely have time to brace myself before she launches herself at me and wraps her legs around my waist. I almost drop her out of sheer surprise.

“This is so much better than captaining the Knotty Girl,” she murmurs into the crease of my neck.

I tighten my grip around her thighs and bury my smile in her hair. I’m trying not to let my knees buckle from relief.

“Now carry me to our kitchen,” she says, leaning back with a devious glint in her eye, “and ravage me on the counter like a proper fake husband.”

I dip my chin and start walking. “Yes, ma’am.”

EPILOGUESabrina

How have your knife skills gotten worse since last Thanksgiving?” Mrs. Montoya chastises as we assemble the cheesy hasselback potato gratin. “I told you to julienne the potatoes, not slice them. Treat it like a throat.”

“Julienne is slicing them.” I toss the knife down on the wooden counter, careful not to knock over the bowl of cranberry sauce that I think has some accidental blood in it, thanks to an incident involving Lawton’s dad and a mandoline slicer.

“Here, let me…” She rubs the flour off her hands onto her bluebonnet apron. “Like this.”

She starts slicing potatoes—exactly how I was doing it. “Your knife skills are unparalleled.”

Her lips pinch. “Sarcasm is not how to get into my good graces.”

“So?” I say, fluttering the solitaire opal on my finger that, despite his threats, Lawton did not buy off Amazon. “You’re stuck with me forever, Carmen.”

She scowls at my (very real) engagement ring. Bobbi tried to convince us to get matching tattoos, but we quickly shot that down. “Don’t remind me. I try not to think about the fact that I’m going to have a Chastain as a daughter-in-law.”

“You think I want a Montoya as a mother-in-law?” I say, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. She doesn’t tense up as much this time. “I don’t, but I love your son, so we’re stuck together.”

She mutters something that sounds an awful lot like unless you happen to drop dead, but I know she won’t do it. She’s stopped referring to me as “that girl,” so she likes me even if she won’t admit it to herself.

Mrs. Montoya was having a… We’ll call it a hard time, welcoming me into the family, and I don’t blame her. She’s had to do some deep soul-searching ever since we told her about Walker. So Lawton got down on one knee, slipped the ring on my finger, and said, There. Deal with it, Ma.

And here I said my fiancé doesn’t know how to woo a woman.

Truthfully, it was perfect. I don’t know if we’ll ever tie the knot. A big ceremony sounds like a lot of effort, and I’ve stopped planning out every detail of my life. Not to mention standing in front of a crowd to publicly declare my undying love makes me nauseous. Maybe we’ll elope one day, but I’m in no rush to get married.

This ring, though? Lawton did good.

I glance up to find him watching me with a small smile, leaning against the doorframe. Always watching me, that one, and I have his back too. These past two years haven’t been easy, but he gets out of bed with my sunrise alarm and hasn’t reached for the limoncello bottle in years.

And then there’s the fact that we’re still in monthly therapy working on our “emotional infidelity,” as she calls it. Things aren’t perfect, but they’re real, and real will always outlast perfect.

“Are you going to stand there watching or do you want to help?” Mrs. Montoya and I both say.

We jerk our heads to each other, frowning. Lawton chuckles, muttering something about marrying his mother that I choose not to hear.

“Nice to see you two finally agree on something. What can I do?” He places a scratchy kiss on my cheek. “We have visitors, by the way.”

I glance over my shoulder to see my parents standing in the Montoyas’ kitchen, wearing sunglasses and matching shirts with tiny pineapples. They had to get new fake IDs just to enter the country. All for me. I launch myself at them.

“You made it!” I say, sandwiched between them. “How was Barbados? Did the Hell’s Angels chapter president get over you stealing his snorkel or is he still threatening to run you over with his Harley?”

Mom waves a hand, fixing her dark hair back in a bun. “Butch still threatens us daily, but he’s coming around ever since I shared my homemade mai tai recipe.”

Dad lifts me off my feet. “Enough about Butch. How’s my favorite daughter?”

A knife flies across the room, lodging itself in the floral wallpaper Mrs. Montoya hasn’t changed since the nineties.