Hitched by Erin Nicholas Read Free Book Online

Harbor over him.
    “It’s really what I want,” she said, closing her eyes. “Really, really, really.”
    Glancing at her, he felt his heart clench. He could definitely do that.
    He’d been doing it for years. When they were together, whenever she went to Promise Harbor to spend time with her family, he planned a way to help her decompress when she got back to him. Sometimes they’d go out, sometimes they’d stay in. But his focus was on making her smile, making her forget the pressures and frustrations, taking care of her.
    She never asked him for any of it. She never had to. He just knew what she needed, and the drive to make her happy was impossible to ignore. He might have hated that she’d go home to her family nearly every weekend and always come home tense and tired, but he did like being her refuge.
    He knew that now she was still under the influence. Her words were still slurred and he figured her thoughts were still “swimmy”, but what she wanted made sense. She wanted a break, she wanted to get away, she wanted to have someone else take charge. Maybe she wouldn’t have let those thoughts and words out if she were completely sober. Maybe this was a good thing—without her inhibitions, her rock-solid sense of responsibility, her constant worry about her family, she could be honest about what she wanted and needed.
    Whatever the case, he was taking her at her word. She wanted him to take her somewhere? He knew just the place.
    “Okay, Allie, I’ve got you. I’ll take care of everything.”
    She sighed and turned to curl against him again. “A dream came true,” she mumbled, just before she fell asleep again.
     
     
    They landed at nine p.m. local time. Not that local time mattered. Gavin’s system was so screwed up with changing three time zones out and back in the space of twenty-four hours that he knew he’d be feeling the effects for days. On top of that, it was right before the summer solstice, so it never got completely dark. Nine o’clock at night looked like two in the afternoon.
    Allie was still asleep. He’d also slept, as well as could be expected on the plane, for several of the ten hours of the flight.
    As he deplaned, he shook hands with Major, the pilot who had traded the spontaneous flight to the East Coast for a year of free veterinary care for his ten mushing dogs, six cats, four horses and seven goats. In addition to his regular fees. “I’ll be out to check on Eddie soon,” Gavin said.
    Major chuckled and lit up a cigarette. “It was the most interesting trip I’ve had in a long time,” the older man said. His eyes flicked to where Allie lay curled in her seat. “Good luck, boy. Looks like you have your hands full.”
    Gavin turned to look at Allie. He couldn’t believe she was here. Hands full? Maybe. Okay, probably. But he knew what it was like to have his hands empty of her…he wasn’t doing that again.
    He carried her to his truck, loaded her bags in back and headed for home. They pulled in just before eleven thirty.
    Gavin tried to rouse Allie to walk into the house, but she was having none of that. Instead, she seemed to melt into him when he picked her up off the truck seat. Not that he minded. She weighed next to nothing and he liked the feeling that he was taking care of her. He knew Allie. She was a do-er. She took care of people. She always had a plan, went nonstop and gave one hundred and ten percent to everything. For her to fall into this deep of an unconscious state with him meant she was either completely exhausted or completely trusted him. Or both. Whichever it was, she needed him and needed to be here.
    He deposited her on the king-size bed in his bedroom. He had a guest room on the main level, but Allie wasn’t sleeping under his roof in any bed other than his. And he was going to be right beside her.
    He was damned tired of seeing her in that wedding dress though.
    With a deep breath, he realized he needed to change her clothes. For one, she’d