by Thia Finn
“Oh, Ryan, we have our whole lives to do something like that. I’m not worried about it.”
Peri never looked him in the eye when she spoke, and he wondered what was going on in that head of hers. He didn’t want to wait their whole lives to get married. He loved her and little Tucker and wanted them attached to him in every way.
When Peri started yawning too, he knew it might be his time to let her rest. “Okay, I’m going to go for a little while and let the two of you get some rest. You sleep while he’s sleeping and I’ll be back in a bit.” He leaned over resting his hand on her cheek and kissed her softly. “I love you, Babe.”
She smiled and stole another quick kiss from him. “I love you, too.”
Ryan left the hospital with a big smile on his face. He didn’t know how life could get any better.
A month after bringing Tucker home, Ryan arranged for Chandler and KeeMac to come over to stay with him so he could get Peri out of the house, just the two of them. He wanted to show Peri something that he hoped would make her happy.
“Where are we going, Ryan?”
“I want it to be a surprise. I think you’re going to love it.” He drove them to an area southwest of the city. When he exited the highway, he pulled over to the side of the road and opened the glove compartment to retrieve a blindfold. “Here, put this on.”
“What? Why are you blindfolding me?”
“I want this to be a surprise. You’ll know as soon as we stop, so you have to wear it for now. It’ll only be a short ride, I promise.” He handed her the blinder.
“You went all out planning, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did. Now close your eyes and enjoy the ride.” He pulled back onto the road and after a few turns and stops at red lights, the car came to a halt.
“Can I take it off now? I’m so excited. What have you done?”
“No, just wait.” He came around and opened her door helping her out. She took several steps guided by him holding her shoulders.
“Now take it off.” When she did, they were standing in front of a beautiful home set in the hills outside of Austin. The Austin Stone was set off by river rocks with a huge front porch that stretched across most of the front of craftsman style home.
“Ryan, what, how, when? It’s gorgeous. I love it.” She jumped up and down and turned to hug him. “I know we talked about it, but we never made any more plans. I thought we were going to wait.”
“We’ve waited long enough, and we need a house for five. Wait until you see the floor plan for us all to live together but not on top of each other. It’s perfect.” As he led her through the home, he knew she was astonished at the beauty. The look on her face told him everything. “I knew you would love the open rafters in the great room. The large kitchen opening off of it, where everyone seems to hang out in the townhouse, has to be your idea of perfection. So, you think this is big enough for everyone to fit?” He was beaming at her.
“Oh, it the perfect place for us, and Hayden and Crew, and the rest of the band. Thank you, thank you, thank you.” She pushed up on her toes, wrapped her arms around him, and kissed him soundly.
“Let’s not get carried away, Sunshine. We have two more weeks and then it’s on.” He wiggled his eyebrows.
“Counting the minutes?” she grinned at him.
“You better believe it. Now come on I have one more thing to show you out back.” He opened the tall glassed doors leading to an outdoor kitchen on a huge covered patio overlooking turquoise waters of a negative edge pool that appeared to flow into the beautiful hills behind it.
“Ryan, it’s wonderful and so peaceful back here. I love it already.” He led her to a huge swinging oversized twin bed attached to the ceiling under the overhang. “See you can lounge out here enjoying the view or watching our children play or swim. Or we can take naps wrapped around each other. Better yet, we can enjoy each other here for some outdoor mountain sex. That’s the beauty of no close neighbors: skinny dipping and outdoor sex in nature.”
“You’ve obviously given this a lot of thought.” She pushed back on his chest lightly.
“Yes, as a matter of fact. I’ve given this a lot of thought. There’s only one thing that could make this all perfect, Peri.” He got down on one knee and gazed up at her.
“Oh, My God, Ryan.” She stood staring down at him.
“Peri, you came along to see me at my worst. You stuck by me when I asked too much of you, more than any girlfriend should have to go through. I promise you here and now, that it’s all looking up from here. The days will be all about our wishes and dreams. I will love you until our last days. I will cherish you and all our children God blesses us with. You will be my home, my lover, and my life. Will do me the honor of marrying me, Peri O’Connor?” He brought a ring out of his pocket and held it out for her to see. As she shook her head yes, too overwhelmed to say anything, he slid the perfect vintage, Asscher cut diamond on her ring finger and kissed her hand above the ring.
Finally finding her voice, between the happy tears she said, “Yes, yes, yes, I would love to marry you and be you wife and lover and your home.”
Ryan stood and wrapped around her kissing her soundly. You’ve just made me the happiest man alive, Sunshine.” They stayed in the embrace for several minutes before she spoke again.
“You’ve made me so happy, Ryan. I was secretly hoping you would want to get married after Tucker came along. I want us to be a real family. We are going to have the best life together.” He kissed her again and then scooped her up in his arms.
“So, exactly how many days until we can break in the swinging bed?”
Book #3 Teaser
Coming soon…
His Assurance –Assured Distraction Series Book Three
“Gunner?” Carter called from the door.
“Gunner? Dude, you here?” yelled Ryan.
“Knock, knock? We’re coming in. I hope you have some clothes on.” Chandler hollered just inside the doorway.
I look up and people are standing in my house. “What the hell? Why didn’t y’all knock before you walk in? I could have been naked.”
Carter started laughing at me. “Dude, it wouldn’t be the first time, even for Chan.”
“We did knock. Didn’t you hear us? We rang the doorbell, too?” KeeMac walked into my den with his usual swagger like he’s always on stage. I love giving him hell over it.
“What?” I saw his lips moving but I didn’t hear him.
“What do you mean, ‘what’? Did you drink so much you forgot how to hear?”
“What?” Something’s wrong. I can’t hear them, any of them. Shit.
Chandler walked right up to me and looked me in the eyes. “Gunner, what’s going on? Are you okay?
I see her mouth moving so I know she’s talking to me but I can’t hear anything she’s saying.
“Okay, guys, real funny. Who’s idea was it to play ‘let’s fuck with Gunner’ today?” The only thing is, I didn’t hear what I said either. WHAT THE FUCK?
Hard to Explain by the Strokes
The One by Kodaline (The perfect wedding song!)
Ghosts of Beverly Drive by Death Cab for Cutie
Gooey by Glass Animals
Mountain Sounds by Of Monsters and Men
Don’t Want to Fight by Alabama Shakes (just for you Kim Asbury)
Without You by David Guetta
Sky Full of Stars by Cold Play
Demons by Imagine Dragons
Odds Are by Bare Naked Ladies
It Could Have Been Me by The Struts
Brand New by Ben Rector
This Skip to Wreck by Florence and the Machine
Give Me A Try by the Wombats
Unsteady by X Ambassadors
Do I Want to Know by Arctic Monkeys
Hollow Life by Coast Modern
You’ll Always Be Loved By Me by Brooks and Dunn
Thank you to all of you who have helped me with this book and series. First, to my original reade
rs, Teale Bates and Hayley Heard. Wow, what a rough draft you both read but still loved it! Thanks to my sister, Mary LeFebvre for reading and finding everything I couldn’t find when I just couldn’t do it again.
Thanks to Lacy Griffin for making the cute swag bags filled with yummy smelling guitar soaps! Not only did the readers love them, my car and boxes never smelled so wonderful.
Thanks to Deb Carol at The Club, Elaine Marie, Johnna Nelson Seibert, and the many others who are forever helping me get my name out there! I can’t begin to say thank you enough.
Thank you to Kristen Grammar Lands for helping me get this book off the ground! Couldn’t have done it without your help.
Thank you Paige Prince for coming to my rescue mentally and showing me the way!
Thank you to Jaye Cox for introducing me to Swish Design and Editing.
I need to thank the great authors, PA’s, and Bloggers who invited me to do takeovers. Not only did I get to tell more people about my book but I got to interact with the great reader out there! Best of all, I made new author friends who I love already!
I would be remiss to not say a big thank you to Chris Genovese (C.C. Genovese) because he’s the greatest at just about anything he does, and I’m thrilled to call him my author friend!
Thank you so very much to Tiffany Simone for her poetry. I found her on Instagram and needed her poems or maybe we needed each other.
What a rollercoaster ride it’s been between Assure Her and His Distraction! I want to say a huge thank you to Kathryn Falk. She is full energy and life, and every opportunity I get to be around her, makes me want to do more, be more, and work harder to learn all I can from her huge wealth of knowledge.
Goodreads Links
Click on the links below to add to your TBR list.
Assured Distration Series
Assure Her (Assured Distration Book One) – Keeton’s Story
His Distraton Assurance Distration Book Two) – Ryan’s Story
His Assurance (Assured Distraction Book Three) – Gunners Story
Distrated No More (Assured Distration Book Four) – Carter’s Story
Amazon Links
Assure Her (Assured Distration Book One)
Website
http://www.thiafinn.com
Email
[email protected]
Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/ThiaFinn/?fref=ts
Goodreads
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14206242.Thia_Finn
Growing up in small town Texas, Thia Finn discovered life outside of it by attending The University of Texas, only to return home and marry her high school sweetheart. They raised two successful and beautiful daughters while she taught middle school Language Arts and eventually became a middle school librarian. After thirty-four years, she retired to do her favorite things, like travel, spend time off-roading with family and friends, hanging out at the Frio River, reading, and writing.
She currently lives in the same small town where she grew up, with her husband and the boss, Titan, the Chihuahua. She can often be found stalking on social media, watching Outlanders, Vikings or Game of Thrones to name a few on Netflix.