Falling in love with Clay was life altering, but moving into a new home and accepting his proposal opened my eyes to how our lives would entwine and work together as we approached our forever.

I watched while he made our house ours while also taking the time to thoroughly check out every operation that his team was offered, rather than - as he told me - taking whatever was sent to them without any questions was amazing. He took things in stride that I might have had a minute or more concern about what it meant for the future, not even blinking hard when Carrie and Jake came back from their honeymoon and told him what I already knew about their impending visitor.

"Aren't you worried about -" but he just smiled and shook his head before I could ask what Jake becoming a father might mean in regards to his place on the team.

"Not only am I not worried," he pulled me closer, since I tried to give him space while Jake had stuttered through the announcement, forcing Carrie to take over and blurt it out as a fact, take it or leave it. "I'm happy for them." He wasn't content with how close he'd managed to get me, so he deftly lifted me onto his lap without hesitation. "Pooch is a dad, and married, too."

Right, Paul aka Pooch got leave to visit his family and was now living happily with his wife and son, ready to answer the call whenever Clay found a mission he felt was right for them. I'd met his wife, Jolene and infant son when they'd come to Carrie's wedding. She was sweet and looked more than a little interested in Clay and me, but Pooch had left right after the bouquet toss, in a hurry to return to his real life.

I studied him, this man who's name I would share, and had to marvel at this side of him. He was more at ease than I'd ever seen him, and I hadn't known how stressed MAX and their bullshit was weighing on him until he realized how much danger I was in - even then he wasn't pulling his hair out or freaking out, but this side of him was almost lazy.

"What?" He was staring at me, his hands cradling my face and our noses just a whisper apart. "You're looking at me like you never laid eyes on me before."

Shaking my head, I closed what little space was between us and our foreheads touched, along with our noses, and I sighed at how his calmness was contagious. "You are -" but I didn't get a chance to finish, not when the temptation of our mouths being so close made kissing possible, and once we started - well Franklin Clay wasn't the type of man who left anything undone.

I told Carrie during lunch a few days later - about how I'd finally accepted his proposal and her eyes went to my ring finger, but it was bare. Squinting in confusion, she wanted answers - now.

Laughing, I told her that Clay wanted me to come with him to pick it out and we'd been busy since her wedding.

"Busy," the shrewd look she shot me told me she knew precisely how we were diverting ourselves from important shit like engagement rings and wedding planning, but then her eyes almost glowed and I felt something I hadn't felt near her since Matthew and Xavier had his goons hold us hostage and tortured her as my mouth kept both of us in trouble. That time it was fear FOR her, this time it was fear FROM her. Shit. "Guess we have another wedding to plan." Fuck.

"By 'we' who are you including in that planning?" I thought leaving George and Davey out wasn't going to be easy, but since I'd stood up for her, I supposed I could tell them it was a "girls' thing"... Maybe?

Snorting in a way I wondered if Jake had ever seen or heard from her, she rolled her eyes and included my uncles and surprisingly her new husband and my impending one. "I mean, we can't leave out the head commando and his man on the ground, can we?"

That's all it took to break the tension that had been growing in me, the idea that George and Davey wouldn't be a part of our planning and the knowledge that Clay would be by my side during almost every step between now and the walk to the altar was almost enough to tame the butterflies growing at the idea of how we'd pull off a simple wedding. And fast, because I think I've made him wait enough.

The only thing that Clay - and by extension Jake - were barred from was my dress selection. Carrie and my uncles allowed all the superstition to creep into that one particular task and when George, ever the center of reason in these matters, told me it would be a crime to take away Clay's first look at me in my gown as I walked toward him to the altar. Ok, the image that he put in my head with that simple reminder made leaving him and Jake to do whatever the two of them did on the rare occasions that Carrie and I weren't around a little easier.

There should be a fucking law against so much lace and white in one building, and I didn't hold my voice down when I shared my feelings with the trio accompanying me. Luckily the owner of the boutique - a lovely woman named Monique - chose to feign ignorance or deafness to my impolite utterance and instead realized who I was when Davey told her he'd made an appointment.

It irritated me how the name "Ramble" could make people open doors and pretend they gave a rancid shit about me - of course my mother's last name worked just as well, if not better.

After hours, or so it seemed, of lacy white concoctions that made me look like a fluffy cupcake from hell - I heard Carrie make a noise that chilled me to the bone for its sharpness. Then she came around the partition that I was hidden behind with a dress that almost made the entire day worth it. A pearly off white dress made of a heavier satin without a hint of lace in sight, I almost made an identical sound when I finally let it slip over me, happy to see that it tucked in the right places and while the slit was high, the fabric was folded over so it wasn't indecent. Off my shoulders, with a bodice that showed just the right amount of cleavage, I was even more excited and surprised when my hands slipped into pockets - I knew, even before I moved away from the partition to show my uncles, I'd found it. My wedding dress.

Open-toed crystal adorned heels joined the dress, along with undergarments that I was promised wouldn't show, no matter how hard I danced or how high Clay searched for the bridal garter. And then I was done, at least with that part of planning.

Clay happily informed our planning group that there was one thing he wasn't willing to let them all traipse along with us for - my rings. And his, I reminded him, but he just smiled and went with it.

A trip out of town, even if we did have a jeweler nearby, and I realized he wanted - no we needed - some time away from questions about flowers, colors, and the micromanaged crap that came along with a wedding.

We crossed into the nearest real city and I felt all the weight of the burdens that I hadn't really noticed lighten. Our fingers linked as he drove with one hand and I knew he was feeling less stress too.

We weren't staying long, a weekend away, but as we checked into the luxurious hotel he'd picked we both knew a weekend would be enough - at least until we said "I Do" and could disappear on the honeymoon he was planning.

I thought we'd check in and put the "Do Not Disturb" sign up and leave the rings for last, but he surprised me again - dropping our bags and asking if I wanted to freshen up before we went back out.

Blinking at him like a shocked owl, thinking that I must have misheard the last part of his question. Surely he wanted to know if I needed to freshen up before we tore one another's clothes off and got around to fully destressing, but he was waiting - not a hint that he planned on taking off his shoes or pulling off his suit jacket. Well damn it.

First we had lunch, out and around other people, which was something I was still getting used to. Sharing him, and us, with the rest of the world after having all of our meals - and a shit ton of dessert - in my former apartment, was something that I had months to get comfortable over. Yet, if I were being honest, and I told the man who held my chair when I sat down so much he probably heard the words every time he passed a diner, restaurant, or bar - I preferred being alone with him so we could have dessert first, during, and after dinner whenever we wanted.

Clay loved being alone with me too, but he was reveling in being out and about - no fears of being seen and recognized, and now he had me with him it just made him happier to sit and linger over meals. Damn it, how do you argue with that?

We ate and then we made our way to the shopping part of town, walking down the street with our arms entwined and the freedom he was oozing began to creep into me. I was starting to lose some of the irritation with my lack of breakfast or dessert - depending on how one looked at it - and wanted to see what ideas Clay had for the ring he wanted to slip over my finger.

We window shopped while we made our way toward the first jeweler sign we noticed and any strain that might have lingered from the search for a dress disappeared while I listened to what kind of ring he was considering sliding onto my finger. I didn't worry that he would pick something ostentatious, he knew me far better than that, but I was a little surprised that he was planning on eschewing diamonds at the main stone, thinking that he'd rather go with emeralds or sapphires. And my shock must have shown clearly on my face.

"Your eyes are the oddest shade of green," he was smiling down at me as he explained his line of reasoning. "Dark green or dark blue, I don't know -" I'd never seen Clay look anything less that perfectly certain, but he was waiting for my input like he feared he'd gotten something wrong on a test.

"Diamonds aren't really this girl's best friend," biting my lip to keep from letting my smile grow into lunatic proportions, I nodded at the window display we were looking at - "Which one is the most like what you have in mind?"

I was a little concerned by how light my finger still felt, even after he'd slid the ring we both fell in love with - shouldn't the weight of our commitment start to grow once the metal and gemstone circle was wrapped around my ring finger. Proof that I'd said yes beaming in the afternoon sun should scream "what the fuck are you doing, Charlotte?!" shouldn't it?

"You keep looking at your hand like it's a bomb that hasn't gone off and you're waiting for it to," Clay's grin was growing when I looked up, caught in my musings. "Second thoughts?"

I shook my head and leaned into him, we hadn't gone back to the hotel yet, choosing to eat before we went back and then taking a more scenic route than the one that had led us to the jeweler that was probably still counting the money Clay plunked down for not only the ring on my finger, but the one he'd add to it on our wedding day and his matching band.

"Good," his lips brushed my temple and I could feel his lips curling against my skin. "Because I haven't got a single thought other than making you mine."

And once we got back to the hotel he showed me how he planned on sticking the course, as only he could.