“You were? Miss me that much?”

Lacey’s heart stopped. “More than you’ll ever know.”

“I miss you more than that,” he said with a wink that sent heat straight between her legs.

She giggled as she sucked in a deep breath. “Nine more days without you is going to be torture. I want to feel you against me,” she whispered and he nodded.

“I want the same thing, sweetheart. I do,” he said roughly. “Only nine days and then you are mine.”

“Mmm. I can’t wait,” she said, beaming at him. When he smiled back, all his pearly white teeth gleaming, love warmed her chest. Man, she loved him with such intensity. “Anyway, I was calling not only to say I love and miss you so much, but I am going home early.”

His grin fell as his brows came in. “Home?”

“Yeah, back to Chicago,” she said slowly, waiting for his face to change, but it didn’t. Instead, his brow furrowed more. “What’s wrong?”

“Lacey, Chicago isn’t your home anymore. Nashville is. With me.”

She paused, eyeing him. “I never said it wasn’t. I really didn’t even mean to say that. I’m just excited to go back.”

“Oh, really?” he asked, but sarcasm dripped from his voice.

“Yeah, Rachel called and she apologized. She wants me to come early so we can hang out and stuff. I figured since you weren’t home, I would go.”

Gauging by his reaction, she decided she must have figured wrong. “So Rachel just called out of the blue and apologized?”

Chewing the inside of her cheek, Lacey thought his statement through. The way he said it made it sound like it was suspicious, but that wasn’t the case. She knew Rachel and knew that she meant every word. “Yeah, she and Grady had been talking, and she came to the realization that she was wrong.”

“After a month, she finally decided that? I don’t think so, sounds a little fishy to me,” he said and that irritated Lacey.

“Rachel loves me, always has. She was just being selfish, and I forgive her for it.”

“Conveniently,” he muttered and Lacey was no longer irritated, she was pissed.

“What the hell does that mean?” she snapped as she sat up.

“I just think it’s funny how she all of a sudden wants to forgive you when I’m gone. It’s not like I can come up there with you, so now they can try to convince you to stay.”

Her brows came in as she shook her head. “She didn’t know you were gone.”

“But your dad does,” he pointed out. “And he probably told her, and then they thought up this master plan to get you to come back and ultimately stay.”

“That is crazy! Do you hear yourself? Come on, Karson.”

“He’s broken us up before, Lacey. Remember that,” he stated, but Lacey didn’t want to hear that.

“He has been very good to me lately. He hasn’t once talked bad about you while on the phone with me—”

“Doesn’t mean he isn’t running my name through the mud and plotting against us,” Karson said, interrupting her. “I just don’t trust them, and you’re so easily manipulated, Lacey. All you want is your family to accept us, but you don’t see that they can be conspiring against us.”

“Karson, stop! They wouldn’t do that. They want me to be happy, and they see who makes me happy. That’s you,” she snapped. Then glaring, she said, “Well, usually. Right now you’re just pissing me the hell off.”

“I don’t care. You aren’t thinking clearly. I’m trying to protect you.”

“I don’t need you to protect me from my own family. I’m fine and know how to handle them. You said yourself that they would come around, but now you are accusing them of plotting against us.”

“Yes, I thought they would, but it wouldn’t be the total 180 that both of them have done. Just yesterday you were talking about how big of a bitch Rachel was being, and now she calls and everything is sunshine and unicorns? That doesn’t set off any kind of alarms. Didn’t you talk to your dad yesterday?”

She had. But she wasn’t going to give Karson the satisfaction of knowing that. “I don’t see how that matters. She realized her wrongdoing and is rectifying it, Karson. Shouldn’t you be happy for me? I’m going to have my best friend back, my family.”

He shook his head, and all of a sudden, she was looking at the ground, his bare feet the only thing she could see. “Karson?” she asked, and finally his face was back on the screen.

“I don’t trust them,” he said, letting out a long breath. “And I’m freaking the fuck out thinking that they are going to talk you into staying, and I’ll lose you again.”

She’d wanted to be with him so much before, but at that moment, she would give anything to be in front of him. She wanted to wrap her arms around his neck, touch her lips to his, and just hold him. Maybe then he would see that she wasn’t going anywhere without him for good. “Karson, you aren’t going to lose me. I’m yours.”

“You were mine before, but then your dad ruined that.”

She paused, eyeing him. What the hell was going on? “I thought we buried that? I thought we were moving forward, not rehashing the past. What happened to believing in us?”

“I do, but do you?” he asked, meeting her gaze. “’Cause lately, you’ve been quiet, and I feel like you’re hiding shit.”