Fate Actually (Moonstone Cove #2) - Elizabeth Hunter Page 0,60
you are, okay?
Oh. Right. Kill me now.
“Henry?”
“Yes?”
“I told you I was in love with you earlier, didn’t I?”
“Yes, you did.” The hand stroking her temple moved down to stroke her back. “Don’t try to take it back. I know you weren’t lying.”
“Right.” That was it? That was all she was getting. She’d bared her soul in an anger-induced bout of emotional clarity and all she got was “don’t take it back”?
“I love you too,” he said. “And since you can feel my emotions, you don’t have to wonder if it’s true.”
Toni’s heart raced in wild panic until Henry’s hand stroked down her back again. She took a deep breath, listened to the steady thump of his heart, and settled into the warm glow.
Because now that he’d named it, she knew it was what she’d been feeling for months. Not infatuation. Not sexual compatibility. Far more than affection.
Love. She’d been feeling love.
Chapter 20
“So you spilled the beans, huh?” Megan sipped her coffee as they sat on her porch Monday morning.
Katherine had called to check on Toni after she drove off with Henry, and Megan had gone to her house. She placated both of them by taking the day off work and chilling out at the house since she was emotionally exhausted.
Katherine had to work, but Megan came to check on her and steal her sweet, sweet caffeine.
“Yeah, I kind of told him everything,” Toni said. “He was so pissed and I didn’t know how to explain anything, so I thought I’d show him. Remember your stupid pistachio trick with Baxter?”
“So you figuratively floated a pistachio in front of Henry’s face?”
“More accurately, I sucked all his anger out and absorbed it, which turned me into a pissed-off psychic with more emotions than brains.”
Megan cackled. “I so wish I could have seen that.”
“I was frighteningly honest,” Toni said. “I told him about me, about you and Katherine, about what I was doing to Ron Withers. Then I told him I was in love with him. So that happened.” She stared at her barn. Did it need paint? Probably it needed paint. And a new door.
“Back up—you told Henry you love him?”
“I did.” She stared at the barn. Yep, it definitely needed a new door. “I did do that.”
“Okay.” Megan stared at her. “And how was that?”
“Very awkward. And then very not awkward because he told me he loved me too. And it was very nice. Very… reassuring. I’m ninety percent sure these feelings have nothing to do with the pregnancy.”
“Okay.”
“But now I’m questioning everything,” she said. “Also, I need a new barn door.”
“You need a new…? Toni!” Megan shook her head. “Don’t. Don’t question it, okay? It’s been obvious to both me and Katherine that you love him for weeks now. Honestly, I think you’ve probably loved him for a while and you were just getting caught up in all the reasons that you shouldn’t love him or it wouldn’t work for your life. Just go with it. Don’t make it so complicated.”
“That’s the problem though. It is complicated. It doesn’t work for my life. What do you think is going to happen? Henry’s going to move in here with his giant dog and shack up with me and we’re going to be some happy little nuclear family with a dog and a cat and a baby and… stuff?”
Megan shrugged. “That sounds perfectly reasonable. You have all the things you like about your life, just with a wonderful guy and a kid added to it.”
“I never wanted a dog.”
“You love dogs. Don’t be weird.”
The problem, as Toni saw it, was that she was getting all the things she didn’t realize she wanted, and it just seemed… way too easy. “Life just doesn’t fall into place like this, Atlanta. Haven’t you learned that? Nothing is this easy.”
Megan turned to her with a frown settled between her eyes. “Listen. I did all the things in the order I was supposed to, exactly when the world told me I was supposed to. Went to college, had a profession I loved. Married a man with a solid job and a nice family. Had three kids. Did all the things a working mom is supposed to do with a healthy bank account and a team of support staff. Then I moved out here and it all fell apart.” She threw up fingers as she counted. “No husband. No business. No support system. All gone.”