or the but or...where she was going with this. He didn’t dare hope. Did he?
She wove their fingers together and he kept his gaze on hers, trying to read her. “Rachel?”
“Yeah?”
“When you were pacing on the sidewalk over there, when I came outside... You were trying to plan out what you were going to say to me, weren’t you?”
She laughed. “Maybe.”
“What else you got?”
“I love you. You love me. We...should be together, don’t you think?”
“Uh, yeah,” he said slowly. “Last time I tried to make that point you ditched me.” Unable to stop himself, he drew her closer, until their bodies touched, chest-to-chest, thigh-to-thigh. “And then I spent half the night following you home to make sure you made it safely, since that bus idea of yours didn’t work out so well.”
“Crap. Busted. You followed me? In your truck?”
“On foot. And once I saw your light go on in your house, I walked back to get my truck.”
“Why in the...?”
“That love thing you mentioned. I knew you wouldn’t get on a bus.”
“I was fine walking by myself.”
“I know. I saw.” He smiled, his heart hammering and his head feeling light and airy. “Could we get back to the matter at hand? You said you couldn’t be with me. What changed in the past two weeks?”
She let his hand go and reached into her back pocket, producing a folded-up, ripped-out page. She held it out to him.
“A love letter?” he said with a goofy grin.
“Read it.”
He unfolded the paper and recognized Noelle’s feminine handwriting.
“I ripped that out of her journal,” Rachel said, watching his face expectantly as he read.
He read about when Noelle had called Rachel with news of their engagement. A couple sentences in, he paused. “That must have been a tough phone call to handle.”
She shrugged, never breaking eye contact. “In a way. You have to believe I was thrilled for her more than I can say....”
“I believe it completely. I got a sense of the bond between you two just from the way she talked about you. She would have been just as excited for you had the tables been turned.”
“Read the rest.”
He did and nodded the whole time, not surprised at all but yet again affected by the depth of the sisters’ love for each other. When he finished, he handed it back to her. “Yeah.”
“Yeah?” Rachel folded the paper and put it back in her pocket. “That’s all?”
He pulled her into a tight hug and lifted her off the ground for a second, closing his eyes and inhaling the no-nonsense clean scent of her and feeling his chest expand with so much love. “She said the same things to me on more than one occasion. She loved you so much, Rachel. Wanted nothing more than for you to fall in love and be over-the-moon, crazy happy.”
Rachel stared at him, her eyes crinkling with the broadest smile he’d ever seen on her. “I am. Over-the-moon, crazy happy. Or I will be.”
“Will be?”
“I’m waiting for you to tell me we’re okay. That we can have what she wanted me to have. What I’ve always dreamed of having.” She thumped his chest lightly. “You’re cruel.”
He laughed and leaned down to kiss her, pouring all of his love into it and then some. “How’s that for cruel?” he said minutes later when he finally broke the contact.
She took a second to catch her breath. “Your ‘cruel’ is definitely a start.”
“Only a start?”
“I’m kind of wondering where we go from here.”
There was no question in his mind about where they went. “So I’m late for an appointment,” he said, conversationally.
Rachel narrowed her eyes and tilted her head in confusion, making him laugh.
“It’s relevant, I promise.”
“Where’s your appointment?”
“My Realtor called me a couple of hours ago. There’s a home right on the bay that’s about to be listed. She’s giving me an early heads-up because she made a killing on the sale of my beachside condo.”
“Yeah?” she said, running her hand over his chest, goose bumps of excitement breaking out on her arms.
“Not many homes on the bay,” he said.
“And they never come up for sale.”
“Almost never. But the best part? Apparently this one has its own little boathouse, just the right size for a couple of kayaks.”
Rachel laughed and kissed him again. “It sounds perfect.”
“Good. Because the mortgage payment’s a little steep. I was thinking it’d be best if I had a roommate.”
“A roommate?”
“There are three bedrooms, two baths. Not that big of a kitchen, so I’m looking for someone who