you even if there weren’t otters. I’m not saying this just because you’re now an award-winning otter enclosure builder.”
She just watched him for several seconds.
“Mitch?” She blew out a breath. “Am I pushing? Am I going too fast? Is that even possible with a Landry?”
Finally, he crushed her to his chest and dragged in a long, shaky, deep breath. “Jesus, Paige,” was all he managed for several heartbeats.
When he thought he could speak, he pulled back and looked down at her. “I love you, too. So much. I… need you. I never want you to leave. Stay. Or I’ll come with you. Or whatever. But I love you, and I want to be with you. We don’t have to get married or anything. That’s not the important part. Just be with me. Let me be with you. Let’s just… make memories.”
“History,” she said with a smile. “Let’s make some history.”
He nodded. “Yeah. Let’s have some stories to tell in fifty years.”
“Yeah.” Her eyes were watery. “But there’s just one other thing.”
“Anything.”
“Would you let me propose to you? Eventually? In maybe a year or two? I mean, I’ll obviously do it at Ellie’s in front of everyone and make a big production out of it. But would that be okay?”
“I…”
It took him a second to really hear what she’d said.
He was fully prepared to say yes to anything she asked. But this one definitely snuck up on him.
“Are you proposing to propose to me?”
She nodded. “Yes. I mean, we’re not ready for that. We haven’t known each other that long, and it’s a big step. But eventually, I think that’s a question I would definitely like to ask you. And you never ask anyone for anything, and hell, I don’t either. Because I don’t want people to ask me for stuff. And I thought that made us the perfect match. But the thing is, I need to say yes to things. I need to be involved. And I want that. I’ve realized that.”
“Well,” he said, his heart drumming hard and his mind whirling and happiness spreading through him. “I think if you need to start saying yes to people, then I probably need to start asking people for things.”
Slowly a smile curled her mouth. “Yeah, I guess you have a point.”
“So, maybe I should ask you something right now.”
Mitch watched her take in a huge gulp of air. Now would be the moment when he’d expect her to bolt. Or at least push him back. Or start shaking her head, at least. He knew exactly what she was thinking he was thinking.
But she did none of those things.
In fact, she put her hands on his chest and gripped his shirt in her fists.
She met his gaze directly and took another deep breath. “Okay. I’m ready.”
His heart expanded, almost painfully. “Will you be my otter enclosure grand opening planner?”
She didn’t even blink.
She said nothing.
“With the weddings, everything with this has been kind of thrown together on the side, and we’ve got like cookies and balloons and that might be it, and… I’ve decided I want it to be a big deal.” He really did. Now that he’d admitted it, it felt good. “And you’d be perfect at it. You have a gift. It’s not that different from a wedding, right?”
She took a breath. But still said nothing.
“Okay, it’s different from a wedding. It’s not that big of a deal, but—”
“Are the cookies at least shaped like otters?”
He stopped. Frowned. And then shook his head. “Regular round cookies, I’m pretty sure.”
“That will not do,” she said. “I’m going to have to see if Josie knows where we can get an otter cookie-cutter shipped overnight, and then we’re going to be up baking in Cora’s kitchen late tonight.”
Happiness and love spread through him. “We’ve got plenty of hands to help out.”
She nodded. She was playing with the front of his shirt, but clearly, her mental wheels were turning. About the party. Not about how her hands on him drove him crazy.
“I think we should tell the story about how Gus became part of the family,” she said.
Gus was the first otter who had adopted the Landrys. He’d been orphaned and had lived under the Boys of the Bayou dock. Everyone had a Gus story.
“I think we should take people down to the dock and show them his first home. Then we can take them out on a boat tour and show them how otters live in the wild. We then come back and tell