It was a few minutes before they extricated themselves from their embrace enough for Jacob to slip the ring on her finger.
Perfect. She giggled and cried just a little when she saw it on her hand.
“So it’s really not too fast?” Jacob asked, reaching over for the champagne and popping the cork. “I know three months isn’t that long.”
“No. It’s not too fast at all, and we’ve been together way, way longer than three months. To tell you the truth, I kind of felt ready as soon as you returned from Alaska, but I’m glad we had these months to be together. To get used to being a couple. Now feels like exactly the right timing.”
“That’s what I thought too.” He handed her a glass and then leaned against the boulder, pulling her to his side and keeping his arm around her. “I wanted to ask you right away, but I made myself wait. Now I’m glad I did.”
She leaned over to kiss his jaw. “Me too.”
They stayed in their spot for most of the evening, eating, drinking, laughing, kissing, and making plans for their future. Ria couldn’t remember ever being happier.
And the next day they got to tell everyone in town that Azalea’s most tragic love story had finally gotten a happy ending.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: The Second Chance Flower Shop series continues with the second book, The Rebound. You can find an excerpt from it on the following pages.
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Excerpt from The Rebound
MADELINE ENDED UP HAVING a fabulous day. She got to Richmond around lunchtime, so she went to one of her favorite restaurants and had lunch before heading to the store. There, she spent two hours and ended up buying an armful of book. Only two were higher than her normal price range, so the purchases didn’t even make her feel too guilty.
She stopped for a frozen coffee drink for the drive home. The sun was out. The day was deliciously warm with a touch of autumn briskness in the air. She rolled down her windows and turned music up loud, singing with some of her favorite songs on the drive home.
Most of the route was a two-lane country road without much traffic. It was mostly straight and mostly flat, so nothing slowed her down.
So, yes, she was driving too fast. She’d been having fun. Feeling as wild as it was possible for her to feel.
Free.
And it all came crashing down like a load of bricks when she saw flashing lights on the car behind her.
Damn it all to hell. She knew the car that belonged to those flashing lights. It was the county sheriff, and he was pulling her over for speeding.
She slowed down and pulled over onto the shoulder immediately, taking a few deep inhales and trying to control her suddenly ragged breathing. She was a rule-follower by nature. She’d never gotten a speeding ticket before. And stupidly it was the idea of being caught doing something wrong that upset her a lot more than the fine she’d have to pay.
She should have known her one pitiful attempt at freedom would end like this.
With Ken Harley giving her a ticket.
Ken had been elected sheriff five years ago and reelected last year. She’d known him most of her life, since he’d been a sheriff’s deputy when she’d been a teenager. He was a nice-looking, easy-going man in his mid-thirties. Although he was older than them, he occasionally hung out with her social group, since he was friends with Ria’s fiancé, Jacob.
It was pretty embarrassing that he’d just caught her speeding.
She looked back in her rearview mirror and saw he was getting out of the blue, unmarked sedan he always drove.
He was a big man with broad shoulders, long legs, and thick thighs.
She gulped, looking at him approach in her side mirror. She wasn’t sure why she was thinking about the breadth of his thighs, but they looked very fine in the tan trousers.
The uniform also consisted of a brown button-down shirt and a jacket with a sheriff’s star on the chest. It wasn’t the most attractive of outfits, but he managed to wear it well. He had light brown hair that gleamed gold in the sun. It looked like he needed to shave.
She stared at him speechlessly as he approached her window.
When the holy hell had Ken Harley gotten so hot?
She was in such a jittery state that she didn’t realize her window was still rolled up until he leaned over and tapped on the glass.
Her cheeks burning, she rolled it down. “Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.”
Oh, she was brilliant when she was flustered. No doubt about that.
His expression was perfectly sober, but there was a clever gleam in his eyes as he bent over further to talk to her through the window. “What’s going on here, Ms. Jenkins.”
He always called her that. He had since she was sixteen years old. Even though she was used to it, for some reason it bothered her today. Like he was treating her like a boring old spinster instead of an attractive young woman.
She wasn’t as pretty as Skye or Ria. At least she’d never believed herself to be. She had shoulder-length hair in a medium blond, steel-gray eyes, and a curvy figure. She wasn’t bad looking, but she also wasn’t gorgeous.
But still... Ken didn’t have to treat her like he would his grandmother.
“Nothing’s going on.” Because she was off-balance, her tone was a bit more defiant than it normally would have been. “I was driving too fast. Go ahead and give me a ticket.”
Ken’s eyes were very blue. Much bluer than she’d realized before. They
