He backed out of the door, two hands held up in a placating gesture. Once he was gone, Lizbeth set aside her laptop and crooked a finger at me. Ever her obedient servant, I closed the distance between us. Her body pressed against mine as I wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled her into me. She hooked her legs around my midsection and pressed our lips softly together.
“I love it when you do that,” I murmured against her lips.
Startled, she pulled back. “What?”
“Put Mark in his place.” I grinned. “It’s super sexy.”
She tilted her head back and laughed, but didn’t let me go. “I appreciate his help in starting my own company to help people with online coding problems, but it’s my company. Not his.”
“The flexibility you have doing an online job is amazing. Since Mark isn’t charging you rent in exchange for free tech support.”
“He couldn’t afford me otherwise,” she said with a wicked smile.
I laughed and ran my hand over her thighs, then up her back. She stared into my eyes, all warmth, light, and hope. Snow fell outside. Christmas lights glowed from the office—put up by Justin under her strict supervision. A small Christmas tree decorated by Megan and Justin was visible through the front window. The festive mood of the season had lightened all of us.
Next to us lay a well-worn and familiar binder covered in pink hearts. She’d obnoxiously scrawled Lizbeth and JJ’s Love Binder and kept daily tallies of all the most romantic things we did. At the top of her list? “Snuggle on the couch while JJ makes me laugh” came just before “read quietly while JJ plots out new climbs.”
I wholeheartedly agreed. Lizbeth was my kind of romance.
“Can you believe it’s Christmas Eve?” she asked.
“No.”
“Cinnamon rolls for Christmas breakfast sound perfect, by the way.” She pressed her forehead to mine, nose adorably wrinkled. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I think you have great ideas.”
“You were my best idea.”
She smiled. “I also agree with that.”
Breathless, I could only stare at her for a moment. She wore a little Santa hat with a white shirt and red Christmas pajama pants that clashed horribly with her hair. Her slippers were obnoxiously fuzzy, and she smelled like evergreen.
Somehow, she was mine.
I stepped back and reached into my pocket. My hand trembled as I set a box on her leg, my fingers closed around it.
“I have your Christmas present right here,” I said.
Her expression brightened. “Do I get it a day early?” she squealed.
Shakily, I grinned. “If you want it. I wanted to give it to you when we were alone so I could just . . . watch you.”
She sobered, and her hands came to rest on my shoulders. “JJ?” she asked breathlessly.
I pulled her off the counter and set her gently on the ground. Then I dropped to one knee and opened the box. My voice shook when her hands rose to her face, covering a startled gasp. Her eyes grew wide as saucers.
“Lizbeth, I love you. I love you more than I ever knew possible. I will always love you. I will always protect you. I will always be here, through the good and the bad, the fun and the scary. You’ll never be alone, and you will never be unloved. Will you marry me?”
For an interminable amount of time, she simply stared at me, frozen, most of her face hidden behind her fingers.
A bolt of fear struck me.
Then her hands fell.
Tears sparkled on her cheeks.
My heart stammered.
“Yes.”
She whispered it as she reached out to touch my face. The wetness of a teardrop lingered on her fingertip.
“Yes?” I repeated.
“Yes!” she cried. “JJ, yes!”
I leapt to my feet and swept her into my arms. We whirled around the kitchen, laughing, until I stopped and slid the ring onto her finger. A pink diamond, heart shaped, sat in the middle of a circle of smaller white diamonds. The simple setting looked perfect against her skin.
With tears in her eyes, she studied it, then me.
“Was this enough?” I asked with a quick glance around us at the warm kitchen. “Was it . . . romantic and . . .”
“JJ, I’ve never felt anything more perfect. I’ve never felt so loved. This was romantic perfection.”
I sealed our future with a kiss. Lizbeth melted against me and I caught her. I always would.
Runaway
Are you ready for the next installment in the Coffee Shop Series?
Runaway is next, and I can’t wait for you to meet Stella Marie, accountant extraordinaire, and woman that just wants to disappear. And it’s not just the people from her past that she’s evading, but now she has to hide from one of her most difficult clients—Mark Bailey.
Here’s a sneak peek.
RUNAWAY
Chapter 1
Stella Marie
Drizzling rain pattered my windshield as I stared at a cabin built by long wooden logs stacked on top of each other. Faded white lines lay between each log, making it look ancient. Rain stained the logs a darker shade of brown, and a little wisp of smoke rose above the chimney despite the rain.
The longer I sat out here in my beater car that didn't even have a real license plate yet, the weirder this whole situation became.
And it was already pretty weird.
Still, there was one man that could help me, and that man both resented my existence and desperately needed it. He also proudly lived the life of a hermit in the mountains—I mean, who bragged about that?—and hated all details.
Mark Bailey.
And that alone seemed pretty ridiculous, but so was this entire situation.
A few more moments passed while I rallied my courage. In fact, I prepared myself like this every time I had to talk to Mark. I'd clutch the phone for a few minutes, think through every sentence that I had to say, and then hope that he didn't wander off on a list of his ideas. Eventually, he would wander. He'd talk things out, and I'd have to pull him back to reality and
