“I’ve told you before, this is where I want to be.”
“Forever?”
She hesitated for the space of a heartbeat, long enough to make his pulse thud dully.
“I think so,” she said eventually.
“Then marry me,” he said. “Commit to me, to staying here. If the lure of the river ever gets to be too much, it’ll always be there, ready to take you wherever you want to go. We can always go together.”
She sighed and turned to rest her head against his chest. He felt the dampness of tears soaking his shirt, touching his skin. A cold, wrenching fear swept through him then. He was going to lose her.
“I can’t,” she said, confirming his fear. “I can’t make that kind of commitment.”
“Tell me five good reasons why we shouldn’t get married,” he demanded, angered not so much by her words—he’d anticipated them—but by the aching emptiness left in their wake. He hadn’t expected to feel so panicked by her refusal.
“I could give you a thousand,” she countered.
“I’ll settle for one.”
“Ambition,” she said readily. “I have it. You don’t.”
Ambition? That was it? It might have amused him if she hadn’t been taking it so seriously. “I thought you’d stopped worrying about climbing the corporate ladder,” he said.
“What made you think a thing like that?”
“Have I missed something? Are you planning on running this little bed-and-breakfast of yours long distance? Maybe from France? Were you planning on having Aunt Delia cooking and straightening up after everybody while you raced back to be at Max’s side?”
“Of course not.” She hesitated. “I guess the truth is, though, I haven’t really thought much beyond getting the doors open the first weekend in September. I just assumed, well, that I’d take things as they come. One day at a time.”
She seemed totally bemused by how little thought she’d given to tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that. Nothing she might have said could have given him more hope. He regarded her with approval. She was coming along very well, after all. He only needed to give her a little more time and she would see how well suited they were. His day-by-day philosophy was taking hold nicely.
“Seems to me that’s evidence you’re getting to be almost as laid back as I am,” he told her.
She seemed shocked by the assessment. “That can’t be.” She regarded him worriedly. “Can it?”
“Looks that way to me.”
“Then why are you asking me to plan a whole future? You never think that far ahead.”
“Because it’s time, Gracie. For both of us. I love you. I think you love me. Marriage is what people in love do.”
“But I still haven’t figured out when you work,” she said a little plaintively.
“I get most of it done when I can’t sleep for thinking about you.”
“I keep you awake nights?” She seemed very pleased by that.
“Darlin’, it’s a wonder I’ve caught a wink of sleep since the day we met. I figure the only way I’ll ever catch up is for you and me to get married.”
She laughed at that. “Now there’s a romantic proposal if ever I’ve heard one.”
He grinned unrepentantly. “I suppose we could go on sleeping together instead. That would probably solve the problem every bit as well. In fact, we could get up to speed right now in that fancy new honeymoon bedroom you just decorated downstairs. Somebody ought to test it before you take in your first paying guests.”
“Nice try,” she said, but her heart wasn’t in it. In fact, she seemed distracted.
He studied her worriedly. “Gracie? What’s really going on? Talk to me.”
“Nothing,” she said, and wandered off without giving him a chance to ask her any more uncomfortable questions.
Fighting disappointment, Kevin let her go. He’d been thinking about marrying Gracie for a long time now, ever since Aunt Delia and half the town had begun planting the idea in his head. He supposed Gracie deserved a little time to get used to the idea.
There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that she hated the idea at the moment. Hated it almost as much, in fact, as he’d disliked this scheme of hers to go into business with Aunt Delia. Not that that was working out too badly, something she liked to point out to him on a regular basis. Those two were like two peas in a pod, a couple of born conspirators. No wonder Delia had been so taken with Gracie from the moment they’d met.
Living with Aunt Delia had never been dull. Marrying Gracie promised to be equally rewarding. More so even, if you threw in the way she aroused him without half trying.
Besides, Gracie was the only woman—the only person—he knew who didn’t need anything from him. Her independence was her best—and scariest—trait. Until he’d spoken with his grandmother, he hadn’t had a clue about where he’d fit into her life if she didn’t have to rely on him the way everybody else in his family did. Now it all made sense to him.
Even when she’d been scurrying away, anxious to escape the pressure of having to say yes or no to his proposal, he’d seen a hint of longing in her eyes. Gracie wanted what he was offering. He knew it. It just terrified her, the same way it did him. Committing to forever was a risky business.
So he’d give her the time she needed to think it over and evaluate it, do a damned cost-benefit analysis if that’s what she needed to do. If she came up with any more rational objections, he’d counter them. After all, he had love on his side, and rumor had it, especially among a certain group of Seagull Point gossips, that love conquered all.
26
There wasn’t a single moment all through August when Gracie wasn’t a hundred percent aware of Kevin watching her, and waiting for an answer to his proposal. Not even the thousand last-minute
