“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Willow exclaimed. “I just got a contract on that house yesterday.”
Heather’s spirits fell. She’d been so certain the house was meant to be hers. “Oh, no, I loved that house.”
“To be honest, you can do much, much better,” the Realtor assured her. “I have several other properties that might suit you if you’re looking for something on the water.”
Heather sighed. “No. I had my heart set on that one.”
“I suppose I could take your name in case the contract falls through,” the Realtor offered, “but I wouldn’t hold out much hope. The buyer’s background is solid. He’s not going to have a bit of trouble getting financing. Of course, you never know. Sometimes people get buyer’s remorse. That could happen, especially once they start assessing the cost of doing renovations or a tear-down.”
“They might tear it down?” Heather asked, horrified.
“That’s certainly what I would do,” Willow said. “But I don’t know what the buyer has in mind.”
“Well, please take my name and number anyway,” Heather said, though she knew she was clinging to a false sense of hope. It was obviously too late. The house had slipped right through her fingers. Unreasonably, she blamed Connor for that. He’d jinxed it all with his doubts. If only she’d made that call herself much sooner, instead of leaving it to him.
She was staring despondently at the phone when someone knocked on the door, then opened it with a key. Connor again, she knew. His timing couldn’t have been worse. She frowned at him.
“What are you doing here?”
“I came to see if you were in a cheery mood today,” he said, grinning at her. “Guess not.”
“Go to—”
He cut her off with a chiding look, then asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Somebody bought my house,” she told him.
“Really?” he asked.
Something in his tone caught her attention. “Do you know anything about that? You’d already talked to the Realtor, hadn’t you? That’s why you came by, to let me down gently.”
He shook his head. “Not exactly.”
“Oh? Were you planning to gloat?”
“No.” He tossed something at her, which she snatched instinctively from the air.
“What’s this?” she asked, clasping what appeared to be a rusty piece of metal.
“The key to your dream house,” he told her.
She stared at him incredulously. “It was you? You bought my house?”
“I did.”
“But why? You hated it. Did you just do it to torment me?”
He seemed startled by the accusation. “Of course not. Why would I want to torment you? You wanted the house. I bought the house for us, for our future.”
“But there is no us,” she said, unable to stop the sense of betrayal that washed over her. “That means you bought it for you. How could you, Connor?”
He held up a hand. “Hold it a second. You fell in love with that house. Heaven knows why, but you did. I bought it. My dad’s going to renovate it to your specifications. I’m not seeing the problem here. I thought you’d be happy.”
“Happy to have you living in the house I wanted?” she asked incredulously. “Why would that make me happy?”
Connor shook his head. “Okay, I think we need to back up the train a minute. I thought I explained this. I bought the house for us,” he explained patiently. “You, me and little Mick, in case I wasn’t clear enough.”
“I’m not going to move in with you again just because you bought a house,” she said with exasperation.
Suddenly he laughed.
“Now you’re laughing at me? Just go away. I don’t want to see you right now.”
“Not going anywhere,” he said, pulling a chair over beside the sofa and sitting down. “I guess I forgot to mention that the house is my wedding present to you. You know, for when you decide to marry me.”
Heather tried not to let the suddenly rapid beating of her heart influence her reason. “But we’re not getting married,” she reminded him.
“Maybe not right away,” he said agreeably. “But we will.”
“I told you—”
“You’ve told me a lot of things and, believe me, I’ve heard every one of them. I’m just choosing not to accept that particular statement. I get why you said no. Who could blame you? I’ve been a pigheaded idiot for way too long now, but I have seen the light. I want what you want.”
She studied him with a narrowed gaze. He seemed sincere. And he had bought her the house she wanted. “What exactly is it that you think I want?” she asked cautiously, wanting more than anything for him to pass the test.
“Happily-ever-after,” he said at once. “A family, a house and a husband who loves you to distraction.”
“And you think you can give me that?”
“I know I can,” he said with total confidence.
“But you don’t believe in happily-ever-after,” she reminded him.
He hesitated, and that was all it took to ruin everything. That one shining moment of hope dimmed. She regarded him sadly.
“It’s okay, Connor. I know you want to want that, but it’s just not who you are. I’ve accepted that. You can stop trying so hard.”
To her surprise, his gaze never wavered. “Not a chance, sweetheart. I’ll never stop trying to prove that I’m ready for this.” He gave her a chagrined look. “It’s going to be a little hard to top buying a house for you, but I’ll come up with something to convince you.”
Heather regarded him with surprise. This was a Connor she’d never seen before. His words were familiar, but there was a glint of determination in his voice, an air of confidence about him that was new. And for the very first time, she wondered if maybe things were different, after all.
* * *
Though he’d worked very hard to present a determined attitude in the face of Heather’s skepticism, Connor was thrown by the fact that she was still resisting his proposal. He joined Will at Brady’s, in need of some masculine company. Men made sense. In his recent experience, women did not.
“So, I go against every
