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“SO WHAT’S THE CONSENSUS, DOC?” Sebastian asked from the exam table.
“It’s bad news, I’m afraid,” he said solemnly.
Sebastian had been prepared for this. He’d told himself he wouldn’t freak out. He and Kate had been spending almost all of their time together exploring every facet of Tallulah Cove, and there was still so much more to explore in mid-coast Cali.
Later that day, they were supposed to meet up with her friend Jeremy, the car guy, who had gotten his hot little hands on a 1967 Dodge Coronet convertible. One of only two made.
Sebastian wanted that sucker.
Other than frequenting local businesses and restaurants, they’d begun having Friday night game nights with Ben, Abby, and the kids.
The kids had even gone so far as to call him Uncle Sebby, something that made Kate growly.
Or maybe it was the hundred or so more times he’d asked her to marry him.
He looked forward to the new and surprising ways she’d learned to say no. The most recent being a straight middle finger pressed against his nose while she sipped her coffee and stared out at the sea. It was a little uninspired, but totally her.
Eventually, he’d get her to say yes, and he’d run, not walk, to the nearest courthouse and get it done.
“Well, it looks like you’ve got a lot of travel ahead of you because you’re all clear to return to practice.”
His ears buzzed, and his skin tingled. “What?”
“You’re going to play ball again. You’ll need to take it slow and work all summer to get ready for spring training, but you’re healed,” Dr. Kentwood said with a confident smile.
“No surgery?”
“Nope,” the doctor said with a shake of his head. “We’ll continue to watch it, and you might need surgery one day in the future if you injure it again, but we’ll worry about that then, if it happens at all.”
“Thank you,” Sebastian said on a whoosh of breath, reaching out to shake the man’s hand and pull him in for a hard hug.
Sebastian burst out the exam room door and shot his fist into the air. “I’m cleared!” he yelled in the waiting room full of people there to see the multiple doctors who had offices in the building.
The magazine Kate had been looking at fell to the floor, and she shot to her feet. “Really?”
He picked her up and twirled her in the air. “You bet that sweet ass of yours!”
She smacked his shoulder and glanced around. “Oh, my God...shhhh!”
“What? Did I lie?” Sebastian said, casting a glance at the faces around them.
An older dude with a long beard shook his head and grinned from right behind Kate. “Nope.” His gaze landed on Kate’s pinched look, and he held up a hand. “Meanin’ no disrespect. It’s just hard to miss with it spinning in my face is all.”
“You’re forgiven,” she said, giving him a wink. “Now, you,” she said, turning back to Sebastian. “Put me down, you’re making a fool of yourself.”
“Marry me.”
Her lips parted on a gasp. “Bite me.”
“Marry me,” he said again.
“You’re not going to stop, are you?”
He smiled and right there in the office pressed his lips to the swell of her breast rising over the neckline of her tank top while still holding her in the air, pinned to him.
“Nope. As a matter of fact, I’m not putting you down until you say yes,” he said as he headed for the door with her in his arms.
“This is ridiculous!” she said with a hard kick.
The double doors slid open, and he carried her out into the California sunshine. “You should just say yes before my shoulder gives out carrying you, and you sideline me for good.”
“So you’re saying I’d be saving you?” Her question came out in staccato as she bounced with each step.
“From career ruination, yes.”
“From your own stupidity is more like it,” she muttered.
“That too,” he said with a laugh, stopping next to his car. “Marry me, dammit.”
She cupped his face and smiled down at him. “You’re a persistent shit. I’ll give you that.”
“And?”
She sighed. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”
He let her slide to her feet, and the minute she hit pavement, he took that hot mouth of hers in a fiery, all-consuming kiss that had them both gasping when they finally broke apart.
“Not that I want to jinx it, but what made you say yes this time?”
“It was time. I think you’d be torn about going with your team otherwise, and you need to be on the field,” she said.
“Trying to get rid of me already, woman,” he said, his throat thick with emotion that she understood just how much his career, his dream meant to him.
“On the contrary. I’m banking on never having to let you go,” she said, memories storming in her eyes.
“I love you,” he said with a kiss to her forehead.
“And I love you...so don’t forget your way home,” she whispered.
“Never.”
Are you ready for the next Tallulah Cove novella, Tallulah Trouble featuring
Sebastian’s sister, Graziella?
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ABOUT CASEY HAGEN
Casey Hagen pens her snarky, passionate stories from the salty air of Kennebunk, Maine. She’s a born and raised Vermont native, a New England girl to the core, with Ben & Jerry’s in her heart and real Vermont maple syrup pumping through her veins.
She’s the proud mother of three girls and a new, first-time grandma with an insatiable addiction to Fall Out Boy, and a new, rather concerning obsession with tattoos and piercings. Can you say “cool grandma?”
The inked and pierced grandma spends her time tucked away in her office, coated in cat hair, alternating between tearing her hair out trying to find the perfect words and being one step ahead of her three scheming fur babies she is positive are plotting her demise with every swirl around her ankles at the top of her office stairs.
She loves writing stories about real people, with complicated histories, relatable everyday problems, and giving them the hard-won happily-ever-afters they deserve.
And she thanks every last one of you who picks up one of her stories.
Casey is done talking about herself in the third person.
*Casey out*
Find the Tallulah Cove Series here:
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