Selena didn’t know how he’d done it, but he had. Drake had managed to solve the electrical outage at her home, pitched in at Heaven’s Brew, and avoided all her matchmaking diversions. In fact, he had managed to turn the tables against her throughout the weeks, convincing the seven diversions she’d sent his way to help him with his plan.
Last week, she had seen Drake and the girls talking at one table and thought she might have succeeded with her diversions. After serving several customers around their table, she noticed they’d stop talking. The girls had the same smiles she was sure she’d worn when her diversions had worked on the other guys.
The bell jingled.
Drake walked in, his face slightly red from jogging in the sun, holding a piece of paper. He waited until she had finished with her customers and asked Josh, one of the high school kids, if he could take over. She thanked Josh and undid her apron.
Drake led her into the back room before he handed her the folded paper. “It’s a small lead one of the investigators I told you about found.”
She hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath. She turned, not wanting to cry in front of him. He drew her into his arms, giving her support without invading her private thoughts. She was glad he hadn’t delivered the information and left. Trembling, she unfolded the paper.
It was an obituary. Her sister’s.
Somehow she had known the answer.
Cause of death: natural causes. Private viewing had been for family only. She had been cremated.
Selena needed to get out of here or she would lose it again in front of her staff. And Drake.
“I’m going for a walk,” she said.
He followed her out the back entrance, giving no room for her to go alone.
They walked in silence until they were out of town. She couldn’t hold back the tears, barely managing to contain the shock.
Her sister had married a man who lived and breathed selling and torturing women. She had never thought for one moment the man her sister married was the Donovan.
“This can’t be right.”
“Why do you say that?”
They reached Drake’s cabin. Selena stopped at the edge of the woods behind and looked up at him. “She’s never been sick a day in her life. No high blood pressure and shook stress off like a dog does water.”
Drake wiped away the tears with his thumb. The palm of his hand cradled the side of her face. “Let’s walk,” he suggested.
“I know I should feel blessed having this information. And I do. It’s just that I feel as if I haven’t said my final goodbye. I want to rant and rave at her husband on how selfish he’s been, keeping the end of her life to himself. How do you do it? Dealing with your brother’s death and not having said good-bye?”
He reached for her hand and she laced her fingers with his. “I don’t know. I don’t even think how I do it. I’ve learned life is too short to spend it all grieving, though … I guess patience works wonders.” He paused. “I never thought it would happen.”
He wasn’t talking about his brother. Somehow he’d slipped their relationship in the conversation. If the way he was looking at her now matched how she was feeling, her days in matchmaking were over.
“Oh … hell,” he muttered under his breath and kissed her.
Selena felt the love in the kiss. The tenderness. Hesitant. Seeking. It was up to her to give him the answer he was seeking. Maybe her past was no longer an issue and it was time to take a chance.
She held him back. “I need to tell you something.”
“Talking wasn’t what I had in mind.”
“I love you.”
He stared at her, not moving. She wondered if she’d misread his body language and subtle hints.
He swept her up in his arms and hugged her. “It’s about damned time. I love you, but waiting for you to say you loved me was killing me. I could see it in your eyes and feel it in your body, but you were denying what was inside of you. I was ready to initiate the diversion ladies’ help.”
“You wouldn’t have.”
“I see that look in your eyes. It was there when one of the ladies hugged me at the coffee shop the other day. You have beautiful eyes, honey, but they’re very expressive.”
“Really? I’ll have to remedy that.”
She wound her arms around his neck and kissed him, showing him her love was real. Somehow she had lost sight of living her life and Drake had shown her it was okay to trust one’s heart and give in to love.
“Selena, this isn’t the most romantic way in asking …Will you marry me?”
She buried her head into his neck and sighed.
He tensed.
It wasn’t too hard to figure out he was worried she would retract her love as much as she’d sidestepped it. She knew without a doubt he was the one she wanted forever. She just didn’t think he wanted all of his questions answered today.
“Yes.”
He relaxed. In two seconds, he was carrying her, striding towards the cabin. She knew what his intentions were, but they were going to have another talk.
One he wouldn’t like.