He spun her around, yanked her into a hot and possessive kiss. She shoved against him, met a solid and immovable wall. He let her go when she went stiff.

“Don’t,” she said, quietly now.

“You need to look at me, and listen to me, and Laurel, you need to hear me.” He took her by the shoulders, but gently. “Maybe you’re right, and I don’t see, but goddamn it, you don’t hear. So, I’m looking, and I’m seeing. You listen, and you hear.”

“All right. All right. There’s no point in us being angry over this. It’s just—”

“You can’t hear if you don’t shut up.”

“Tell me to shut up again,” she invited, with a dare in her eyes.

He simply laid his hand over her mouth. “I’m going to fix this. Fixing things is what I do, who I am. If you love me, you’re going to have to accept that.”

He dropped his hand. “I can fight with you. I’ve got no problem with that.”

“Lucky for you.”

“But I hate that I hurt you by being careless on one hand and too careful on the other. It’s a Brown trait, I guess, trying to keep the balance.”

“I’m responsible—”

“For your own feelings, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don’t know if you were always the one. I got used to looking at you and thinking about you another way. So I just don’t know.”

“I understand that, Del. I do. I—”

“Be quiet, and listen. You changed what was between us. You took the step, and I didn’t see it coming. I can’t be sorry for that when I’m so damn grateful for it. I don’t know if you were always the one,” he said again. “But I know you’re the one now, and I know you’re going to be the one tomorrow, and next month, next year. And you’re going to be the one for the rest of my life.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Need it simpler? It’s you.”

She looked at him, the face she knew so well. And saw. And in that moment, her heart simply flew.

“I’ve loved you all your life, and that was easy. I don’t know, not for certain, how long I’ve been in love with you, but I know it’s not so easy. But it’s right and it’s real, and I don’t want easy. I want you.”

“I think . . .” She laughed a little. “I can’t think.”

“Good. Don’t think. Just listen, listen and stop, for once, trying to project what I think and feel. I thought the logical thing was to take it slow, to give us both time to adjust to what happened between us. To what happened in me.”

He took her hand, pressed it to his heart.