Chapters (43)
- Cover
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Epilogue
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- AUTHOR’S NOTE
- Readers Guide
- QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
- About the Author
- What’s next onyour reading list?
He swallowed, but his voice still came out scratchy, just barely above a whisper. “Now, why’d you have to say something so pretty and mess it up with my big ugly name?”
She squeezed his hands. “LJ, you don’t have to make a joke. If you don’t want to get married, you just say so, and we’ll figure something else out, okay?”
He shook his head and swallowed, but this time it didn’t do a bit of good. He just had to nod. Fast, two or three times so she couldn’t mistake how much he wanted to be married to her.
He ducked his head and pressed her hands to the back of his suddenly hot neck, holding his hands hard over hers to hide their shaking.
He wanted to pull every dollar out of his bank account and lay them at her feet so she’d know the secret he’d been keeping. He’d been saving for months, but he didn’t have half enough for a ring worthy of her. He wasn’t about to ask until he did.
Her thumbs made a slow, soothing sweep over the back of his neck. “If you’re this upset about the proposal, you’re going to be flat on your back after the next surprise. It’s . . . a little weird.”
He swiped his face against the shoulder of his shirt before he lifted his head and mustered a shaky grin. “Sweetheart, if you want to be on top after saying something like that to me, you surely can be.”
“There he is,” she whispered, and leaned in for a kiss. “Thought I scared you into a heart attack.” She set aside the guitar. “Don’t be mad, okay?”
“Way I feel now, I’m not sure I could work up to a good mad before next Christmas.” His whole body was surging with waves of heat and electricity. Andra Lawler was going to be his wife. She hadn’t been scared off by all the hardships of blending two very separate lives together, and now she wanted to make it permanent. Hell, she wanted it enough she couldn’t even wait for him to save up for her ring.
“Okay, well, brace yourself.” She opened the hinged top of the piano bench. “Ty would only loan me the guitar on one condition. That if you said yes, you’d wear this when you returned the instrument.”
Out of the piano bench, she pulled a filmy little veil, its tiara studded all the way around with tiny plastic penises, punching triumphantly toward the sky.
LJ stared at it. “You drive a hard bargain, Andie-girl.”
She bit her lip. “I could maybe tell him I lost it . . .”