Chapter 76
GEORGIA
He loved me.
Tears filled my eyes. I hadn’t been crazy falling for him so quickly because he’d been falling right along with me.
The back door opened and Momma came in, looked at us and didn’t look the least bit contrite when she said, “I came to get some… some napkins.”
No, she came to snoop.
I frowned through my tears. Mac said he loved me and she wanted to interrupt?
It was my turn to take Mac’s hand. I tugged him across the first floor to the staircase and up to my room. I shut the door behind us.
“Sorry… um, you were saying?”
Mac looked around at the large floral wallpaper, pink bedspread, standing mirror, taking it all in. But not for long. His gaze landed on mine and it was searing.
“I love you.”
He gave me a soft smile, unlike the first time he said it, when he seemed to be focused, as if he’d practiced what he’d say the entire flight here.
Maybe he had.
I was used to practicing speeches and what he said would’ve won over the judges. It was winning over me.
What was better to hear than I love you?
His eyes widened as if he remembered something and he held up a hand. “Stay here. Don’t move.”
I nodded.
He raised a brow as if doubting me.
“Okay.”
He spun around and ran out of my room, stomped down the stairs, then ran right back up. He shut the door again, then dropped a travel bag.
He grabbed something from it and brought it back to me. “Here,” he said, a little out of breath.
I blinked. In his hands was a–
I started crying. Real tears. Real ugly tears.
“It’s a crown,” he said, as if I couldn’t tell. “For you. You’re the winner, Georgia Lee Gantry. You win my heart. There’s no runner up. No competition at all.”
“But–” I said, holding my hand over my mouth to try to stop crying.
“You were it for me the minute you came into the baggage area at the airport. Andy knew it then. I think I did, too, but I fought how I felt for you the entire time you were in Hunter Valley.”
“You… you didn’t want strings.”
He shook his head. “It seems I like to use being a grumpy asshole as a way to protect myself. I’m also used to women leaving so since I knew you weren’t sticking, so I tried to keep it casual. I thought it would be safest. Dumb, huh?”
I bit my lip and nodded, trying to will my tears away. “Yeah, dumb.”
“That night you were packing, why didn’t you tell me the job was in Hunter Valley?” he asked, his voice deep but soft. No Mr. Grumpy now.
I swallowed, wiped my face. Sniffed. “Because I couldn’t be in the same town with you and not have you. I couldn’t do that again, especially since I love you and I–”
He stepped close, setting his hands on my waist, looked at me in a way I’d never seen before. Awe. “You love me?”
I sniffed again, looked up at him through watery eyes. “Do I need to drag you into the laundry room to prove it?”
“You can just wear this.” He held up the crown, clearly made by hand and a little crushed from being in a bag. It was just like the one I made for Andy, but there were little plastic jewels glued to each point. On the front, in black marker and in a six-year-old’s neat penmanship: GG.
I tipped my head down and Mac set it in place. It was the first crown I ever got and now, looking back, the one I’d always been waiting for.
And this time, it was Mac who smiled. Dazzling and perfect. Because he knew, with me accepting the crown, that I was his.
Then, he leaned down and kissed me.