Chapter 26 #2
The door to the shop opened and Emmett stepped inside. Isaiah was right behind him.
“Hey, guys.” Emmett came over and shook Shaw’s hand.
Isaiah clapped Shaw on the shoulder before sitting down.
If there’d been any worry that Shaw wouldn’t fit right in here, those fears were long forgotten. A hostage situation had a way of proving loyalty and sincerity.
“What are you doing today?” Emmett asked Shaw as he took his lunch out of the fridge.
“Not much. I had some work to do this morning but it’s pretty well wrapped. Why?”
“Leo is finishing up with some pinstripes on a hood in the booth, then he’s convinced me to leave early for a beer at The Betsy. Want to come?”
“I can’t.” He grinned at me. “I have a date tonight.”
“A date?” I raised an eyebrow. Since when did we have a date? “Who’s the lucky woman?”
“I’m picking you up at four. Can you leave early? We need to make a stop before dinner.”
“I’ll cover the office until closing,” Isaiah offered.
“Thank you.” I smiled and ate a spoonful of soup, listening to the guys spend their lunch break telling Shaw about the car they were working on.
When they’d nearly convinced him to buy it for my next birthday, they’d returned to the shop to finish up for the day, leaving the two of us alone once more.
“Did you talk to your landlord today?” Shaw asked.
“Yes. I feel so bad for her. How’s she going to rent out the house where a man held two women hostage, then committed suicide?”
“Want me to buy it from her and bulldoze it to the ground?”
“Yes, please.” I was joking. Sort of.
I’d loved that house. It had been the springboard for my life in Clifton Forge. It had been my sanctuary. Seeing it now, dark and haunted, was destroying the beautiful memories.
“Done.” Shaw nodded. “Consider it gone.”
“I was joking.”
“I’m not. If flattening that house makes your life easier, then that’s what we’ll do.”
“How about instead, we cover the mortgage until my landlord can rent it out? Then I won’t feel guilty about leaving.”
“Okay. But if you change your mind . . .” He crashed his fists together, making the sound of an explosion.
“Deal.” I giggled.
“There’s something else I wanted to run past you.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Why do I get the feeling I won’t like this?”
“Keep an open mind.” He winked. “I have a movie premiere in two weeks. Will you come with me?”
“This movie? Our movie?” I gulped. It wasn’t really my movie, but he got the point.
“No.” He shook his head. “That won’t be out for another year or so.”
Good. I’d need time to think about that one. Maybe in a year, I’d be more willing to see the film. Even then, I wouldn’t go to support the movie. I’d only go to stand beside Shaw, to show him I was proud of his accomplishment and that he’d taken a risk beyond his typical role.
“What movie?” I asked.
“It’s an action film I shot about a year ago.”
“I like action films.” I tapped my chin. “Define movie premiere.”
“Red carpet. Tuxedo. Gown.”
I groaned. “I’m going to have to smile a lot, aren’t I?”
Shaw laughed and stood, rounding my desk to drop a kiss on my forehead. “But it’s such a beautiful smile.”
My heart fluttered. “Always the sweet talker.”
“I’m taking that as a yes and leaving before you change your mind.” Shaw gathered up the trash from our lunch and dumped it in the trash can, then put on his coat. “Four o’clock.”
“I’ll be ready.” I stood and escorted him to the door, waiting in the threshold as he brushed off the snowflakes from his truck’s windshield.
I was going to a Hollywood movie premiere. I was in love with a bona fide movie star.
Shaw Valance.
Shaw Valance
Shaw Valance.
There were only so many ways to interpret two words. Only so many ways to alter their meaning with inflection.
But no matter how many times I said his name in my head, Shaw Valance would always be mine.
Shaw Valance was the man who’d brought me soup at lunch because he knew how cold I got in the office.
He was the man who knew how much I loved my job and would support me working here for as long as it made me happy, no matter how many dollars he could charge on his credit card.
He was the man who’d opened my heart. Who’d become my other half.
Shaw tossed his snow brush into the backseat. “Go inside before you freeze.”
“Okay.” I smiled but didn’t move. “Shaw?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“I love you.” The words drifted through the snow, causing a wide smile to spread across his face.
“See you at four.” He winked, then got into his truck and disappeared.
My feet floated to my desk. My fingers were lighter than they’d been in days as they flew across the keyboard, wrapping things up for the week.
Shaw loved me, but he’d never said I love you—three words, in that order.
He was always the one to make the move first. He’d ask, I’d answer. He gave me that control. There was something freeing about making the statement first—putting myself out there so he knew it wasn’t always about me responding to him.
I was nearly done with work for the day, anxious for Shaw to pick me up, when my phone dinged. I opened it to a text from Bryce.
At the grocery store.
That was the caption to a picture of Luke Rosen carrying a woman in a fireman’s hold out the front doors.
Except it wasn’t just a woman.
It was Scarlett.
Was that his idea of protective custody? Of being safe? Clearly, he’d underestimated Scarlett.
“You better know what you’re doing, Rosen,” I muttered to the screen.
Then I texted him the same, getting a reply ten minutes later.
She’s safe.
She’d better be.
“Where are we?” My boots crunched as I followed Shaw into a field.
The snow had stopped falling an hour ago and the sun was about to set. The air was frigid and the breeze bit through my red parka.
Shaw had mentioned taking a long vacation to California to meet his family and with the weather like it was, that sounded better every second.
“Close your eyes.” Shaw took my hand.
“Okay.” I obeyed as he stepped behind me and wrapped his arms around my chest.
The chill from the wind was gone, chased away as he shrouded me with his tall frame.
“Straight ahead of you will be the barn.”
“The bar—”
“Don’t open your eyes.”
I frowned, closing them again. “Closed.”
“You can pick the color, but I vote for red.”
“A red barn.” My heart skipped. “Okay.”
Maybe he was planning on building Clifton Forge’s first petting zoo, but my mind jumped to a much better use for this property, hoping the land ten miles out of town, nestled beside the river and surrounded by trees, was for something more personal.
He spun us to the right ninety degrees, our feet shuffling as we swayed. “This will be the guest house.”
A smile cracked my face. “What kind of guests?”
“My parents. My sisters. Your sister.”
“I like those guests.”
“And this”—he spun us again, this time only forty-five degrees—“this is where we’ll have our house.”
“What kind of house?” I asked.
“A happy one.”
Shaw always had the right answer.
My entire life, all I’d wanted was a happy home.
His arms disappeared but I kept my eyes closed, ignoring the emotion overload prickling my throat. As his boots moved on the snow, I listened, following as he moved in front of me.
“Presley Marks. I love you.”
“I know,” I whispered.
“Good. Now look at me.”
My eyes popped open, dropping to where Shaw knelt before me. In his hand was a black box, the diamond ring inside catching the last glimmer of the setting sun.
“Will you marry me?”
I giggled. “No.”
He threw his head back, laughing to the winter sky before shooting to his feet and wrapping me in his arms. “I knew you’d say that.”
“Haven’t you figured it out?” I whispered against his lips. “Sometimes when I say no to you, it really means yes.”