“I’m about to,” he said as she walked to him. “I wondered if I’d put it off long enough for you to be ready.”
“Not for about an hour. You’ll lead Leo home for me? I’m going to steal one of the Kias.”
“Then I better give you these now.” He pulled a clutch of flowers from his saddlebag.
“You bought me flowers?”
“I stole them from here and there on the way. I guess the sunset put me in the mood, and that moon did the rest. You said once you like getting flowers from a man.”
“And I do.” She took them, smiling at him. “That’s something I wouldn’t expect you to remember.”
“I remember a lot when it comes to you. I’ve got those words.”
“Oh, but—”
“I planned to put them together tomorrow, after that fancy dinner. That’d be more standard. But look at that moon, Bodine, that big, red moon hanging up there. It says more for people like you and me than champagne.”
She looked up at the big brilliant ball in the endless sky. It did say more, to people like him and her. He knew her. She knew him.
“I want you to know what I’m going to say I haven’t said to another woman. My mother, my sister, a few times. Not enough times, but I’m going to work on that. But never to a woman, not when I was here, not when I was gone, because saying it changes things, so I’ve been careful.”
She looked down at the flowers—wild ones, she thought. Nothing hothouse, but flowers that came wild and free. And back up at him. His face still bruised, his eyes blue in the moonlight. “That’s a lot of words already, Skinner.”
“I’m working up to the important ones. When I came back, when I saw you again, it gave me a jolt. Not just that you’d grown up, gotten prettier, but seeing you made me realize I’d thought of you a lot when I was gone. Just little things, bits and pieces of my life here. The good ones. The good ones always seemed to have you in there, one way or the other. I didn’t come back for you, but you made coming back right. All the way right.
“We felt something for each other, and maybe we figured we’d jump into that, and that would be enough. It’s not enough for me, and I’ll do whatever it takes so it’s not enough for you. I love you.”
“There it is,” she whispered, took a step closer.
Lifting a hand, he nudged her back. “I’m not finished. You’re the first, you’re going to be the last. You can have some time to get used to that, but that’s how it is. Now I’m finished.”
“I was going to say I love you back, but I’m going to need you to specify just what you’re saying I have to get used to.”
“A woman as smart as you ought to make that connection. We’re getting married.”
“We—what?” She took a deliberate step back.
“You can take some time on that, but—” He yanked her back. “Go back to the first part.”
“You can’t just leapfrog right over—”
He kissed her, drew it out. “Go back to the first part,” he repeated.
“I love you back. But you can’t tell me we’re getting married.”
“Just did. I’ll get you a ring if you want one. I’ll pick it out though.”
“If I’m going to wear something I ought to have a say in—” This time she cut herself off, nudged him back. “Maybe I don’t want to get married.”
“A woman comes from what you do, sees what it can mean to make that promise? She’ll be fine with it. I’m going to need your promise, Bodine, just like I’m going to need to give you mine. But you can take some time on it.”
He kissed her again, hard, brief, final. “We can talk about it when you get home.” With that, he took Leo’s reins, swung up on Sundown. “I’ll wait for you.”
As he started to turn the horses, Sundown sent her a look. On a human face she’d have called it a smirk.
“You might have a long wait!”
“I don’t think so,” he said, and broke into an easy trot.
*
No doubt Bodine ran late because Callen had messed up her thought process. How was she supposed to concentrate on work, on questions from staff, on making sure the opening concert of the season got off to a smooth start when he’d effectively tossed marriage at her like a set of car keys and told her she’d be driving whether she was in the mood or not?
She’d prepared herself for the I-love-you, I-love-you-back portion—though by her schedule that should have been on Saturday’s menu. But the leap straight to marriage didn’t give her time to get her feet under her.
Still, she put his flowers in a vase, put the vase on her desk. She appreciated the flowers. She appreciated a lot when it came to Callen Skinner.
She didn’t appreciate being told how she’d spend the rest of her life. Because he’d hit the bull’s-eye on one element. She knew where she came from, and where she came from took marriage seriously. Not on a whim, not in a rush of hormones or dreamy feelings, but seriously, as the foundation for everything else.
With Chelsea’s key in her pocket, she got behind the wheel of the little car she’d borrowed for the night. That’s what she’d tell him, she decided. She wouldn’t be told, and she took marriage seriously.
And she’d say just that when she damn well felt like it. He could wait.
She left the music, the lights, the guests, and the staff behind and drove into the quiet. She could use some quiet, some thinking time. As she pulled up in front of Chelsea’s apartment in the Village, she half wished she’d asked Jessica for her key, too. A little quiet and thinking time there, then a friend to listen.
Maybe she’d pick up the samples, take them back to her office. Or take a drive along the river. Or go home and close herself up in her room.
All of which, she admitted, struck like avoidance when she laid them out.
Hell with it.
She unlocked the door, propped it open with her hip to slip the key under the mat. And stepping in, reached out to switch on the lights.
The arm around her throat cut off her air and turned her shout into a garbled gasp. Instinct had her stomping down with her boot, jabbing back with an elbow. The quick, sharp bite in her biceps turned panic into terror so she dragged uselessly at the arm around her neck.
And felt herself falling, falling down a tunnel, limbs limp. Everything slowed down. Then everything stopped.
*
Though it was close to midnight before she drove into the Village, Jessica found herself revved. Everything had gone perfectly, and now she could leave the cleanup portion to Chelsea’s—and Rory’s, as he’d shown up—supervision.
While she expected Chase would be asleep—ranch life started early—she thought she’d text him so he’d hear from her the minute he woke in the morning.
Text him, she thought, after she’d shed her work clothes and poured a glass of wine.
With a smile on her face—it still amazed her anyone could be so ridiculously happy—she parked her car, got out. She’d taken two steps to her building when she noticed the Kia parked at the curb rather than in a slot. And in front of Chelsea’s section.