“Colton!”
“What?!” he growled.
Jack was pointing. Colton followed the direction of his point and froze.
Gretchen.
Standing with her back to him with a massive bag slung over her shoulder. She hovered in the doorway to the hotel bar as if she couldn’t decide whether to go in. His mind flashed back to the night when she’d wandered into Old Joe’s and marched toward him, determined and proud. And just like then, his breath left his body in a whoosh. She was here.
She was here.
And he couldn’t move a damn muscle.
Vlad jumped up and down. “Gretch—”
Colton clamped his hand over Vlad’s mouth. “Wait.”
“For what?” Mack squawked. “We just flew two hours—”
“It was more like ninety minutes,” Noah said. Alexis clamped a hand over his mouth.
“—and drove like maniacs to find her. And there she is. What the hell are you waiting for?”
“A grand gesture,” Colton said.
“This is the grand gesture,” Noah said. “Isn’t it?”
“Not like this,” Colton said, as much to himself as everyone else. It wasn’t a grand gesture if the recipient would die of embarrassment over it. And Gretchen would. If he did what the Bros normally did—run and make a spectacle of themselves—it would backfire. She didn’t want spectacle.
She wanted something soft. Something slow.
Colton spied the hotel gift shop on the other side of the lobby. “New plan,” he said. “I need a hat and some glasses.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Gretchen sat alone at the bar and twirled the straw in her water. If she gritted her teeth any harder, she was going to bust a molar.
No flights.
How was it possible that there were no flights available until tomorrow morning? Yeah, okay, it was Christmastime, and that meant everything was booked, but for God’s sake. Didn’t they know? This was an emergency. She had to get home now. It was hard to carry out a grand gesture for the man you loved when you couldn’t even get out of the damn city.
The bartender, a young guy with a goatee, stepped in front of her and set down a glass of whiskey. “From an admirer.”
Gretchen inwardly groaned. Of all the times to get hit on. “Can you tell him thanks but no thanks?”
“Listen, I don’t normally do this because it’s fucking creepy, and for all I know, this guy could be a stalker—”
“Um, yeah, now I’m really not going to drink that.”
“But he told me to tell you that it’s the good stuff.”
Every muscle in her body jumped at once. “What did you say?”
“Does that mean something to you?”
Yes. It meant everything. She just didn’t understand how. How did he know where to find her? She wanted to turn around and look for him, but she couldn’t. Not with her insides suddenly shaking and tears stinging the back of her eyelids.
The bartender shrugged at her reaction. “Anyway, I’m also supposed to say, ‘To cheating, stealing, fighting, and drinking.’ Whatever that means.”
Her stomach turned to Jell-O as her heart rose in her throat. “Where is he?”
The guy pointed over her shoulder. “It’s the dude who looks like Clark Kent in the corner.”
Laughter bubbled up as if someone had uncorked a bottle of sparkling water in her throat.
“Aaand now he’s headed this way.” The bartender lowered his voice. “Do you want me to ward him off? I can get rid of him.”
She shook her head. “No, thank you.” She’d already made that mistake.
The bartender lifted his gaze over her shoulder before looking back at her. “If you need help, I’ll be at the end of the bar.”
He walked away, and her neck tickled with awareness at the man now standing behind her.
“Can I sit?”
His voice. It sent shivers down her spine and lifted the hair on her arms. She nodded and held her breath as the empty chair next to her slid back from the bar, its steel-tipped legs scraping quietly on the industrial carpet. She didn’t dare look at him as he sat, but in her peripheral vision, she saw the bright yellow of his puffer vest.
Her fingers shook as she wrapped them around the glass of whiskey. “What brings you by?”
Colton chuckled quietly at the question. It was exactly what he’d asked her when she’d found him at Old Joe’s. “I was hoping to talk to you.”
“Yeah? Well, here I am, honey.” When Colton had said it at Old Joe’s, he’d been cocky, confident. He’d spread his arms out wide. But when Gretchen said it now, it came out shaky, watery. She kept her arms tucked close to her torso. Because if she reached for him, if she touched him, the dam would break. She’d be a puddle on the floor.