Page 82 of From Grumpy to Forever
I settled onto the seat and patted the space next to me. The swing was already amazing and beautiful, but sharing it with Reid, his arm around me, his body weight gently rocking it back and forth, was absolute perfection.
“So, you like it?” His voice was casual, but I didn’t miss the weight behind the question, as if my answer truly mattered.
“Like it?” I ran my hand over the smooth wood and closed my eyes, remembering how it felt the first time I saw it.
Was that really only yesterday?
I swallowed past the rising emotion and reached across the space between us to take his hand. “No,” I said softly as my fingers twined through his. “I love it, Reid. It’s the most perfect gift I’ve ever received. You’re so talented. I had no idea. Honestly.”
His mouth twitched as if he were trying not to look too pleased with himself, and it made me laugh.
I twisted in the seat and tucked my legs up under me so I could face him. “No one has ever given me something like this before, let alone made me something so incredibly special. Thank you.”
His gaze finally met mine. There was something unreadable in his dark eyes. “You don’t have to thank me.”
“Yes, I do.” The gesture was more than just a gift, and we both knew it. It was about thought and feeling. It was about knowing exactly what I wanted—what I needed—without me even saying it.
His jaw shifted, as if he wasn’t quite sure what to say next.
So I made it easy on him. “If I’d known you were secretly so romantic, I might have fallen for you a whole lot sooner.”
That made him laugh. “Sooner than the first time you saw me in the hardware store?”
I smacked him lightly on the arm. “You’re so cocky. Besides, I meant it when I said I started to fall for you when I saw you with Quinn for the first time.”
“Because you saw how sweet I really was.” He wiggled his eyebrows, and I shook my head. “You want to know the moment I knew you were going to be it for me?”
I did. I very much wanted to know.
He grinned at me. “It was that day in the Bean Bag when you told Danny Davis you’d already hired me and assumed I would say yes.”
“I knew you would.”
“How could I say no after that?”
“You couldn’t. That was my plan.” I giggled, but the laughter dissolved when I realized what he’d said. “But…that means…”
He nodded. “That was it for me, sweetheart. I knew then that you were going to change my life.” Reid shrugged a little. “I just don’t think I knew how you’d spin me so totally out of control.”
I laughed again and snuggled close. “In all the best ways.”
“You know it.”
We sat like that for a few minutes, rocking gently together on our swing on the inn that was now officially and legally ours.
It wasn’t just the swing that had been built to last. It was the Tamarack Inn. And most importantly, it was us.
Chapter Forty-One
Reid
There was no way around it. I knew it going in. Still, I didn’t expect family dinner to be quite so obnoxious, with every member of my family alternating between offering me congratulations and cursing me out for lying to them.
I guess I deserved it.
Still.
Now that the truth was out and there were no more secrets about anything, you’d think they’d just let it go.
