“I convinced him I was dating Stacy and she was setting him up to take the fall.”
She gasped. “How did you do that?”
“Just a few photoshopped pictures.” Joey shrugged. “He’s a hothead. It didn’t take much. He turned himself in to get a better deal. Ratted her out.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Joey! What if he’d tried to hurt you?”
“I’m not afraid of old wanna-be poet Derek.”
“But—”
He squeezed her hand. “It was worth it. You’re safe.”
Her face grew hot and tears pricked her eyes. “Thanks,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
He flashed a smile. “I had this idea I wasn’t cut out for love. That I’d tried it once and it showed me I was supposed to fly solo.” He shook his head. “I really believed it, and I don’t know what makes me more of a dope – that or giving rides to criminals.”
Eliza scrunched her nose. “Probably the criminal thing.”
“Yeah.” He sighed. “I was wrong, but I didn’t know it until I met you.”
“You saw me in here and thought, ‘She’ll catch the guy I gave a ride to, I just know it.’”
Eliza smiled at him as he shook his head. Joey put his other hand on top of hers. “Yeah, but I don’t care about any of that. It was just a cover. An excuse to spend more time with you.”
“Ah. So I didn’t have to pretend to be the perfect investigation partner?”
He leaned in. “I just like you, Eliza. I didn’t fall in love with you because you’re perfect. I fell in love with you because you’re you. Everything about you is enough.”
Enough.With one word, a dam inside her chest cracked, the sound of thick timber giving way.
The idea she didn’t have to have a perfect career, a perfect body, a perfect life before someone could love her?
Tears burst from her eyes and spilled onto her cheeks. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything.” He pulled her closer, kissing the top of her head.
Eliza leaned into him, closing her eyes and resting on his firm chest. “You smell nice.”
He laughed. “So do you.”
She looked up at him. “You know, you’re going to have to do better than that for our first kiss.”
He grinned down at her. “My apologies.”
She closed her eyes. His lips fluttered onto hers and the room disappeared around them.
Epilogue
The bank held a ceremony for Eliza at the San Juan Island branch. Mackenzie attended, along with the other two Dennet sisters, Emma and Shelby (Lydia and Kitty Bennet, respectively).
It was no easy task convincing her little sisters to make the trip. In typical Lydia and Kitty fashion, the youths had lofty summer plans with visions of beaches and late nights out—coming to a regional bank on a Saturday afternoon was not part of it.
Mackenzie really hadtopush. “It’s not every day your sister wins a hundred thousand dollars,” she told them. Eventually, she escalated to, “Now Eliza’s the only one who has any money, so if you run into trouble, you’re going to need her.”
It worked, and she was only stretching the truth a little. It would have been a hundred thousand, except Eliza had insisted on splitting the reward with Joey.
Mackenzie was ready to hold this against him until she’d learned he’d risked his life to trick Derek into confessing.
