by Toni Blake
And it came . . . with fear. But not a fear of being in a relationship—nope, this fear was brand new. It was fear that it was too late. That he’d messed up too much. That she really was already over him, over what they’d shared. It was fear that he’d been so mired in his own troubles when she’d expressed her new feelings for him that he just hadn’t fully been able to feel it, respond, until now.
But now that he’d come to grips with the Knights’ death, now that he’d gotten his job back and knew once more what he was supposed to do with his life . . . damn, now he knew one more thing, too. One more big, huge, life-changing, life-fixing thing. It was the next, last thing he was supposed to do that would make everything the way it was meant to be. And it was . . . loving Amy.
And not just a little. But . . . for keeps. To grow old with.
It suddenly made so much sense.
Amy’s description of being in love on the pontoon boat came back to him. It fills you up. But it also owns you. Makes you feel a little helpless against it.
And he knew he’d been a fool for not seeing it until now.
And as he sat there watching her smile and flirt with Duke Dawson, who continued to spin her around the dance floor—he realized he had to do something, this very minute. He’d already waited too long, after all. And with every passing second, damn, he was letting her get further and further away from him.
So he didn’t hesitate. He stood up and walked onto the dance floor. And like once before, he touched Duke on the shoulder to say, “Can I cut in?”
Unfortunately, this time Duke looked even more irritated than he had at Mike and Rachel’s wedding. “You’re starting to make a habit of this, dude.”
“I know. And I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be a jerk. But it’s . . . important.”
Duke just gave his head a doubtful tilt and said with some sarcasm, “Well, hell, if it’s important, be my guest.” Then he stepped aside.
And Logan and Amy were facing one another. And oh God, he was struck all over again by how amazingly pretty she was. And he heard himself saying, “You’re so beautiful, Amy.”
She blinked, looking a little taken aback and adorably sweet. “Um, thanks.”
But that wasn’t what he’d come out here to say. What he’d come out here to say, among other things, was, “I need to thank you. For pushing me to be the best man I can be.”
Another soft, gorgeous round of blinking from her—so he just went on.
“You kept pushing me even when I didn’t want to be pushed, and without that, I’m not sure I would have figured out where I needed to be—back at the firehouse.”
“You would have,” she said quietly, surely.
“Maybe,” he told her, “but it would have taken a lot longer.”
She just shrugged.
And he saw no reason not to barrel forward with the other stuff he had to say. “You’re the one, Amy.”
He’d never seen her eyes go bigger, rounder, as when her jaw dropped and she said, “Huh?”
“You’re the one. The one I want to be with. The one I want to grow old with. The one I love.”
“But, but, but . . .” Amy stopped, swallowed past the lump in her throat. Was this real? Could it be happening? She’d had some champagne, so maybe she wasn’t understanding him correctly. “I’ve been so awful, Logan. At least in ways. I was jealous. And mean to Anna. And no matter how many times you asked me to shut up about the fire department, I didn’t. I haven’t been myself lately. And I still don’t know how I could have done some of that stuff.”
“I do,” he said simply. “It’s because you love me. And because I guess sometimes love makes people a little crazy.”
She just nodded. Because it was so true. “It just . . . sent me into a dark place at times. It made me feel desperate. It made me feel ways I’ve never felt and I just didn’t know how to handle it.”
“I don’t care about any of that, freckles—it’s in the past. What I care about is . . . do you still feel that way? Do you still love me? Is there any chance you can forgive me for being an idiot and taking so long to figure this out? That we belong together? Is there any chance for us at all?”
Amy could barely speak because she could barely breathe. Because this was real. Logan loved her. Logan loved her.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Of course I still love you. More than anything.”
And that was when Logan made the most shocking move of all. He dropped to one knee, right there on the dance floor.
She sucked in her breath as someone stopped the music. Every eye at the wedding was on them. But hers were on Logan. And his gaze was so clear and blue and beautiful even in the dim, dusky light as he took her hands in his that she could see nothing else.
“I know this might seem fast. Hell, I haven’t even taken you on a proper date yet—which I regret. But in another way, it’s not fast at all—it’s been slowly coming our whole lives. All along, the girl who used to try to fix me up with every other girl in town . . . was the one I’m supposed to be with.
“You’ve been in my life forever, Amy Bright, and that’s exactly where I want you—but in a whole new way now. You’re sweet, you’re beautiful, you’re loving—and even though this might surprise a few people, you’re sexy as hell, freckles. You’re everything I could ever want, and the only thing I don’t understand is how it took me this long to see it.
“But wait—yes I do. It’s because I was afraid. I let myself down in ways in that fire, and I don’t know much about successful relationships and I was afraid I’d let myself down there, too—that I’d let down both of us. But now that I’m not afraid anymore, now that I know I love you, I promise I’ll never stop. I’ll never give you another reason to cry, Amy, I swear. I love you. I love you with my whole heart. I belong with you, and you belong with me. Marry me, Amy. Marry me.”
Amy couldn’t speak. She could only nod. So that was what she did. Nodded profusely. And then finally found one very important word inside her, which she managed to force out on a soft breath. “Yes. Yes.”
And then as the crowd began to applaud, Logan was on his feet, hugging her, holding her, and she thought briefly of all her friends watching this, sharing this supreme and impossible moment of joy with her even though she couldn’t see them right now. Because right now she could still see nothing but Logan—she had no desire to see anything else, and even as they hugged, she shut her eyes tight, wanting to feel only him.
Soon he began to sway with her, just slightly, dancing with her a little—until she found herself laughing, and whispering to him, “There’s no music playing.”
Yet, in her ear, he began softly singing the same song they’d danced to at Rachel’s wedding, “You’re In My Heart.” He sang to her that she was his lover and his best friend. That she’d be his breath when he grew old. That she was in his soul.
As he was in hers.
So many thoughts raced through her head just then. How happy this was going to make so many people. That she would finally be a bride instead of just a bridesmaid. That all her pain and desperation had been so unnecessary, and that she could have seen that if she’d only been more patient and given their relationship a chance to unfold. And that now nothing but happiness lay before them as they began to make a new life—together—in Destiny.
Epilogue
“It is such a happiness when good people get together—
and they always do.”
Jane Austen, from Emma
“Meow.”
Amy stood next to the trunk of the big weeping willow in Logan’s front yard. Well, her front yard now, too. But she was still trying to get used to that. “Knightley, come down from there,” she said, fists on her hip as she peered upward into the branches, making eye contact with the gray-and-white feline. “You, too, Austen,” she said, switching her glance to the black-striped ball of fur one branch over. “You two are going to get me into so much trouble.”
A few minutes later, a fire engine from the DF
D rounded the bend on Blue Valley Road that led to the lakeshore cottage. When it pulled up, Logan stood on one side of the truck decked out in his full fireman regalia.
“Really, freckles?” he said when their eyes met. “You called the fire department for me to get cats out of a tree again? And at my own house this time?”
She cringed slightly as he stepped down from the truck. “Sorry. But you know how these two are.” She pointed upward. “They have minds of their own.” The fact was, the two cats had become the best of friends—and where one went now, the other followed. “Knightley got out while I was carrying in boxes, and Austen was right on his tail before I could stop her.”
Just then, Cocoa came bounding toward the base of the tree, barking repeatedly as she looked up at the cats as well.
“Oh good, this will help,” Logan said dryly, peering down at the dog.
Amy gritted her teeth slightly. “Guess she got out, too.” And actually, since Amy had moved in a couple of days ago, the cats and dog had gotten along fine, other than Cocoa standing around looking perplexed at the sight of new animals, especially ones that seemed unduly fascinated with her tennis ball. “And really, this is your own fault,” she pointed out to the man she loved.
He flinched, looking surprised. “It is?”
She crossed her arms. “You’re the one who insisted I move in now instead of waiting ’til after the wedding next spring.”
He just shrugged. “Well, the wedding’s a long time away. And I like waking up with you.”
The sentiment eased her stance and drew a heartfelt smile from her, even as it made her feel kind of warm and gooey inside. “I like waking up with you, too.” Then she pressed her hands to his shoulders through his gear and raised on her tiptoes to give him a kiss.
Someone inside the truck cleared their throat then, however, reminding them both of the matter at hand. “Cats,” she said, pointing treeward again.
“Yeah,” he said, but his tone of voice told her his mind was still on that kiss.
“We’re just in an adjustment period,” she told him. Same as she’d told him when he’d complained that she had too many books and movies and suggested she leave them at her old apartment above the bookstore, and she’d refused, explaining that she liked having the things she loved close to her. “But once we get through it, everything from here on out is going to be smooth sailing. I can feel it.”
And she really did. God knew they’d traveled a bit of a rocky road to get here, but the hard part was behind them now and Amy finally had everything she’d ever wanted. Before falling in love with Logan, she’d had many things she loved in her life—but he made it complete.
And falling for Logan had brought about another big change in her life, too—since then, she’d given up her hobby of matchmaking. It hadn’t been a conscious decision—she’d just lost the verve for it. Even if she had made some good matches over the years, she’d finally realized that in every match she’d ever tried to make, she’d really, actually just been wishing for a love of her own.
And now she had one. With her best friend.
Over the past few years, Amy had watched dreams come true for all of her close girlfriends—now hers had come true, as well. And just like the characters in her Jane Austen novels, they were all going to live happily ever after.
Acknowledgments
My sincere and heartfelt thanks, as usual, go to Lindsey Faber, for her brainstorming help and story discussions, and to Renee Norris, for her feedback as my “first reader.” Thanks to Renee, as well, for her helpful insights on the fire-related scenes.
Additionally, thank you to my editor, May Chen, and everyone at Avon, and to my agents, Meg Ruley and Christina Hogrebe, for all your support and enthusiasm for the Destiny series.
And finally, thank you to the Boone County Arboretum, aka Central Park, in northern Kentucky, where the bulk of this book was written, for providing such a peaceful, relaxing outdoor spot where I found an enormous amount of inspiration for Amy and Logan’s story.
About the Author
TONI BLAKE’s lifelong love of writing began when she won an essay contest in the fifth grade. Soon after, she penned her first novel—nineteen notebook pages long. Since then, Toni has become a multipublished, RITA®-nominated author of contemporary romance novels that are both sexy and heartwarming. Her work has been excerpted in Cosmo and reviewed by USA Today and First for Women magazine. Toni lives with her husband in the Midwest, and when not writing, she enjoys traveling, quilting, and scrapbooking.
www.toniblake.com
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By Toni Blake
Willow Springs
Holly Lane
Whisper Falls
Sugar Creek
One Reckless Summer
Letters to a Secret Lover
Tempt Me Tonight
Swept Away
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
WILLOW SPRINGS. Copyright © 2012 by Toni Herzog All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Epub Edition JULY 2012 ISBN: 9780062136411
Print Edition ISBN: 9780062024619
FIRST EDITION
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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Table of Contents
Dedication
Prologue
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
By Toni Blake
Copyright
About the Publisher
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