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“If you ask me to stay…” But she trailed off. Both of them knew he’d never put her in that position.
Eli shook his head. “It’s not our time, Mighty. Not yet.” The yet was the important part. Neither had asked the other to wait, and he was pretty sure neither of them would. But he needed her to know that when it came to the two of them and whatever the future might hold, she didn’t have to ask. His heart was hers, and he gave it willingly.
“I love you,” she told him, and every time the words left her mouth, he still couldn’t believe they were meant for him. “I love you. I love you. I love you.”
He blinked and felt the wetness on his lashes, then her lips on his cheek as she kissed away the rogue tear. And once again, the words lodged in his throat.
“It’s okay,” she whispered. “I know.”
And then they shared one final, lingering kiss.
He savored the taste of vanilla and mint, the familiar scent of her hair, and the feel of her in his arms.
And then, because they’d both agreed not to actually say goodbye, she squeezed him gently and turned and walked away.
Shit.
Why the hell couldn’t he say it?
Then he remembered his fail-safe. His just-in-case-I-screw-this-up plan B.
He reached for the item in his back pocket, unfolded it, and held it up high over his head, broken ribs be damned.
Turn around, he willed her before she was out of sight. She’d never hear him if he tried to yell now, and even if he managed, it would probably undo any healing he’d actually done in the past ten days.
Turn. Around.
And just when Beth was about to zig her last zag, to hand her boarding pass to the TSA agent and then walk out of his line of sight for good, she stopped.
Turn around, Beth. I’m still here. Turn around. Turn around. Turn—
She turned around, and the biggest, most beautiful smile spread across her most beautiful, blotchy, tear-streaked face as she read the sign in his hands.
Eli didn’t know why he’d saved it, but when he found the plain white sheet of paper on his office desk, the one with BETH SPENCE written across it that he’d used to identify himself as her airport driver the day she arrived in town, he shoved it in a drawer just in case.
Now, in the white space that surrounded her name, he’d scrawled I love you wherever he could fit those three little words.
He said the words now as she stood there, facing him, laughing and crying.
“I love you. I love you. I love you.”
For as long as she stood there, he kept repeating the phrase. And after she mouthed the words back, the TSA agent beckoning her to continue through the line, she finally disappeared out of sight.
I win, Eli thought, carefully refolding the paper and stowing it back in his pocket. Even though right now it felt like he’d lost, the words still played on a loop in his head.
I win.
Boone arrived back where he’d left Eli and Beth a few minutes after Eli texted. Eli glanced back at the door to the departures entrance one last time before lowering himself into the rental car.
“You okay?” Boone asked as they slowly pulled out of the drop-off lane.
“No,” Eli admitted.
But he would be.
Chapter 26
Beth had only received a forty-eight hour notice that she’d be going onstage, on Christmas Eve, no less.
