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“No. Damn it. No. It’s not about spine. It’s about love and faith, and hope, I guess. I watched my brother marry Clare, and I knew I wanted that. I’ve always wanted it, but I thought, sure, eventually. Eventually I’d settle in, settle down, make a family. It’s eventually, Avery, because the other thing I know is eventually never came until you. It’s always been you. My first girlfriend.”
“I need to sit down a minute.”
She did, right on the floor. She clutched the key around her neck. Locks, she thought, had to be opened. And he was wrong; it did take spine. But she was no wimp.
“What would you feel if I said no, I didn’t want any of that?”
He crouched down, looked her dead in the eye again. “You’d break my heart.”
“I’d never do that.”
“You’ll marry me to spare my feelings?”
“I love you enough to do just that. You make my heart flutter, Owen. You always did. I got used to it—and maybe getting used to it I didn’t value it enough. When we started to be with each other, it was more than a flutter. Something more, and I didn’t know what to do with it. No one else ever made me feel the way you did—do. I thought something was missing in me because I couldn’t feel enough. But the only thing missing was none of them were you.”
He sat down across from her. “Now nothing’s missing, for either of us. Say yes.”
“Just wait. What I feel . . .” It lit inside her, all at once. “God, it’s like the stone heart. Was she trying to show me? It’s so strong, so solid, so enduring. I never thought you’d feel it for me, so I just couldn’t open that place and let it come out. And it does take spine.” She dashed a tear away. “I just had to find mine.”
He took her hand. “I’m in love with you, Avery. Say yes.”
“I’ll probably suck at marriage.”
“That’ll be my problem, won’t it?”
She looked at his face, so familiar, so precious to her. No, she thought, nothing was missing for either of them. “I need my purse.”
“Now?”
“I really do.”
“Jesus, break the moment much?” Griping, he pushed up, grabbed it off the counter, dropped it in her lap.
And stared when she pulled out the pink plastic ring.
She offered it to him. “I want to be your problem, Owen, for the rest of my life.”
“You kept it,” he murmured. Grinning, he started to slide the ring on her finger, but she closed her hand. “Don’t mess with me, Avery. Say yes.”
“Just wait. I don’t have Clare’s—what’s the word?—equanimity, or Hope’s efficiency.”
“Am I asking either of them to marry me?”
“No, and you’d better not. I don’t have your patience, and thank God you’ve got it. I’ll try it a lot—but you already know that.”
“I already do. Say yes.”
“I love you. You’re my friend, my lover, my match.” She smiled now, kissed his cheek. “My first boyfriend is going to be my last boyfriend. Yes.” She held out her hand for the ring. “Absolutely, definitely yes.”
He slid it on. “It fits. Mostly.”
“It was way too big the first time. Looks like it works now.” She climbed into his lap.
“Took you long enough.”
“From where I’m sitting, it took exactly long enough.” She held out her hand, wiggled her fingers. Not sad now. Just happy.
“I’ll get you a real one.” He took her hand, kissed her finger above the pink plastic heart. “You know, a diamond or whatever you want.”
“This is a real one—but I’ll take the diamond. I’ll take you, Owen, and thank God you’ll take me.”
He wrapped her tight and hard. “Avery.” Emotion swamped him as he took her lips. His eventually, he thought, right here in his arms. “Here we are.”
“You and me,” she murmured. “I know what Clare meant now.”
“About what?”
“How she felt right before the wedding. She said she didn’t feel nervous. She felt clear-eyed.” She drew back, framed his face. “So do I. Steady and sure. You’re my eventually, too. Let’s go home, and get started on building.”
He helped her up, and together they switched off lights, locked doors, and walked out hand in hand.
She thought of the key around her neck, and the heart stone she still carried in her bag. And the sweet, silly gum-ball ring on her finger.
Symbols, all of them—of unlocked places, and lasting love.
Keep reading for an excerpt from
the third book in the Inn BoonsBoro trilogy
by Nora Roberts
The Perfect Hope
Available November 2012 from Berkley Books
WITH A FEW groans and sighs, the old building settled down for the night. Under the star-washed sky its stone walls glowed, rising up over Boonsboro’s Square as they had for more than two centuries. Even the crossroads held quiet now, stretching out in pools of shadows and light. All the windows and storefronts along Main Street seemed to sleep, content to doze away in the balm of the summer night.
She should do the same, Hope thought. Settle down, stretch out. Sleep.
That would be the sensible thing to do, and she considered herself a sensible woman. But the long day had left her restless and, she reminded herself, Carolee would arrive bright and early to start breakfast.
The innkeeper could sleep in.
In any case, it was barely midnight. When she’d lived and worked in Georgetown, she’d rarely managed to settle in for the night this early. Of course, then she’d been managing The Wickham, and if she hadn’t been dealing with some small crisis or handling a guest request, she’d been enjoying the nightlife.
The town of Boonsboro, tucked into the foothills of Maryland’s Blue Ridge Mountains, might have a rich and storied history, and it certainly had its charms—among which she counted the revitalized inn she now managed—but it wasn’t famed for its nightlife.
That would change a bit when her friend Avery opened her restaurant and tap house. And wouldn’t it be fun to see what the energetic Avery MacTavish did with her new enterprise right next door—and just across The Square from Avery’s pizzeria.
Before summer ended, Avery would juggle the running of two restaurants, Hope thought.
And people called Hope an overachiever.
She looked around the kitchen—clean, shiny, warm and welcoming. She’d already sliced fruit, checked the supplies, restocked the refrigerator. So everything sat ready for Carolee to prepare breakfast for the guests currently tucked in their rooms.
She’d finished her paperwork, checked all the doors, and made her rounds checking for dishes—or anything else—out of place. Duties done, she told herself, and still she wasn’t ready to tuck her own self in her third-floor apartment.
Instead she poured an indulgent glass of wine and did a last circle through The Lobby, switching off the chandelier over the central table with its showy summer flowers.
She moved through the arch, gave the front door one last check before she turned toward the stairs. Her fingers trailed lightly over the iron banister.
She’d already checked The Library, but she checked again. It wasn’t anal, she told herself. A guest might have slipped in for a glass of Irish or a book. But the room was quiet, settled like the rest.
She glanced back. She had guests on this floor. Mr. and Mrs. Vargas—Donna and Max—married twenty-seven years. The night at the inn, in Nick and Nora, had been a birthd
ay gift for Donna from their daughter. And wasn’t that sweet?
Her other guests, a floor up in Westley and Buttercup, chose the inn for their wedding night. She liked to think the newlyweds, April and Troy, would take lovely, lasting memories with them.
She checked the door to the second-level porch, then on impulse unlocked it and stepped out into the night.
With her wine, she crossed the wide wood deck, leaned on the rail. Across The Square, the apartment above Vesta sat dark—and empty now that Avery had moved in with Owen Montgomery. Hope could admit—to herself anyway—that she missed looking over and knowing her friend was right there, just across Main.
But Avery was exactly where she belonged, Hope decided, with Owen, her first and, as it turned out, her last boyfriend.
Talk about sweet.
And she’d help plan a wedding—May bride, May flowers—right there in The Courtyard, just as Clare’s had been this past spring.
Thinking of it, Hope looked down Main toward the bookstore. Clare’s Turn The Page had been a risk for a young widow with two children and another on the way. But she’d made it work. Clare had a knack for making things work. Now she was Clare Montgomery, Beckett’s wife. And when winter came, they’d welcome a new baby to the mix.
Odd, wasn’t it, that her two friends had lived right in Boonsboro for so long, and she’d relocated only the year—not even a full year yet—before. The new kid in town.
Now, of the three of them, she was the only one still right here, right in the heart of town.
Silly to miss them when she saw them nearly every day, but on restless nights she could wish, just a little, they were still close.
So much had changed, for all of them, in this past year.
She’d been perfectly content in Georgetown, with her home, her work, her routine. With Jonathan, the cheating bastard.
She’d had good, solid plans, no rush, no hurry, but solid plans. The Wickham had been her place. She’d known its rhythm, its tones, its needs. And she’d done a hell of a job for the Wickhams and their cheating bastard son, Jonathan.
She’d planned to marry him. No, there’d been no formal engagement, no
