“I’ve got you,” I whispered, holding her through it.
I followed right after, burying my face in her neck as I spilled into her, holding her like she was the only thing real in the world.
After, we didn’t move far.
She curled into me—her head on my chest, my arm around her waist, hand splayed over her back. Our legs tangled under the quilt.
Her left hand rested on my heart again, ring catching the low lamplight.
We both stared at it.
She turned her hand slowly, watching the stone shift and sparkle.
“It’s so pretty,” she whispered, almost awed.
I lifted her hand to my lips again, kissed the ring once more, then pressed my mouth to her palm.
“It looks like it was always meant to be there,” I said quietly. “Like it was waiting for you.”
She nestled closer, cheek against my skin, fingers still laced with mine. “I love you,” she murmured, voice already heavy with sleep and contentment.
“I love you too,” I answered, kissing her forehead. “More than I know how to say.”
“Cross your heart,” she whispered.
I pressed my lips to her temple.
“Cross my heart.”
We drifted off to sleep with her hand still resting over my heart, the ring a quiet, steady light between us.
Chapter 37
Becca
“Welcome toSomebody Said in Sweetbriar. If you’ve ever met a Barrett, then you know they don’t keep secrets. They keep scorecards.’”
I’d been to the Barrett house before.
Enough times over the years that I knew the driveway tilted slightly to the left, that the third porch step had a soft spot you learned to skip, and that the smell of Dahlia Barrett’s cooking reached the front walk before you ever made it to the door.
But I’d always arrived before as Levi’s best friend. As a known quantity with a clearly defined role. Tonight, I arrived as something else entirely.
Levi kept his hand over mine the whole drive, thumb tracing slow circles against my knuckles like he could feel the way my pulse had picked up. He’d offered, twice, to tell them about the engagement first. And twice I’d said no, because somehow that felt worse—imagining the whole family rearranging their faces into polite surprise. I’d rather take the chaos directly.
“Stop thinking so loud,” Levi said.
“I’m not?—”
“You are. I can tell. Your left knee is bouncing.”
I pressed my left knee flat against the seat.
He smiled without looking away from the road. “They’re going to love this.”
“They already know me,” I said. “That’s not what I’m worried about.”
“Then what are you worried about?”
