Her heart stopped.
Then promptly forgot how to start again.
He looked up as she approached, that familiar crooked smile tugging at his mouth, hands shoved into the pockets of his pants, and looking completely at ease.
“Good afternoon, Miss Parker.”
Evie stared at him for a moment. “I don’t…What are you doing here?”
He tipped his head toward the plane behind him.
“Flying you home.”
Her brain tried very hard to process that sentence. “I’m sorry…what?”
Slater took a few steps closer, his expression softer than she’d ever seen it. “Correction. Flying us home.”
“Slater, I don’t understand.” She looked around before focusing on him again. “I thought you were coming to Seattle in a few weeks.”
“That was the original plan, but…” He shrugged. “It didn’t feel right.”
“It didn’t?” she asked in partial wonder.
“For most of my life,” he said slowly, “I’ve been chasing…something.”
Evie’s breath caught.
“It didn’t matter where I went. What job I took. What city I landed in.” He huffed out a quiet laugh. “I just figured if I kept moving long enough, eventually I’d find whatever the hell it was.”
He stopped in front of her now, close enough that she could see the familiar flecks of gold in his eyes.
“And then you showed up.”
Her pulse hammered in her ears.
“And I knew…you’re it.”
Her throat tightened.
“You’re the thing I’ve been chasing.”
For a second she couldn’t breathe, and emotion rushed through her so fast it made her dizzy. “Slater…”
“I know we’ve talked about this—me coming to Seattle in a few weeks,” he continued gently. “But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I didn’t want to wait.” He shrugged lightly. “I kept telling myself I had to and making up reasons why it made sense, but I was lying to myself. And to you.”
Evie blinked at him. “So…you’re…coming with me? Now? Like…now now? Really? But I thought you had…”
He stepped a little closer, his voice softening. “I’ve spent years chasing the next thing, the next place, the next job, the next big rush.” His thumb brushed lightly across her hand when he took it. “Turns out the only place I ever really wanted to land was wherever you were. Because you, Evie Parker, are my greatest rush.”
Evie stared at him, her heart racing so hard she was sure he could hear it. “I can’t believe this is happening,” she whispered. “I wished for it and wanted it, but I told myself I’d be okay waiting.”
“I never want you to just be okay with things,” he told her. “I never want you to settle for second best.”
Her eyes burned. “I think I’m a little in shock. I never thought anything like this would happen to me. I never thought someone would do something this romantic for me. How did you manage to do this on such short notice?”
“The universe must have really wanted this for us because everything fell into place easier than I ever imagined it could,” he began. “I’ve been in touch with a lot of people lately because I knew I wasn’t going to be staying at the resort, but no jobs were available that interested me. But while putting out feelers for jobs, I also reached out to several pilot buddies of mine. That was how I got the plane that brought us here.”
She looked over at the plane but couldn’t tell if it was the same plane from last time, though it looked smaller.
