Page 64 of Fall Over You

“What’s that?” Jim’s tone is bone dry, and that chills all the warm fuzzies I was just feeling.

Becca tugs me forward into his office, wrapping her arm around my back and flourishing her ring toward the poor man who probably just wanted to drink his coffee in peace.

“Hi,” I say with a wave. “Good to see you again.”

Jim nods.

“Tyler and I have been seeing each other and he just asked me to marry him! Isn’t that amazing? And he and little Ellie are already living out at the farm with me and he decided to make it official.”

The man musters what is probably his first smile in the better part of a decade. It’s almost scary-looking, but it seems genuine. “Congratulations. When’s the big day?”

“Oh, as soon as we can,” I say, my cheeks heating. “Can’t wait to make her my wife.”

Is it pathetic that the statement is actually true? That if we walk out of here without the promise of a loan, I’m going to feel like someone pulled the football away when I was about to kick it?

“So, hey, I know you’re not a big talker,” her winning smile is back in full force, “but I was thinking, since I’ve got all my property paid off and Tyler and I were both looking for some financing, do you think maybe we could do one of those Lockheed things you were talking about?”

“HELOC,” he says with the tiniest excuse for a chuckle.

“Right. Silly me,” Becca says, and god, she’s good. “You know, Tyler’s done so much to help me be better at all this business stuff. And with his daughter and everything, I just feel like I’m finally getting my life together. Going to bed early. Finding the joy in the everyday simple things.”

Becca’s subtlety is apparently completely gone at this point and I have to fight not to laugh. But the crazy thing is, it’s working.

Jim takes a scratch pad out of his desk and starts writing down some numbers. “You still need about fifty, Miss Martin?”

“Yes, sir. That would be a big help for us. Really help our business get off the ground.”

“And Mr. Davis, your capital needs?”

“About a hundred grand, sir.”

He raises an eyebrow but heads out to the county auditor’s site, presumably to get the value on Becca’s property.

“Let me run some numbers and I can get you a proposal,” Jim says.

“Soon?” Becca asks. “We’re about to take Ellie to lunch and break the big news. We’d love to have two things to celebrate.”

Jim jots down a number and unclicks his pen, flinging it on top of the note pad. “Put it this way. You’ll be approved, and how it’s looking on quick math, your interest rate would be a few points below what I quoted you before.” He gestures to me.

“Points?” Becca asks.

“Percentage points.”

“Whole numbers?” Becca smiles so broadly I bet Jim can see her back teeth.

“Yes, Miss Martin. Whole numbers. But you’d be taking out the loan together.”

I smirk. “That’s okay. We’re doing a lot of things together now.”

Becca leaps into my arms outside the bank and, in the most whimsical move of my life, I spin her around. “We did it! Even though you had to go be a pervert with your ‘we do a lot of things together’ comment.”

I set Becca back on her feet. “Well? We do. I’m working on your cottage. You help with Ellie.”

“Speaking of, how do you want to tell her? We kind of have to tell her we’re getting married or she’ll hear it from someone else.”

Becca’s not wrong, but I’m afraid of Ellie getting her heart set on Becca and then getting let down. “That we’re getting married to get a loan?”

“No, just that we’re getting married. Period. She needs stability, and I’m not going anywhere. You heard my man, Jim. It’s going to be years. We may as well settle in for the long haul.”