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Levi gave a little salute with two fingers before he got back on the ATV. “Will do. Anytime!” he said as he turned and drove back into the woods.
Zane turned Maggie to him and wrapped his arms around her waist. He dropped his head and took her lips in a slow, tender kiss. “C’mon, we’d better get you home. I don’t want JT to think he needs to try to beat my ass.”
Maggie huffed. “He’d better not even try to pull anything tonight. I don’t know what is wrong with that brother of mine. He needs to get over himself and remember I’m a grown up. Between him and my mother, you’d think I was still twelve or something.”
Zane leaned down to nuzzle her neck. “Rest assured, I know you’re no little girl.”
Maggie’s breath hitched. “I thought we had to go?”
“We do,” Zane growled. “I do have to get back to Dallas, but I hate it. I don’t want this day to end.”
With Herculean effort, Zane raised his head and took Maggie’s hand leading them back to his bike and back to real life.
When they were back at her door, Maggie looked up at him, her brown eyes unable to hide her emotion. “Are you sure you don’t want to come in for some coffee before you leave? It’s a long trip back.”
Zane squeezed her hands and shook his head reluctantly. “I want to but I’d better not. I don’t think I’d be strong enough to leave if I came in now,” he confessed. “I do have something I wanted to ask you, though.”
“Oh?” she asked expectantly.
“There’s a gala I have to go to in a couple of weeks. I usually avoid these things like the plague but it’s for The Brain Injury Institute and they’ve asked me to give a speech. It would make it so much more bearable if you could go with me.”
“A gala? Really?” Maggie’s eyes sparkled at the thought. “I’d love to but, I don’t know. I wouldn’t have anything to wear to something like that and I’m sure everyone will be important, like you, and I’m just...”
Zane cut her off. “You’re just amazing and gorgeous and everyone will love you. I’ll never leave your side. Please, Maggie? Say you’ll come.”
Maggie stared at the porch floor until he raised her face to his. “Say you’ll come with me.” He kissed her lips softly. “Please.”
He tried to let all of the emotion he was feeling in the moment into a single look, willing her to agree. “OK,” she whispered. “I’ll come with you.”
Zane kissed her again and rested his forehead against hers. They stood there for several long moments, forehead to forehead, before Zane finally blew out a breath and kissed her where their skin had met. “I really do have to go.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and held him close. “I know,” she said quietly in his ear.
His arms tightened around her, and he placed a quick kiss to her temple before finally stepping away. “I’ll call you when I get home.”
“You’d better!” She tried to smile at him but it was tremulous at best. “Be safe.”
He turned one last time when he mounted his bike to find her still standing on the porch watching him. How the hell am I going to be able to keep leaving her like this?
