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“ButIwill be talking to you about the school whenever I feel the need,” Beau said. “Even if it’s a family dinner. I mean, it will be my kids’ school.” He paused. “Your grandkids’ school.”
Becca felt her heart flip over in her chest and her gaze flew to her father’s face. He looked flummoxed for just a second, then a grin spread over his face. He reached out and clapped Beau on the shoulder.
“If you’renotan overly involved dad for my grandkids, we’ll have words,” Jonathan told him.
Beau smiled and nodded. “No problem.”
Becca blew out a breath. So that was a weird way for Beau to ask Jonathan for permission to propose but that was essentially what he’d just done, it seemed.
“Becca,” her father said, turning back to her.
“Yeah?”
He put his hands on her shoulders and met her gaze directly. “I love you. I’m so damned proud of you. Please stay and teach here in Autre.”
Her chest tightened suddenly, and it took a second before she could take a deep breath. Her vision was blurry with tears as she nodded. “I love you too. And yes, okay. Yes, I want to stay.”
He pulled her into a big hug. “Good. That’s really good.”
“Hey! So…who won the trophy?” Someone—it sounded like Savannah again—yelled over the din.
Jonathan let Becca go and Beau immediately tucked her against his side with a kiss on the top of her head. She snuggled against him, happiness filling her up.
Everyone quieted and looked around.
“Well, I did, obviously,” Ellie said.
Beau looked over at her. Then he nodded. “Yeah. I guess so.”
“Oh,come on,” Owen groused.
Ellie looked at him. “As if there was ever any doubt I was going to win.”
“Oh, I had doubts,” Owen told his grandmother.
“There was no way I was going to allow a reserved table in my restaurant. And no way I was gonna let somebody have something on my menu named after them.”
Everyone laughed again and conversations started around them.
Becca looked up at Beau. “Did she help get you here tonight?”
“She did. A little.”
That felt right. And Becca was sure the alligator trophy was going to look amazing sitting on a shelf behind the bar. She’d bet Ellie already had a space cleared for it.
“Do you think she said whatever she said to you just so she’d win?” Becca asked.
“Do I think Ellie is capable of that?” Beau asked. “Yes. Would I be mad if that was the case here?” He paused, then brushed a strand of hair back from her face, tucking it behind her ear. “No. Because this…you in my arms, in Autre, making our life here together,isright, Bec.”
Her heart melted like a chocolate kiss on the dash of his truck in the middle of a Louisiana July day. She nodded. “Yeah.”
“But,” he said, his thumb stroking over her cheek. “No, I don’t think that’s why she said what she did.”
“She did it because she wants us together?”
“And because she wassickof having a broken-hearted blue-collar dumbass sittin’ at her bar.”
Becca laughed. “I think there have been more than one of those over the years.”
