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The doorbell rang.
“Aren’t you going to answer that?” Brant asked.
Kurt didn’t even look up. “Nope. I’m gonna rinse off my plate and get ready. You’re not doing anything tonight. Why don’t you grab it?”
Cursing under his breath, Brant went into the living room. He wasn’t in the mood to be social, and Kurt could’ve saved him this encounter—if he wasn’t being such an ass. Even as Brant reached for the door handle, he had half a mind to go back and haul his little brother out of the kitchen tomakehim handle it. But Kurt would be gone in a few minutes. Then, as soon as he could get rid of whoever was at the door, Brant would have the house to himself.
No one was standing outside when he opened the door. “Hello?” he called.
No response.
He was about to step out so he could see the driveway but caught himself before he nearly crushed a large bakery box on the doormat. It looked like someone had delivered some sort of food.
He hoped to hell it wasn’t Averil. After he’d given Charlie the satisfaction of knowing he’d been right, Averil had texted to say she was sorry about what Talulah had done. Brant hadn’t responded to her. But then, he hadn’t responded to Charlie, either, who’d also sent him a surprisingly conciliatory message:I’m sorry. I know what it feels like. Call me if you want to talk.
It’d be a cold day in hell when he called Charlie to discuss Talulah, Brant thought as he picked up the box and carried it inside.
Kurt twisted around from where he was rinsing his plate at the sink as Brant came back into the kitchen. “What’s that?”
Brant set it on the table. “I’m about to find out,” he said and grabbed a knife to slit the tape holding the top shut.
Once he lifted the lid, he put the knife down and stepped back.
“What is it?” Kurt, hands dripping water, came over to see what was inside the box, too.
“It’s a carrot cake,” Brant replied. One of Talulah’s carrot cakes. Brant had eaten enough of them to know. But the most shocking thing wasn’t that she’d baked him his favorite cake, or that she was probably in town to deliver it.
It was what she’d written across the top.
Will you marry me?
Talulah waited in the driveway, nervously pacing next to her SUV. Paul hadn’t been happy when she’d confronted him about what she’d learned. At first, he’d tried to deny it—had been adamant that there was no way he’d thrown that rock. But he had no answer for the flight he’d taken and, in the end, had finally sagged against the counter and stared glumly at his feet, only finding his voice again several minutes later to say, softly, that he’d meant to come and win her back, but the idea of her being with someone else had upset him so badly he’d reacted impulsively when he saw her—had never meant to hurt her.
He’d begged her to forgive him and to stay, but she’d packed up all the belongings she could fit in her vehicle and left for Coyote Canyon. She’dhadto do it. She felt like she couldn’t breathe in Seattle anymore—that was how desperate she’d become to get home to Brant. Still, even after ten hours of driving, there were moments when she couldn’t believe she was doing what she was doing. The risk of it, the daring, made her queasy. At least the uncertainty she’d always felt when it came to whatever man she was seeing was gone. She’d made her choice—and it gave her peace of mind because it felt right.
When Brant came out of the house again and walked in her direction, she wiped her damp palms on her jeans.
“You’reproposing tome?” he said, obviously stunned.
She felt a sheepish smile tug at her lips. “Well, I knew better than to expectyouto propose tome.”
He laughed as he reached her, pulled her into his arms and buried his face in her neck. “God, you scared me,” he said as he twirled her around. “I thought I’d lost you.”
“I’m sorry.” She placed her hands on his cheeks as he set her down. “I had to shut out the noise. Close down all communication with you and Paul and just...search my heart.”
“And this is what you want?” he asked beseechingly. “You’ve decided for sure? I can count on it?”
The words were surprisingly easy to say, considering the angst she’d gone through to get here. “Youare what I want. No matter what happens, I’m there. You can count on it.”
She admired the beautiful blue of his eyes as he squinted against the sun sinking behind her. “How did you finally decide?”
Part of it was finding out that it was Paul who’d thrown that rock. But she knew if she said that it would only tempt Brant to knock some sense into him, so she decided not to tell him about that today. Instead, she was going to focus on the more positive catalyst. “I guess, in a way, Phoebe told me what to do.”
“Since Phoebe’s dead, I think I could use an explanation,” he said with a laugh.
“You know I was reading her journals, right? Well, I came to a part where she met this amazing man while she was serving in the military—a doctor.”
“They fell in love?”
