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Beau lifts his root beer, taking a drink. “You should have seen Maverick’s proposal. It was so over the top romantic. You would have loved it.” His voice trails off.
I’d love any proposal from Beau.
“I always thought we’d get engaged—"
ChapterSixteen
BEAU
“At Love Lock Bridge.” I finished her sentence without thinking. It rolled off my tongue so easily like it was a fact, already written in stone.
Silence cloaks us. Our eyes collide, filling the air with regret and awkwardness. I’ve loved Vanessa for so long, it’s hard to remember a day before the Navy when we weren’t together. Swimming in the summer. Snowmobiling in the winter.
Her dad made sure she had all the toys. He always tried to fill her heart with the latest and greatest to fill the void of not having a mom. But the reason I loved her wasn’t because she was the only one I knew with a snowmobile—I just loved spending the day with her. Warming her hands in mine as I gently expelled a hot breath, then kissing her knuckles.
Fuck, I still love her. I’ve pushed and pushed those words from my brain but with abject failure.
A slight cold breeze drifts over us as the front door to the restaurant opens. I can barely break Vanessa’s gaze, but it’s my job to know who came inside. But before I do, I hear a man’s voice saying, “Vanessa.”
“Sorry I’m late. Traffic from Louisville was a bitch. Then I needed to use a restroom, and fuck, there was nowhere to pull off. I went ten miles off the exit before I found ‘The Lost Lemon, Your Last Stop to Nowhere.’ Rome Lennox uses finger quotes. What man does that?
Jessie laughs and Maverick’s face draws in. Vanessa looks like the wind has been knocked out of her. She’s holding her chest with one hand. Does he take her breath away?
The Love Lock Bridge.
He reaches for Vanessa’s hand tugging her toward him. Her body bends as she ends up pressed to his chest. “Are you ready for our date?” he asks.
And me, I’m one punch away from landing up in jail.
“Hope you don’t mind, but I invited my best friends, Jessie and Maverick,” she says, not mentioning me, at all.
He and Maverick shake hands, and he gives me the head shake like he’s sizing up his competition.
There’s nothing to worry about. If she wasn’t scared and if Ben hadn’t convinced her, I wouldn’t be here at all. Not after last week.
The hostess comes over dressed in black from head to toe. “Ms. Barron, your table is ready.”
Vanessa glances at me as the hostess leads the party of four away from me and into the corner table where I only have to worry about two angles. A window looking over the back patio, which is closed on weeknights and the path from the bar. Vanessa’s eyes droop.
“Miss? Miss?” The hostess turns to face me. “Ms. Barron wants a table on the rooftop. Is it available?”
I’m like a pussy whipped schoolboy. She makes me want to give her the world—still.
“Yes sir, I thought you requested…”
I cut her off. “I did but changed my mind.”
“Yes sir, follow me please.”
Vanessa’s smiles in appreciation and it’s so brilliant it could power the Las Vegas strip, and I’m the one who put it there. It feels good to make her happy.
The foursome sits against the stone wall. I check for anything out of place all around the table. It’s overkill, but bombs scare me. I’ve been trained to look for them even though I would never expect it took place here in Kissing Springs. I ask the hostess not to seat anyone to the left of them, and I take the table to the right where I’m the first person to see who’s coming up the steps.
Lennox orders a bottle of wine. Maverick says, “I’ll have a Barron’s neat, and my fiancée will have a Kentucky mule.”
God, I admire Maverick more every day. He could buy the whole town of Kissing Springs but chooses not to show off his money, unlike this prick Lennox.
Vanessa orders a French Martini.
