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A smile tugged at my lips, so I bit my bottom one to keep it away. “I can’t ask you to throw away the years you’ve spent working toward your pension. If I know anything right now, I know there’s value in having a stable job. A stable plan for your future.”
“Well, you’re not asking me. I’m telling you what I’m planning to do.”
My frown deepened.
“Unless, of course, you don’t know if you want to be with me long-term, and that’s why you don’t want me to do this. Don’t think I didn’t notice you haven’t said you love me, too.”
My mind raced. Of course, I loved him. But could I really expect him to give up all of his plans and his career for me?
Sure, I’d been about to talk to my parents about eventually leaving with him, but then my mom had walked in and told me it was even worse than I’d feared, and I knew I couldn’t do that.
Did that mean I wasn’t willing to give up my plans and career for him?
I wanted that to be false, but in a way, it was true. I didn’t want to let my family down, and no matter how much I loved him, I had to put them first, right?
Thatcher stood, rising to his full height and squaring his shoulders. “I guess I should take your silence to mean I’m on the right track there.”
“I do love you,” I said quickly.
Relief filled his eyes, and his lips twitched, but he seemed to sense thebutcoming, so he didn’t speak.
“It’s just that … we can’t know the future, Thatcher. What happens if you give all of that up for me and we don’t work out? You’ll hate me. Or what if we do work out, but you miss being a Marine, and you start resenting me? Then we’ll just break up anyway.”
“That’s not going to happen. I’ve been thinking about this for months, and I’m not taking the decision lightly. This is my career we’re talking about.”
“Yeah, it is.”
“I’m not rushing into anything that I’m not sure about.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, showing him with no words that I wasn’t so sure about that.
“Did you know transitioning to the civilian sector is common in my job specialty? Most guys do it because they want to settle down, and we’ve already been trained to fight fires. It’s a natural progression. If I wait until I’m retired, I’ll be too old by then.”
Still unsure, I continued to worry my bottom lip through my teeth. “Look, I need to open the shop, and this is all really scary for me right now. I understand if you don’t want to help out around here today. We can handle it.”
He smirked and let his head drop back in exasperation. “I’m not going to bail on you.”
“It wouldn’t be bailing—”
“It would. I told you I’d help you today, so I plan to help.” I opened my mouth to argue, but he cut me off before I could. “Because whether you believe me or not—whether you feel the same way or not—I’m committed to you, Hattie. I’m not scared.”
Those bothersome tears threatened to surface again, and I took a shaky breath.
“But, you’re right,” he said, his shrewd gaze not missing a beat when it came to me, as usual. “The shop needs to open, and we’ve got work to do. We’ll talk about this after my forty-eight.”
Without another word, he slid into the seat I’d vacated and began printing out the cards for today’s deliveries.
I stared at his back while he worked, unblinking and unmoving. Then I shook my head and hightailed it out of there before we were late unlocking the doors.
As much as I wanted to figure everything out with Thatcher—and maybe go back in time to that love confession part, and … I don’t know … do better—we really did have work to do.
11
THATCHER
Hattie and I worked the rest of the day in near silence. It was fine for me since I wasn’t used to being chatty, to begin with. I only did it with her because she made it so easy.
But when I was upset, I preferred time to think. Time to process.
