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“I love you, too.”
I turned toward him and took his hands. Staring at his face, my heart beat harder in my chest. Words—and emotions, for that matter—weren’t my thing. There was only one thing I really needed to say. “Will you marry me, Hank?”
He blinked, his smile transforming into a frown. “What?”
I cleared my throat. “I’d like to get married.”
Inhaling a breath, he stepped away from me and raked a hand through his hair. “You know I’d never leave you. And the money—I don’t want it.”
I smiled a little. “I know.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “That’s what marriage means.”
“It means more than that. I want love, you, more than anything. You’re the person I want to talk to, explore with, and sleep next to for the rest of my life. You make me a better person and I love the way your mind works. You have a dangerous job and if something happened to you, I want tobe able to fully care for you. And I have a feeling that babies are gonna come along, sooner rather than later. I like the idea of babies—with you.”
Someone started playing a ukulele close by, the melody of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” drifting toward us. The corners of his mouth quirked up. “You want to plan a big party, don’t you?”
A full-blown grin broke out on my face. I closed the distance between us and kissed him. “And a long honeymoon.”
He sighed. “I’d like to be married. But you…”
“Can’t imagine life without you.”
We stared into each other’s eyes. He cupped my face, smiling at last. “Yes.”
The End
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A Gnome Inheritance: A Smitten in Seattle Romance
CHAPTER ONE
“Everyone wants my gold!”
Those had been Aunt Elsie’s last words, six months ago, before she’d slammed her landline down, disconnecting. Most of their conversations had ended that way.
Penny had shrugged and put an alert in her phone to call again at the next holiday. Then the poor old lady had died—and left her property to her niece.
Ahead of Penny, Aunt Elsie’s little white house with blue shutters appeared to be the last pioneer cabin still standing in Seattle. It was small, square, and surrounded by towering evergreen trees. Penny stared open-mouthed at the squat wooden box, as she pulled into the driveway. A hidden oasis of wilderness in the city. Her inheritance.How horrible could it be?
She jumped out of her station wagon onto the lumpy driveway hedged in by waist-high weeds in the yard. Gus barked, sliding his big yellow-gold body out of the driver’s side door to escape out of the car. Ears pricked, he leaped into the tall grass.
Penny glanced back at her vintage Airstream trailer, itsmetal exterior reflecting sunlight. She’d parked badly, as usual.
“Don’t go in there,” shouted her best friend, Kat, standing next to her zippy little orange Mini Cooper, out on the cul-de-sac’s road. “The roof is about to fall in.”
“I have to.” Penny turned in a slow circle. The other house on the quiet street was a luxury home built high for views of the Puget Sound estuary. Her aunt’s property was like a raised middle finger. “Aunt Elsie’s ghost will haunt me if I don’t.”
A dark-haired man, fit and broad-shouldered, stood watching them from his raised balcony at the house next door. He had a cell phone to his ear. She waved, her mouth quirking up.Hello, neighbor.The palm of his hand flashed at her briefly before he turned away.
“This is not safe,” Kat squeaked, her heels wobbling on the cracked and pitted old driveway. “We need to at least put on gloves.”
