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Katrina bit back a surprised laugh. “I wasn’t?—”
“Let me finish.”
She blinked, closing her mouth again.
“At the same time, I was always willing to step back and let you do your thing. And it was always worth it. Until now.”
Her heart stumbled.
“Katrina, I can’t go on living a life where you are the one who charges into the mist to go after what you want. I can count on one hand how often I have done the same, and today I’m going to add to that list.” He chuckled then shook his head. “I really didn’t want my truck to be the place where we did this, but you gave me no choice.”
Simon reached into his pocket and withdrew something she couldn’t see. He had it in the palm of his hand and when she dragged her gaze from his hand to his face, she was startled to find his eyes shining with an intensity she’d never seen before.
“I’m done being a coward who lets his life pass him by. I’m tired of being the bystander. Today, I’m going to put my heart on the line and tell you that there’s no one else but you. There’s no one I would rather spend the rest of my life with than you.”
Tears of relief and joy brimmed in her eyes, and she blinked furiously to clear them away.
“I couldn’t have said it better myself.”
He grinned. His hand opened, revealing a modest engagement ring—a single stone on a gold band. It was absolutely perfect.
Katrina gasped and looked up into Simon’s adoring gaze.
“Will you marry me?”
“You didn’t even have to ask,” she murmured. Katrina wrapped her arms around his neck in an awkward hug and they both laughed.
Simon pulled back first. “You know, it wouldn’t hurt if we got out of the truck and I did it proper.”
She gave him a strange look. “What?”
Simon lifted a shoulder. “Nothing, I just figured you deserved to have the most perfect proposal and usually that entails the man getting down on one knee.”
Katrina laughed again but sobered when she realized he was serious. “Simon, thiswasthe perfect proposal. Because you were the one who asked me.”
“And you said yes.”
She nodded and pulled him closer so she could press her forehead to his. “I said yes.”
EPILOGUE
Simon satat a large table that had been made up of several smaller tables out behind the Reese’s home. Apparently, barbecues were a normal occurrence during the summer nowadays—something Katrina had neglected to tell him.
He didn’t mind. In fact, being with her family this way was still taking a lot of getting used to. While he’d grown up with Katrina and spent a great deal of his time with her at her home, he hadn’t spent a lot of time with her brothers. And now that each of them was married and starting a family, this “little” barbecue was turning out to be much bigger than he’d expected.
His eyes bounced from one person to the next as they all chatted and filled in the rest of the family on what was new.
Katrina took his hand in hers and he met her gaze. Her smile was all it took to settle his nerves. This was what it felt like to be part of a family—something he hadn’t experienced since he was a child. It was terrifying at times, but more than that, it was absolutely exhilarating, and he couldn’t wait for the day when he’d be able to say he was officially part of it.
“So, Katrina, what’s the plan for the wedding? Will you be getting married in a church? The back yard? A reception center?”
Katrina glanced toward one of her sisters-in-law. “Well, I was thinking?—”
“Actually,” Simon cut in, drawing all eyes toward him. He swallowed hard, not prepared for all the attention. “Actually,” he tried again, “it was supposed to be a surprise, but I’ve been holding onto some of my inheritance for a special occasion and I wanted to give Katrina the opportunity for a destination wedding.”
There were gasps, and eyes that widened so far he was sure people were going to lose their sight. But it was the shock that mingled with excitement that was written all over Katrina’s face that he cared about most.
His voice softened and he took her hand into both of his. “You’ve always had a love of far-off places. You’ve been all over the country, and I wanted to make sure you knew you could continue chasing those experiences—just so long as you do so with me.”
