Flamingo Diner (26 page)

“Matthew Atkins!” she shouted.

He wandered in from the back, looking as innocent as any male she’d ever seen. “What’s up, darlin’? Did you find something you can’t live without?”

She pointed toward the display case, and was surprised to see that her hand was shaking. “What is that?”

Matt leaned down and stared at the box as if he’d never seen it before. “Looks like a jewelry box to me.”

“It has my name on it.”

He continued to peer through the glass. “So it does. Isn’t that something? Wonder how it got here?”

Mr. Mullins emerged just then, barely containing a grin. Marisol peeked around the doorway, not even trying to hide her smile.

“Why don’t I get that out so you can take a look?” Mr. Mullins suggested. He reached into the display case with his gnarled fingers and gently picked up the velvet box and the card. Before handing it over, though, he peered at her closely. “You are Emma Killian, aren’t you? I wouldn’t want to make a mistake about a thing like that.”

“I am,” Emma said.

“Maybe I should see some ID,” he said, feigning worry.

Matt chuckled at Emma’s obvious frustration. “I think I can vouch for her. I’ve known her most of her life.”

Mr. Mullins nodded. “That’s okay, then,” he said, handing over the box and card. “I’ll be in the back if you need me.” He shooed Marisol back into the backroom with him, despite her protests. “Let those two have some privacy,” he scolded.

Emma’s hand shook as she held the box. “Matt, what have you done?”

“What makes you think I know anything about this?”

“It has you written all over it,” she said.

He made a pretense of studying it. “Only thing I see is your name. You going to open it or not?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered. Once that box was opened, who knew what would be unleashed? One thing was for certain, a lot of her options would disappear. There would be no question of going back to
Washington if the box contained what she thought it did. She might be stubborn and hardheaded, but she wasn’t an idiot. There wasn’t a man in Washington who could hold a candle to Matt. Balance a lifetime with him against what she might lose by staying and it was no contest. She looked into Matt’s precious face. She would gain so much more.

Finally, she drew in a deep breath and opened the card.

“Just wanted to see if you could spot the real treasure in here,” it read. “Love, Matt.”

Her eyes promptly filled with tears. “Oh, Matt,” she whispered, throwing her arms around him. “The treasure’s not in this box. If there’s any treasure in this entire room, it’s you.”

He pulled back and grinned. “Want me to take this back then?” he asked, reaching for the velvet box.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” she said, stepping back and holding it out of his reach. “It has my name on it.”

She flipped it open and found not the fancy, brand-new diamond ring she’d expected, but an antique ring with a setting so delicate and a stone so brilliant it made her blink. A ring this special, one that had endured the test of time, spoke volumes about the man who’d picked it out.

“Oh, Matt, it’s beautiful,” she breathed. “It’s perfect.”

He met her gaze, brushing away her tears with the pad of his thumb. “I want you to stay here and marry me. Hell, Emma, I’ve loved you for so long, I don’t think I can figure out how to stop. I don’t think I could stand it if you went back to Washington again.”

He cupped her face in his hands. “But if that’s the
only way you can be happy, well, I suppose there are plenty of openings for a cop up there, too.”

Emma’s head was spinning. “You’d do that? You’d go to Washington if that’s what I wanted?”

“I’d go to the ends of the earth, if you asked me to.”

How had she missed the fact that this thing between them was inevitable? How had she not known that Matt’s love for her was deep enough for him to put her needs first? She’d depended on him for months now. She’d cried on his shoulder so often she was amazed he hadn’t demanded a new wardrobe of shirts. She’d even slept with him, but she’d missed the fact that
she
loved
him
enough not to ask him to go.

Maybe that was one more thing she should have learned from her father’s death, that people tucked other people into familiar categories and simply accepted that things would go on that way forever. Nothing could be more wrong. It was important to pay attention, to dig beneath the surface, to look beyond the actions of someone close and see what was in their heart. It was important to be ready for change, to face it with excitement, rather than fear.

“You’re not saying anything,” Matt said, searching her face, his expression uneasy. “I thought that things were different between us now.”

“They are,” she said.

“But you don’t love me,” he concluded, looking shaken.

“No, it’s not that,” she said, touching a finger to his lips until she’d coaxed a smile from him. “You just took me by surprise. My life has been in such a state of turmoil since I came back, I never stopped
for a single second to consider whether we were ready to take this step. It’s a huge step, Matt.”

His smile turned wicked. “You missed the fact that we’ve been sleeping together? That was the huge step. This next one should be a piece of cake. We’ve been working our way toward it our entire lives.”

“I’m very aware that we’ve been sleeping together,” she said, her cheeks heating as she glanced toward the back room to see if Mr. Mullins or Marisol might be eavesdropping. “But that doesn’t always lead to marriage.”

“It does when it’s you and me,” he said soberly. “So are you saying yes or no?”

“I’m saying I care enough to stay here and try to figure it out,” she said.

He nodded and tried to hide his disappointment, but she could read it in his eyes.

“Will you buy this place?” he asked.

That much she was certain about. She was going to find some way to buy this junk shop and turn it into her own dream business where she would answer to no one. “If I can get the money together to do it,” she said.

“I could help,” he offered. “I have some savings.”

She shook her head. “I have to do it on my own. It has to be mine, Matt.”

He nodded. “That independent streak again. I’m familiar with it. Okay, then, you do what you have to do. Something tells me Joshua Mullins will work with you. Turns out he’s a bit of a romantic.”

“He must be if he was willing to help you pull off this proposal,” she said, looking deep into Matt’s eyes. “So can you be patient with me?”

“I’ve waited for you since I was twenty years old,” he said. “A few more months won’t make any difference.”

“Months?”

“Okay, weeks.”

Emma laughed at his impatience. It made her love him all the more. “How about a year?”

“Don’t press your luck, Emma. I want babies. Lots of them, while we’re both still young enough to keep up with them.”

Her heart began to pound as Matt tucked a wayward curl behind her ear. “Babies,” she repeated, a combination of wonder and panic in her voice.

“No need to panic,” he soothed. “We can take this one step at a time. Business first, wedding second, then lots and lots of babies who look just like their mom.”

Emma stood on tiptoe and kissed him. There was nothing scary about one tiny step, not when it was with Matt. He would never let her down. She thought of all the pain her father’s death had caused her and measured it against this moment. She felt Matt’s hand curve reassuringly around hers and decided that, like her mother always said, even the darkest cloud had a silver lining, if only you took the time to look for it.

ISBN: 978-1-4268-3711-1

FLAMINGO DINER

Copyright © 2003 by Sherryl Woods.

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