Saving Alyssa (Mills & Boon Heartwarming) (23 page)

“Oh wow, it's so sparkly!” And then Alyssa climbed onto his lap again. “If she says no, I'll take it!”

Laughing, he hugged her tight.

“Do you think Billie will wear a pretty white dress and a long white veil? And she'll hold a big bouquet of roses? And we'll have a giant cake all piled up with frosting flowers?”

“Let's not get ahead of ourselves. She has to say yes first.”

“Oh, she will. Why wouldn't she?”

He could think of a dozen reasons without even trying. For one thing, he intended to tell her the whole ugly truth. But with any luck, Billie would overlook it all.

“So anyway, Max is going to stay with you tonight.”

“Too bad Max can't cook. We could make a special cake while you're gone. One that says Happy Getting Married, You Two!” One tiny forefinger popped up. “Hey! I know! We can make one of those—what do you call those giant signs, like the ones that say Welcome Home and Happy Birthday?”

“A banner?”

“Yeah. We'll make a banner. And hang it so it's the first thing you see when you get home.”

“You're that sure she'll say yes, huh?”

“Oh yes. Because she loves you, a
lot.
”

He might have asked how Alyssa knew such a thing, if she hadn't darted off to dig through her art supplies. Might have pointed out that Billie had never said she loved him. That he hadn't said the words, either. Oh, he'd
dreamed
about saying it. Dreamed she'd echoed the words.

Tonight, Alyssa's wish and his dreams would both come true...if Billie said yes.

* * *

“O
H
 
MY
,”
SHE
 
SAID
,
opening the door, “you clean up pretty good.”

“And you...you're a knockout.”

She'd spent two hours, showering and fussing with her hair and makeup, trying on dresses, matching them with heels and jewelry.

“Oh, this old thing?” she said, lifting the corner of her skirt. “I just grabbed the first thing I saw in the closet.”

“Uh-huh,” he said. “Now get your coat. We have ten minutes to make our reservation.”

He helped her into it, and after she locked up, he offered her his arm. “Gorgeous night for a walk, isn't it?”

“I love living here, where you don't feel completely dependent on a car.”

“And walking is great exercise.” He looked down at her and winked. “Not that you need it.”

“It's supposed to snow tonight,” she said as they made the turn onto Main Street. “Might not be such a pleasant walk home.”

“We'll see. Worst case scenario, I'll call us a cab.”

“To go a few blocks? That's silly.”

“Well, you can't walk in the snow in
those
shoes.” He pointed to her three-inch heels and they both laughed.

The maître d' escorted them up three flights of stairs to a small dining room. Ornate draperies cloaked windows that overlooked Main Street. The paintings and dinnerware echoed a Parisian theme made warmer by the fire crackling in the tiny woodstove in the corner.

“Oh, Noah,” she said, “it's beautiful.”

Once their waiter left to place their order, Noah reached across the candlelit table, blanketed her hands with his own.

“There are so many things I want to talk about. I really don't know where to begin.”

“You know what they say....”

He nodded. “I know...start at the beginning. See, that's the trouble. There isn't just one beginning in my crazy life.”

Maybe she should spare him the ordeal of reliving his painful—sometimes shameful—history.

She picked up her water goblet, took a small sip. “I talked to my folks today....”

His eyes widened slightly, confirming her suspicions that they'd talked to Noah earlier, just as she'd suspected. Her mom had no talent whatever for keeping secrets. Good thing she'd never need to disappear into the program, Billie thought.

“Oh? How are they?”

“Fine. Dani is pregnant, and Mom is over the moon at the prospect of becoming a grandmother.”

“That's great news.”

“Did you know that Troy has a girlfriend?” She told him all about the woman who'd made her “I love kids” brother consider a future without any of his own.

“How's your leg?” she asked.

“Almost as good as new.”

“You're amazing. Seems like only yesterday I sat beside your hospital bed, worried that I might lose you. I think you must be part cat.”

One eyebrow lifted, and then he nodded. “Never thought of it that way before, but I guess it does seem like I have nine lives, doesn't it?”

Their dinners arrived, and as the waiter stood by to make sure they were well attended, the conversation turned to less personal things. The weather. The price of gasoline. Congress's latest tax hike.

The waiter cleared the table, then delivered dessert. “May I get you anything else?” he asked.

“Just a little privacy.”

The men exchanged a knowing glance.

“You know him?” she asked when the young man left them...and closed the door.

“A little. He bought a bike from me.”

Billie had a feeling that this was more than a Valentine's Day dinner. More than their first official date. More than his way of thanking her for everything she'd done for him and Alyssa since the accident. But she and Noah hadn't exactly shared a normal relationship. And he wasn't exactly a run-of-the-mill man. Making assumptions about the real reasons for this dinner might come with a serving of major disappointment.

“I'm sorry,” he said.

“Sorry? This night has been perfect! Sorry for what?”

“That I can't get down on one knee.” He dragged his chair to her side of the table and sat down beside her. “So I guess we'll have to settle for this....”

He took her hand in his, placed a tiny box onto her palm—a perfect cube, wrapped in shiny red paper, topped off with a silver bow.

“It's almost too pretty to open,” she whispered.

“Billie. You're killin' me here.”

She removed the bow. He looked puzzled when she tucked it into his shirt pocket.

“I have a feeling I'm going to think of that as a keepsake,” she said, peeling away the wrapper. She added it to the pocket. “That, too.”

She removed the top of the glossy red outer box, shook the red velvet box inside it onto her other palm.

Noah relieved her of it. “Your hands are shaking. Let me take it from here.”

His hands were shaking, too, as he pulled back the creaking lid.

“Your dad said if you say no, you're grounded.”

She couldn't decide which shimmered more, the round diamond in the box, or the tears that misted in his beautiful, loving eyes.

“If you don't put it on my finger, right now, you're grounded,” she said.

And then she kissed him.

EPILOGUE

Noah and Billie's 10th Anniversary

“H
OW
 
DID
 
YOU
arrange this?” she said as they entered Tersiguel's Tower Room.

“Pulled a few strings, buttered a few palms, worked a little magic....”

“Well, it's the best present you could give me,” she said. “Dinner in the same place where you proposed.”

“Getting the room was easy compared to talking Alyssa into babysitting. I had to promise she could use the car, three weekends in a row.”

Billie laughed. “I still have trouble believing she's old enough to drive, let alone wrangle deals like that.”

“She wants to be a lawyer. Guess she figures she needs the practice, wrangling.”

“Speaking of practice, the twins will start soccer practice in a few weeks.”

“Think they'll both make the same team?”

“They'd better. I do
not
want to drag a lawn chair from field to field, like I did last year.”

“What will you do with Buddy while the girls are on the field?”

“There's a playground beside the practice field. If I position my chair just right, I can watch all of them.”

“Funny, I was thinking about the original Bud the other day.”

“Wondering what he'd say if he knew we named our li'l guy after him?”

Noah nodded. “Well, we couldn't name the kid after me.”

“We could have, if you had let me flip a coin. Heads, Noah. Tails, Nate.”

“Either way, he'd be a junior. I went to school with a boy named Junior. Kids can be mean. No way I want Buddy going through that.”

“So what's in the box?” she asked, pointing.

“Yeesh.” He laughed. “You don't have a romantic bone in your body, do you?”

“That isn't what you said last night.” She wiggled her eyebrows, then reached into his pocket and withdrew a box...exactly like the one he'd given her that night, right here at this same table, a decade ago.

“Your mom called this morning,” she said, fiddling with the bow. “Wished us a happy anniversary, and asked if it's okay for them to fly out next week.”

“I'm glad they haven't developed a fear of flying. With the kids' schedules, it makes it easier to see them often.”

“It would be easier still if they'd move in with us. I mean, we chose our house because of the in-law suite.”

“They might. Someday.”

Billie opened her purse and withdrew a narrow rectangular box that she'd wrapped to match the one he'd just delivered.

They opened their gifts: his, a stainless-steel calendar watch; hers, one-karat cushion-cut diamond earrings to match her engagement ring. Billie wasted no time putting them on.

“How do they look?” she said, turning her head left, then right.

“Gorgeous. And so do you. You like 'em?”

“I love them.”

Winking, he said, “You can thank me later.”

“Ditto,” she said, batting her eyelashes.

He reached across the table and grasped her hands. “All joking aside, thank you. For the best ten years of my life. For being the best mom to Alyssa and the twins and little Buddy, and making a wonderful, happy home. You're my hero. I hope you know that.”

Billie's eyes filled with tears. Yes, she knew it. And no matter how many times she told him, Noah didn't feel comfortable when she returned the compliment. Maybe ten years from now, as they celebrated another happy decade together, he'd believe her when she said the past didn't matter...that it had never mattered. Maybe he'd believe it when she told him that he was living, breathing proof that people really
can
change.

She'd been a bitter, broken young woman when they met, but he had changed all that.

“When you turned your whole life upside down and inside out all those years ago, you saved Alyssa, but I need you to understand that you saved me, too.”

As expected, he started to protest. Billie shook her head and held up a forefinger.

“Shh,” she said. “Your sherbet is melting.”

Noah picked up his spoon.

“And by the way,” she said, as he sipped it, “if you ever get it into your handsome head to go undercover again, well, don't. Because I'll make it my mission in life to hunt you down and drag you home.”

“Nothing like that has ever entered my—”

“Because I love you,” she interrupted. “Understand?”

He nodded. “I've understood that from the day you hobbled into the bike shop. You're stuck with me, Mary Margaret Elizabeth Landon Preston.”

She laughed at the way he sing-songed her name.

“Ditto,” she said.

“Ditto?” Noah rolled his eyes. “You're a hopeless romantic,” he teased.

“Shh,” she repeated. “You know how much you hate melted sherbet.”

* * * * *