Meant to Be (Whisper Creek #5)(102)

"What … might it mean?"

"Well, my badge is apparently waiting for me."

"Oh." She nodded, but felt her arms crossing over her stomach. But what would she expect? Of course he'd want his life back. "So you're-going back to the job?"

"I don't know, actually. Depends on … a lot of things."

"Like?"

He took a deep breath, staring out over the water, and she waited, trying not to twitch in agony.

Finally, he looked at her. "Actually, I'm lying."

"About which part?" Her voice was small.

"About the lot of things part." He made a fist with one hand and tapped it uneasily against the other. "There's really only one thing."

"Okay?"

"For the past month, I've been living out of take-out boxes, sitting in a depressing motel room, doing everything I could to figure out how to get out from under this case, and do you know what I realized about two weeks after I got here?"

She shook her head slowly, scared.

"I realized, Shelby, that the biggest reason I was fighting so hard to get free of this elephant was that I couldn't wait to leave that damn motel room and come straight to you … but come to you as an honest, upright, cleared man."

"Really?" Her breath was shaky still, but she felt a smile take hold.

"I can't explain it, because I've never felt it before, but I can't imagine a life without you in it, either. It makes no logical sense. We barely know each other. You've said it, I've said it, neither of us believes in the whole love-at-first-sight crap … and yet, here we are. You're sitting on a park bench in a city you don't know, waiting for me to find you, and I've been running around for hours to every park in the damn city trying." He took off his baseball cap and ran one hand through his hair. "It's insane, right?"

"Totally."

"See? You agree. And I live here, but you've got five more months on a bus, and then I don't even know where you're thinking you might land, so of all times to try to start a relationship, this is a pretty lousy one, right?"

"Absolutely."

"I have a family here, a job, a … life, such as it is right now. All I've wanted for the past year was to get all of those things back, and it finally happened." He nodded, his eyes on the river again. "But if you, right now, asked me to get on that bus with you tonight after the show and spend the next five months bringing you coffee, I actually think I might say yes. It's complete, utter insanity. Right?"

"Yes."

He looked sidelong at her. "You could totally disagree with any of these things. Just saying."

"Can't." She grinned. "They're all true."

"You know, I always considered myself a fairly mature, measured person. I'm logical, I'm analytical, and I'm-usually-fairly intelligent. But I am using none of those skills right now, and I gotta tell ya, it's a little disconcerting."

"I think it's awesome, if that matters."

He rolled his eyes. "I just offered to be your coffee guy for the next five months. Of course you'd think that was awesome."

"Well?" She shrugged. "I mean, it's quite an offer." Then she grew serious. "But you'd go nuts, even if your offer was remotely serious, which I know it's not."

"I know." He sighed. "And we haven't even talked about the issue of my reputation, and its possible effect on yours. That's huge-huge-and as much as I'd love to ignore it, we can't. I won't be responsible for destroying all the hard work you've done here to build your brand back up into something you're proud of."



       
         
       
        

"Not so proud, just saying. Still singing bubble-gum pop every night."

"But obviously you're singing the good stuff, too." He pointed at her guitar. "And there's no way Nashville isn't going to snap you up once you're out from under LolliPop."

"Well, no guarantees there, obviously." Shelby nodded. "But my fingers are crossed. Just taking it one day at a time right now."

"Sounds like a good strategy."

"Coop? Where would you go, if you had no reputation following you? If you had no lonely pop singer lusting after you, wishing you could come on tour with her? Where would you go?"

"Back to Whisper Creek."

He said it without even thinking, and her eyes widened as the words came out. "Really?"

"Life is real there." He nodded. "I know who I am there. I found out who you are there. So really? Yeah, that would probably be my little slice of Heaven, to go back there and settle down."