Melt For Him(67)

Travis rolled his eyes. “Get the hell out of here.”

“No, seriously, Trav,” he said, pushing back. He needed to know for certain. “She’s still here?”

“Yes. I offered to bring her here to the firehouse to see you and talk to you, like in some goddamn chick movie where one of them shows up at the other’s workplace to profess their feelings in front of the world, but she said something about the two of you being anti-crowd. So there you go. She’s still here, at your house, and you have my blessing. Not that you ever needed it,” Travis grumbled. “Nor did she, because she’s a grown woman and not just my baby sister, and she’s chosen you. If you make her this goddamn happy that she’s chucked the biggest worry she ever had, then far be it from little old me to stand in the way.”

Becker laughed, maybe from the shock, maybe from the sheer volume of this double whammy of a surprise. “No. I didn’t need it, and she didn’t, either. But I’m damn glad to have it, bro.”

Travis clapped Becker on the back, and then moved it for a quick hug. “Now go,” Travis said, shooing him away. “I don’t come around often and take other men’s shifts for grins. Go.”





Chapter Twenty-Two

She’d replayed those two little words from her mom—worth it—on the way down to San Francisco this morning with Travis, then in the hour she’d sat in the chair, gritting her teeth because it hurt, and all the way back to Hidden Oaks, straight into Becker’s driveway. Travis had kept her company this time, a marked contrast to the last time she’d been in that shop in the city.

Now she was waiting on his doorstep, the noontime sun shining brightly above. This time, she didn’t mind waiting for him under the blue sky of a summer day. She wouldn’t mind waiting in the rain, or the wind, or the dark of the night either. He was worth waiting for, even as the nerves skated across her skin, and the hummingbirds raced in circles in her belly. She didn’t know if he would take her back. She didn’t know if she’d lost her chance. But she knew she had to take the risk.

When he pulled up several minutes after Travis had left for the fire station, she practically wanted to run to his truck, yank open the door, and fling herself at him. Instead, she rose as he stepped out of his vehicle. Then they both stopped moving. There was a moment when they simply stood in place, she on the steps, he in the driveway, staring at each other. This was the moment—the real start or end to them.

She took the first step and began walking across his lawn, and in seconds he was walking toward her.

“Hi,” she said as she neared him. She kept her hands at her sides, even though she wanted to throw her arms around him and kiss him. But words needed to come first. She would assume nothing, even though he was here.

“Hi.”

She swallowed and started to talk, to say she was sorry, to say she loved him, to say all the things she’d realized in the last twenty-four hours, but he went first. “Megan, I’ll go with you to Portland.”

She blinked. That was the last thing in the world she’d thought she would hear. He loved Hidden Oaks. It had become the place where he belonged. “What? But you love it here.”

“I do. I never thought I’d get so attached to a town, especially when I was trying to escape everything, but this town has become my family—from the people I work with at the bar, to the woman who makes my coffee, to all the men at the firehouse. I came here to start over and somehow over the last year it worked; they’ve all snuck in on me and I’ll miss them like hell,” he said, stopping to reach for her and run his fingers through her hair.

She leaned into his hand, wanting to be close to him.

“But you,” he continued, looking at her with such reverence. “You gave me a purpose. You gave me myself back. I’m in love with you. Truly and deeply in love with you, and I never expected it to happen, but then I never expected you to happen. I never expected you to walk—or crash really—into my life and change nearly everything about what I want. And even though I can never give up the firehouse, I can give up this town that has become a home. I can give up my bar. I can give up my friends, but I can’t give up you,” he said, and her throat hitched, her eyes welling with tears. She reached for his hand, threading her fingers through his. She squeezed his hand, her way of telling him to keep going because he seemed to have more to say, and she wanted to hear it all. Every beautiful word.

“You are what’s most important to me, and I want you to have all the things you want in life, including your art and the tattoo shop that I know you’re going to have there someday, and your hopes and your dreams. And I hope and I dream that I can be a part of all that if you’ll have me, and I know that’s asking a lot. I can’t promise you that I won’t get hurt, but I can promise you I will do everything I can to come home to you. Wherever we are.”