Rico touched her arm. “Don’t worry, girl. I’ll help you find a new boyfriend.”
“Peg, honey, we’re here for you,” her mother said. “You’ll find someone else. Or not.” The catch in her voice cut through Peg.
“Just be happy, dear,” her father chimed in. Her brother and his wife agreed.
Evelyn rushed to Austin’s side. “What’s going on, Austin? You and Peg? On or off?”
“Off,” Peg answered for him.
“On,” Austin said.
Her gasp was swallowed up by everyone else’s. “Holy, peanut butter on my crackers, you can’t be serious?”
She heard a tray crash and the maître de’s familiar voice. “Shut up!”
Austin’s smile grew wide.
Peg shook her head. It wasn’t supposed to end like this, hotness!
He nodded. His stare, blue-eyed and searing, captured hers. It stole her breath away.
“I’m going to faint! F-A-I-N-T dead away,” Rico said, fanning himself. He nudged her from behind. “Go, girl. You got this hottie. Believe you me. He ain’t joking.”
She took a step forward. Her hem crept up. She tugged it down.
“You don’t have to do that on my account,” Austin said. “I love looking at your legs. But I especially love looking into your eyes.”
Sucking in a sharp breath, Peg blinked. “Seriously? That’s not a line or somethin’?”
“Maybe it will be a line in my new song. But not for you.”
“But…but. I’m tall.”
“Me, too.”
“Giraffe size.” She stretched out her neck. “See?”
He shrugged. “I like giraffes. Don’t you?”
“Love ’em. But I’m not dainty or pretty—”
Holding up a hand, he said, “You’re beautiful, Peg not Margaret Newberry, with your big brown eyes, that infectious smile, your funny little sayings, the way you boss everyone around for their own good, and everything else about you. The whole package, Peg. That’s what I love about you.”
“Love?!” Peg squeaked out as her heart squeezed. The way he described her, she really did feel beautiful. Just the way she was.
He took a step closer at the same time she moved to him. Now, standing two feet apart, she gazed into his eyes.
“All that is holy and pure,” she whispered, a sense of peace and rightness swept through her. “Peg Newbury, pinch yourself, ’cause, girl, you just got yourself a hottie!”
“More like, Austin Rhoades, you just got yourself a hottie!”
Laughter, clapping, and cheering surrounded her as Peg leaned in for his kiss.
Peg dropped her clipboard. It landed on his foot, and then thumped to the floor.
He winced. “Did you have to do that?”
“Sorry,” she mumbled, remembering she’d done the same thing when she first met him. She bent to pick up the clipboard at the same time he went to get it. They bumped foreheads. “Ouch!”
He rubbed the sore spot. “Wounded,” he said under his breath. “Twice in two seconds.”
Smiling, she looked into his light blue eyes and knew she’d be forever grateful for trying to find herself one measly date. Now, she had a lifetime with his holy hotness…and maybe, in one point eight years, a couple of those rug rats running around…
THE END