“I just want to be here with you,” he said, his voice deep, his eyes steady.
“I could get used to you being here for me,” she admitted.
She saw something spark in his eyes as he heard her words.
Then Wyatt slid from the couch.
Got down on one knee.
Panic rose in her chest.
“Elsie, would you marry me?”
She stared, as a roar in her ears intensified. What...was he doing? Proposing? Really? Now?
“Wyatt, stop, no. Get up.”
“I love you.”
“You don’t even know me! Get. Up!”
She was yelling now, and Elsie hated herself for it, but what had he been thinking? One second everything had seemed perfect and now...it felt like it was falling apart. Why did this happen to her? More importantly, why had she thought that she, a person who was used to being alone, could change and be anything but alone for the rest of her life?
FIFTEEN
She was pulling away. That was all Wyatt could think as he felt the ache in his knees, stood from his impulsive kneeling position and then sat back down on the couch.
That wasn’t how he had envisioned this at all. Wyatt had messed up. He knew it as surely as he knew his own name. After all this time of being patient, waiting to fall in love till he’d found the right person, he’d rushed once that had happened. Elsie was right for him. He was convinced of that.
“I, um.” He cleared his throat, wishing he could fast-forward through the awkwardness. “I’m sorry about that, I guess?”
“Don’t...apologize.” She stood up, started to walk around the room. Her eyebrows were scrunched together in a way he found adorable. “You just don’t even know me, Wyatt.”
He bristled. “Yeah, I think I do.”
She shook her head. “It’s been what, a week?”
“We’ve known each other for decades.”
“We’ve known of each other,” she corrected him. “It’s not the same thing.”
“What else is there to know, after everything we’ve been through together?”
At the moment, her expression didn’t indicate any kind of positive emotion toward him. But hadn’t they been kissing less than ten minutes ago? Had she told him she was falling for him, too?
Wyatt wanted to leave. The desire revealed something about his nature he didn’t particularly like. The old him walked away when things got difficult, and he didn’t want to be that guy. He wanted to be the kind of guy who could stick around through everything and work it out.
Besides, last time he’d left Elsie’s house to process alone, she’d ended up being dragged through the woods. While the threat against her appeared to be gone, he still wasn’t willing to take the risk.
She’d been choosing her words carefully. She said, “There’s so much more to someone than you can learn in just a few days. I want to be really known like that, not just have someone know a little bit about me and be attracted to me.”
Of course she did. He heard what she wasn’t saying. Her entire life she’d wanted someone to really know her, and who she was, and he’d messed up.
“I’m sorry. I can’t take the proposal back.”
She stopped pacing. “I think you need to go.”
His heart dropped. “Don’t, please. Let’s talk about it. I don’t want to run away from you, Elsie.”
Her eyes betrayed no emotion, but she was shaking her head. “Just go.”
It was the last thing Wyatt wanted to do. But he was trying to be a gentleman. She’d told him twice now, so he didn’t feel like he had a choice.
Breathing a quick prayer for her safety, and for God to do something with the mess he’d made of things, he opened her door, then shut it behind him.
Why couldn’t he have asked her on a date? Or told her she was beautiful? Or given her chocolate or a puppy? Anything to show his growing affection that wasn’t a proposal would have been better. He saw that now.
Wyatt exhaled deeply, squeezed his eyes shut.
And wondered if she’d ever give him—give them—a second chance.
It was strange, the way she almost felt like they’d come full circle. Elsie was in her bed again, sleepy but sleepless, unable to rest. Just like she had been before everything had happened. The man who broke into her house, the new search...Wyatt...
What had she done?
Earlier, she had been so sure that her decision had been the right one. It was better to chase Wyatt away if he didn’t really know her than to risk him becoming disappointed when he realized she wasn’t what he thought, right?
Apparently not right, because Elsie was miserable. Willow was annoyed with her and had already moved from her comfy spot on the end of the bed, where she’d been curled up on the blanket that usually stayed folded at the end, down to the floor, where Elsie’s restlessness wouldn’t wake her.
