Walk of Shame (44 page)

I knew I should be saying
something, but there were no words of comfort I could offer, so I let the
silence settle around us. Even the crew went utterly still. The only sound
around was that of the water lapping at the dock.

"You're choosing him,"
Liam said with a flat, emotionless voice.

"Yes," I said in a soft
whisper.

He slowly stood and looked down
at me, "Why?"

I took a moment to debate how to
explain it to him. What was I supposed to say? That I'd decided that I could
say goodbye to him but not Mike? That my very first impression of seeing Mike
was slightly better than of seeing him for the first time? Neither of those
factors were going to hold any kind of comfort for him.

I shrugged my shoulders.
"Pure gut instinct," I whispered.

He tucked his lips between his
teeth and bit down, probably holding back a retort, as he scrubbed at his face
with his hands, trying to accept what I was telling him. "Are you sure you
know what you're doing?"

I shook my head. "I'm as
sure as I can be without a crystal ball to predict my future."

"You said you loved
me."

The tears sprang up in my eyes
again. "I do," the whisper coming out harshly.

"But?"

My eyes sank to the decking,
"But I love him more."

He made a noise of disgust. But,
ever the quiet gentleman, he raised his head to hold himself proud. "I
hope you find happiness," he said.

"I want nothing but the same
for you," I said in a louder voice, meeting his gaze.

He gave a curt nod and turned,
walking away from me, and out of my life.

I started trembling and I sank to
my knees, silently holding sobs back. He was having the decency to take the
rejection like a man and not getting openly mad at me. The least I could do was
spare him the annoyance of feeling as if he should come back and comfort the
woman he'd been ready to propose to but had dumped him instead.

Tears streamed down my face and
the cameras on me kept recording, but they backed off to give me space. As soon
as I thought Liam was out of earshot, I gave voice to my sorrow and that's when
the producer started sending out texts.

I could see that Troy and the
camera crew up by the car had stopped Liam to conduct a mini exit interview. Many
guys would have walked straight past them and have angrily gotten into the car,
just wanting to put distance between himself the woman stupid enough to crush
his hopes. But Liam was ever the understanding gentleman. I could tell he was
agitated, with his hand swiping though his hair, but he was giving some
semblance of answers to the questions being asked.

And his somewhat calm demeanor
helped to calm me. I pulled myself together, reminded myself why I'd dumped one
of the greatest men I'd ever known, and stood up on my own two feet.

Production was careful about
making sure the rejected guy's and the unknowing guy's limos didn't cross paths
with each other as one left and the other arrived. My makeup was quickly touched
up while production saw to the exchange. And then, boom, the limo appeared and
Mike got out to speak with Troy.

It was so weird. To see Mike from
a distance and to know that he was the one, but he didn't. I zeroed in on the
smile he was giving Troy as they spoke. It was a crooked grin, and I knew from
that he was nervous. And he had every right to be. Ring in his pocket, cameras
in his face, and he ran the risk of proposing to a person that could say
goodbye and never look at him again.

Liam had masked the emotions my
rejection had caused pretty well. And I knew Mike could have, too. But I also
think inside it would tear Mike up more, just because he'd gone so far out of
his way to try to protect himself against a hurt like what I'd just dished out
to Liam.

Once Mike's foot hit the pier and
he started his final approach to me, I let all of that go and put every joy I
was feeling, and every confidence I had, into the expression on my face. Mike
spent the first few seconds of the walk down the pier watching his footing,
before looking up at me. He saw my smile, read the rest of my expression, and a
full, even grin appeared on his mouth.

He walked straight to me and
embraced me, pulling me close and all but lifting me off my feet.

I hugged him back, whispering,
"I love you," in his ear over and over again.

He let out a laugh, kissed my
neck, and whispered, "I love you," back. He set me down on my feet,
drew my chin up with his forefinger, and kissed me softly, but deeply, before
lifting his head away.

Heaven help me, all I could do
was grin up at him like a simpleton.

He gave a small shake of his head
while he kept smiling. "I can't believe we're finally here," he
whispered.

I nodded. "Just you and
me."

His hands still held my face,
thumbs brushing my cheeks. A sparkle lit in his eyes and he kissed my forehead.

I laughed and he let go of me.
Standing up straight and tall, his eyes never leaving mine, he pulled the small
telltale box out of his tuxedo pocket. The smile that spread across my face was
almost too wide to be contained.

He eased himself down on one knee,
but kept the box closed in his hand. "I came here to take a chance. A
chance on this gorgeous girl my brothers saw on a website for a TV show. And
though my father thought I was nuts, and my mother thought there must be
something wrong with the girl for agreeing to come do this, I was hooked from
the moment I read your bio.

"I was nervous about how I
would be accepted, and I was insecure about how I'd measure up against a group
of other men that had been selected for you. But you changed that for me. You
singled me out on night one because of the uniform.  And I panicked over that
and showed you the leg because I didn't want you to have a false perception of
me. But then I came to realize that I was the one with the false perception of
myself, because the expression on your face whenever you saw me didn't change
the whole way through this. You were still as impressed by me at any given
moment as you were when I first got out of the car.

"That scared me because I
felt like you had expectations of me that I could never rise to. I told one of
my brothers that you looked at me with a bit of hero worship. He told me that I
was a hero and to get over trying to deny it, already.

"You made me see myself in
new light. That's when I was determined to show you what life with me, not my
profession, but with me, would be like. That's when I started showing up for
the runs I'd see you do. And damn if you didn't accept me doing that, too. But
then you scared me again by making me think I was being put into the
friend-zone. But you just kept smiling and running, and you never lost that
look in your eyes. You had different looks you saved for different guys
throughout the last two months, but I watched many of those looks waver and
leave your face as you grew to know us more and more. It was fascinating for me
to watch.

"And just a few minutes ago,
when I first looked down here, I saw the expression aimed at me change for the
first time. The look you gave me was freer, clearer, lighter. There's nothing I
want more than to see this same expression light your face for the rest of our
lives." He opened the box to display the ring. "Will you marry me?
"

Tears flowed down my cheeks
despite the smile shining from my lips.  "Our morning run was my favorite
part of the day. You were my solid rock through this, and always here. You let
me vent frustrations and laughed at my rants. You got a better look at who I am
than anybody else, and you just kept coming back for more. I surrounded myself
with criticism for others, so I could weed my way through the mire. And I
became so focused on trying to ditch people that I forgot to take measure of my
keepers. By the time I was down to the best of the bunch, I was lost. It's so
easy to look around and see who isn't meant for you. It's not so easy to look
around and see the one who
is
meant to be with you.

"My sister pointed out to me
a phrase that I always use in my romance novels. The girl always says 'I'm
sold' in my stories. And that's the phrase that went through my head the first
time I saw you. And I finally talked to my Mom. She's the one that told me I
was looking at it the wrong way. She said not to try to figure out who I could
see myself living with. She said to pick who it is that I can't live without.

"Saying goodbye to Jared and
Liam was hard, but I realized that saying goodbye to you would be impossible."

Mike just kept smiling up at me
after I'd stopped talking. He finally chuckled. "Is that a yes?"

"Oh! Yes, of course!" I
said with a laugh.

He quickly slid the ring on my
finger and stood to embrace me again. No doubt, glorious music would be queued
in the editing room later. But I swear, in this moment, I found I didn't need
it.

Troy came up to us after we
pulled apart from each other. He handed me an envelope.

I smiled as I recognized it from
the day he'd sealed it. Troy must have swiped it from my rig.

"Turns out, I was
wrong," Troy said.

I gave him a questioning look,
wondering why he was doing this now, if he'd been wrong. I opened the envelope
and pulled out the folded sheet of paper. Inside his note, he'd written, '
You'll
choose Jared, but you deserve Mike.'

I smiled and reached out to hug
Troy. "Thank you," I whispered.

Interviews would come, along with
network appearances, but they would be finished eventually, and regular life
would start up again. And when it did, Mike would be by my side. That was the
most surreal part of it all. We'd move forward to forge a new kind of normal,
together.

Current
and

Upcoming Titles

Daughter
of the Bering Sea (February, 2013)

Gift
of the Bering Sea (May, 2013)

Bering
Sea Retribution (?)

~~~~~~~~~~

Lulling
the Kidnapper (July, 2013)

~~~~~~~~~~

Looking
to the West (December, 2013)

Rusty's
Beautiful Skye (December, 2014)

Teddy's
Drive-In (November, 2015)

Sweet
on Coco (2016)

~~~~~~~~~~

The
Daddy Secret (August, 2014)

~~~~~~~~~~

Madam
President (November, 2014)

~~~~~~~~~~

Walk of Shame (December, 2015)

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