"I'm sorry if I wasted your time," Lizzie said.
"It's never a waste of time, and I understand your passion for this lovely inn. I wish you nothing but success."
"Thank you."
Justin moved aside, so Paula could leave. When the door closed behind her, he was suddenly at a loss for words.
Lizzie walked around her desk to face him. "Well, look who got in the middle of my business."
"When Keira said you were talking to Paula, I knew I had to stop you from selling. But I guess you weren't going to do that."
"Actually, I was seriously considering it," she admitted. "The things you said to me last night hurt, but they were true."
"No, they weren't. I was angry."
"You were angry, but your words were also true. I have been burying my head in the sand, avoiding my problems, pretending everything is okay. It's what I've always done. But I couldn't keep doing it with the inn, not if I wanted to succeed. So I went over Paula's offer again, and I asked her to meet me to discuss it. But as we talked, I just got this feeling that I shouldn't sell, that I wasn't ready to give up yet. It might be a huge mistake. I could go under six months from now and have no offer to pay off my investors."
"You won't go under. I won't let you," he said.
"You won't let me," she echoed, doubt in her eyes. "Aren't you leaving tonight?"
"That's a good question," he conceded. "I don't know."
"What don't you know?" she challenged, a wary gleam in her beautiful green eyes.
"During the ceremony tonight, I was thinking about you—about us."
"Is there an us?"
"I want there to be. Do you?"
She let out a breath. "More than anything. But how can we possibly make it work?"
"I don't know," he admitted.
"It's complicated. You have your dream business; I have mine. But they're not in the same place. It's not like I can move the inn to San Francisco. And I can't ask you to move here. This is all moving too fast."
"I like fast," he said with a smile.
She smiled back at him. "This fast? For a guy who doesn't do relationships, it seems a little like you've lost your mind."
He laughed. "I think I have lost my mind. Or maybe I've finally found it. My grandparents knew instantly that they were meant to be together and they've lasted fifty-seven years."
"They didn't live in different states," she reminded him. "We both love our careers."
"I do love my job." He stepped forward and took her hands in his. "But I'm also falling in love with you. Honestly, Lizzie, I haven't been the same since I ran into that fence."
"Which was not my fault," she said lightly.
"Maybe not, but it was the beginning of something incredibly special. You have upended my life. You cracked open my heart. You've made me laugh and smile more than I have in a decade. You brought me into your fun, crazy group of friends and made me feel like I belonged. You made me relax, take a breath, and live in the moment. You encouraged me to unload the heavy secret I've been carrying around since I was fourteen. I am not the same man who arrived here five days ago."
"It wasn't one-sided, Justin. You brought me back into the world, too, a world that wasn't just the inn and my guests but was fun and romantic and sexy. You were also honest with me, and you made me look at my life and my business in a completely different way. You've pushed me to do better, and I need someone who encourages me to be my best self. More importantly, I need someone who believes in me."
"I do believe in you. I feel so bad about what I said last night."
"I know you were hurting."
"But I shouldn't have hurt you."
"I probably deserved it a little."
"You're too generous. But I'm thankful you're able to forgive me."
"If you can forgive me."
"I forgave you last night; I was just too stubborn to tell you. You're an amazing woman, Lizzie Cole. And you're building something here that is incredible and unique. I want to see how far you can go."
"That means a lot to me."
"And I want to be here to see it."
"What about your business? Your trips?"
"I'm not giving them up. I'm just going to change the way I do business. I might need to get some office space in town."
Her eyes glowed with happiness. "You'd do that for me? You'd work from here?"
"Yes." He took in a slow breath, thinking it would be difficult to say the words, but surprisingly, it wasn't. "I'm in love with you, Lizzie. I've never told a woman that before."
"Not ever?"
He shook his head. "No. I couldn't let myself be that exposed, that vulnerable."
"Your heart is safe with me, Justin," she said softly.
"I know. That's why I'm giving it to you, if you want it."
"I do." She laughed. "But we're not getting married. We're just going to see where this goes."
"I think it's going to go all the way."
She gave him a wide-eyed smile. "What now?"
"What do you think?" he asked, as he crushed his mouth against hers.
He kissed her with the wonder of a love he'd never thought he'd experience, but it was here. It was real. It was everything.
And then the door flew open.
"Well?" Keira demanded.
"Oh, my goodness, they're kissing," his grandmother said with delight.
"Let me see," Hannah interjected.
"Give 'em a break," Adam said.
"This is amazing," Chloe declared.
They broke apart as their friends and family crowded into the small office.
"You're not selling the inn, are you?" Keira asked.
"No," Lizzie said, dragging her mouth from his, but she kept her arms wrapped around his neck. "I'm keeping the inn, and Justin and I are keeping each other. We're going to see where this goes."
"I'm so happy," his grandmother said, clapping her hands with delight. "I knew this would work. I just knew it." She reached for his grandfather's hand. "Didn't I tell you, Ben? Didn't I tell you they'd be perfect for each other?"
"You did," Ben said with a laugh. "Why don't we give these two some privacy?"
"We'll be right out," Lizzie promised.
"Well, maybe not right out," he said, as he smiled into her eyes. "We might need a few more minutes."
As the door closed, leaving them alone once more, she said, "We've got more than minutes, Justin. We have a whole lifetime ahead of us. Maybe fifty-seven years."
"Or more. You know I always want more."
"Me, too. But right now, I just want you."
# # #
What to read next in contemporary romance…
I hope you enjoyed Lizzie and Justin's story! Don't miss Just One Kiss, the next book in the Whisper Lake Series!
Preorder JUST ONE KISS
Continue reading to see what’s coming up next in my romantic suspense series…
What to read next in romantic suspense…
While you’re waiting for the next Whisper Lake novel, why not check out one of my romantic suspense novels? The OFF THE GRID: FBI SERIES continues with FEARLESS PURSUIT.
FEARLESS PURSUIT will be out July 21, 2020
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Haven’t read any of the FBI books? Continue reading for an excerpt from Reckless Whisper, Off The Grid: FBI Series #2
Excerpt - RECKLESS WHISPER
CHAPTER ONE
"You'll be sorry."
The hoarse, whispered words shook her out of sleep. Special Agent Bree Adams sat up in bed, holding her phone closer to her ear. "Who is this?"
Silence followed, but she could hear breathing.
"If you want to threaten me, don't you want me to know who you are?" she challenged.
The call disconnected.
She drew in a breath and let it out, looking around her shadowy bedroom. Through the curtains, she could see the New York City lights, and hear the loud noises from the garbage trucks making their way through the back all
ey behind her apartment building. The clock on the bedside table told her it was just past dawn.
Getting out of bed, she threw on a robe and shivered as she walked into the hallway of her one-bedroom apartment to turn on the heat. It was early October, and it definitely felt like winter was coming. The cold mornings were actually a welcome change from the long, hot summer, a summer where so many things had changed. There had been a massive shakeup at the FBI New York field office in June, the fallout of which was still rippling through the building.
As she entered her kitchen and turned on the coffeemaker, she looked around her apartment. Everything appeared to be normal. Nothing was out of place. But she felt unsettled, which was obviously what the caller had been going for.
How had he gotten her number? As a federal agent, she used every precaution to protect her personal life. She'd ask one of the techs to see if they could trace the call, but it was doubtful that would be successful. Prepaid burner phones that could be dumped after every call made tracing criminals through their phones extremely difficult.
The male voice had also been deliberately altered, which meant that whoever was calling her had been smart enough to mask his voice. Was that because she knew him?
Since joining the FBI five years ago, she'd spent most of her career working child abductions and had become a member of the CARD program seven months earlier, making her part of one of several Critical Action Response Detail teams who sprang into action to help local law enforcement find an endangered child within the first critical hours after an abduction.
It was a job filled with highs and lows—sometimes frustrating, discouraging, terrifying and occasionally jubilant. But she loved it. Being able to put a family back together always made her feel a bit more whole.
Her phone rang again, and her nerves tightened.
Walking quickly back into the bedroom, she picked up the phone from the bed, steeling herself to hear the same creepy, cryptic voice.
But it was her team leader, Special Agent Dan Fagan, and she knew what that meant.
"What happened?" she asked.
"Ten-year-old disappeared from the backstage area of a school concert last night just after eight p.m. A broken white rose was found near the back door."
Her body tightened. This would be the fourth time in six months that a child had disappeared from a school event. The eleven-year-old girl in Newark had been found dead seven days later, the twelve-year-old girl from Albany had also been killed a week after her disappearance, and the twelve-year-old girl from Philadelphia had been found alive in an abandoned building, probably only one day before she would have met the same sad ending. While they'd been thrilled to save that child's life, the kidnapper was still in the wind.
Had he struck again?
Was the creepy phone call she'd just received somehow connected to this incident?
She'd been the one to track down the girl in Philadelphia. She'd been the face on the news. She'd been the one to promise that they would do everything they could to find the White Rose Kidnapper, as the press had dubbed him.
"Where did it happen?" she asked.
"Chicago. He's apparently moving west."
Her heart jumped into her throat, and the phone slipped out of her hand, the crash bringing her back to reality.
She picked it up, seeing a crack on the screen, which felt prophetic. She'd left Chicago a long time ago and vowed to never go back.
"Is the Midwest team on it?" She could barely manage to get the words out through her tight lips.
"Yes. But they want you to consult. You've been working up a profile on this guy for months. How fast can you get to the airport?"
"I'll be there within the hour. But you should know—I just got a threatening call, altered male voice. He said I'd be sorry."
"That was it?"
"That was it," she confirmed.
"I'll get Oscar to look into it," Dan said, referring to one of their techs. "You get yourself to Chicago and be careful."
She set the phone down and drew in several deep breaths. She would go to Chicago because it was her job, and a child's life was on the line.
But just because she was going back to Chicago didn't mean she was going home.
After landing in Chicago just after nine a.m. on Wednesday morning, Bree received a thorough briefing at the Chicago FBI field office, led by Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAIC) Warren Hobbs. Warren was a stern-looking man in his mid-forties with black hair and dark eyes, and from what Bree knew of Hobbs, he was a smart, aggressive investigator, but he clearly had no patience for slow thinkers.
His briefing had been on point, from the AMBER alert, to the crime scene investigation, witness and family interviews, neighborhood searches, and media coverage. When it was over, Hobbs called on her to read the agency in on the details of the previous abductions linked to the White Rose Kidnapper and the behavioral profile they'd built so far.
Just like the three other girls, Hayley had vanished from her school, a place where she should have been safe. Bree had worked up several theories on why the school setting appealed to the kidnapper, why a white rose was left at the scene, and the fact that all three previously abducted children had been kept alive for seven days before they were either discovered or killed. If the timing held true, they had less than one week to find Hayley alive.
They had few details regarding the identity of the kidnapper, other than that he was male, around six feet tall, with a muscular build and brown hair. The surviving victim had been blindfolded through most of her ordeal, and on the few occasions the blindfold had been removed, the kidnapper had worn a ski mask to obscure his features. The victim had stated that the kidnapper's voice was deep and low and always menacing. He'd said very little, but he'd referred to her as his pretty little girl and occasionally had quoted a phrase from the Bible about redemption or revenge.
Bree thought that the seven-day timeframe might possibly be tied into the biblical idea that God had created the world in seven days, and that the kidnapper might be creating his own world in that amount of time. Whatever the reason, every minute counted if they were going to find the latest victim, Hayley Jansen, alive.
When the briefing ended just before eleven, she took a cab across town to meet with Hayley's parents. While she'd be retracing steps already taken by the Chicago special agents and the local police, it was important for her to make her own assessment, and also determine whether this could be a copycat event.
The Philadelphia case had hit the national news, and someone in Chicago might have decided to make their own play, ride someone else's coattails toward their own fame.
There were a few small differences in the abduction scenarios. The other three girls had all been blonde with brown eyes while Hayley had brown hair and brown eyes. The white rose found near the back door of Hayley's abduction had been a hybrid tea rose while the other three roses had been floribundas. They were small details and might mean nothing, or they might mean a lot.
The Jansens lived in Lincoln Park, an upscale neighborhood on the north side of Chicago. Their two-story, three-bedroom home was on a beautiful tree-lined street, not far from the Lincoln Park Zoo, Lake Shore Drive and Lake Michigan.
This neighborhood was a far cry from the city streets she had roamed as a child, which was both reassuring and disturbing. As a kid, she'd always believed that children who lived in houses like these had everything they needed, that they were safe and protected. Of course, now she knew better, but it still felt wrong when she went into a community where residents weren't used to being exposed to the dark side of humanity.
As she got out of the cab, a blast of cold wind almost knocked her off her feet. The Windy City was living up to its reputation, but she was okay with that. Maybe the cold would freeze her heart and keep the memories away.
She made her way across the street, through the crowd of reporters getting ready to file their stories for the noon news. After flashing her badge, the local police officer
waved her inside.
Stepping into the entry, her practiced eye swept the interior, noting quick details. The home was nicely decorated with paintings on the walls, sleek hardwood floors and furniture that looked comfortable and remarkably clean, considering there were apparently three children living in the house. Hayley had a younger brother who was six and a sister who was four.
The children seemed confused and out of sorts, the little girl crying, as she and her brother were taken into the kitchen by their grandparents. Other assorted family members and close family friends made themselves scarce as she sat down with Hayley's parents, Mark and Lindsay Jansen, in the living room.
She knew quite a bit about the Jansens already. They were an attractive, fit couple, in their early forties. They had met in college and married shortly thereafter, celebrating their twentieth wedding anniversary three weeks earlier. Mark was the chief financial officer for Buckner Investments. Lindsay was a former teacher, now a stay-at-home mom.
Hayley was their oldest child. She had been adopted after the Jansens experienced eight years of infertility and two years on adoption waiting lists. To their shock and amazement, when Hayley was four years old, they'd conceived their son Connor, and two years later, their daughter Morgan.
Hayley's adoption had been closed, and while the Jansens knew nothing about the biological parents, a local judge had unsealed the records shortly after Hayley's disappearance. The biological mother, Samantha Harkness, had been a sixteen-year-old teenager living in Hammond, Illinois, a poverty and crime-ridden suburb of Chicago. She'd died of an overdose, six months after Hayley's birth. The biological father was unknown. While the police couldn't completely rule out the possibility that someone from the bio family was involved, it didn’t seem likely, especially not with the white rose connection.
Can't Fight The Moonlight (Whisper Lake Book 3) Page 24