Trophy Wife
Page 22
She gathered it up with the plate, utensils, and silverware, carrying it all back to the kitchen. She didn’t really have time to read the note after dumping the dishes in the sink, but she did anyway. She needed something to cheer her up a little.
On her way back out with the coffeepot, she unfolded the napkin with one hand and glanced down at it.
Will you marry me? R.
She’d taken several more steps before the words sank in. Then she jerked to a stop, the napkin in one hand and the coffeepot in the other.
She looked around the restaurant blindly and realized everyone was staring at her. Vicki. Keith and his family. Trey, Chelle, and Gus, who had come out from the kitchen. Cali and her boyfriend. Ernie in his overalls. James and Tari, looking like she might cry. Malachi, his beard bristling visibly. Mitch and the sheriff’s department. They were all smiling like something really good was about to happen.
She looked back down at the note to make sure she’d read it correctly.
When she raised her eyes again, Rob was coming back into Dora’s, making the bell on the door jangle. He was smiling at her, affection and laughter and understanding and tenderness and hope in his eyes.
He was holding that half box she’d found in his sock drawer, with the lovely diamond ring inside.
She started to shake so suddenly and so intensely that she had to lean over and put the coffeepot on the floor.
Rob walked over to her, reaching out to take one of her hands. “Allison Davies,” he said thickly, his eyes as full of feeling as she’d ever seen them. “I love you. I need you. And that’s never going to change. I want nothing more than for us to love each other and enjoy each other and depend on each other for the rest of our lives.”
Tari sniffed audibly from the other side of the room, and one of Keith’s kids giggled.
Allison’s throat was closing up, and she couldn’t stop trembling.
Rob went on, “So would you please marry me?”
He was waiting for her to answer, that warm hope so obvious in his eyes, in his face. He was doing this in front of the entire town, even knowing it was possible that she might say no and that he would be utterly humiliated.
He loved her, and she loved him—and they were standing here in the middle of a crowd seeing each other as truly and deeply as they had that night in the rain three months ago. They saw and loved each other as they really were and not just as the selves they wanted to show the world.
She was feeling so much that she couldn’t speak. She literally couldn’t form words. So she just made a wordless sound and nodded her head emphatically.
Rob’s face broke slightly. “Was that a yes?”
“Yes!” she burst out, the word finally breaking through the emotion. She threw herself into his arms.
He gathered her into a tight hug, gasping something that sounded like “Oh, thank you.” And then the whole restaurant was cheering loudly, wildly, a strangely fitting backdrop to her own joy.
“What if I’d said no?” she mumbled into his shoulder.
“I hoped you wouldn’t, but I thought it was worth the risk.”
His raspy words caused her to hug him even harder.
Rob finally pulled away from her enough to put his mother’s ring on the ring finger of her left hand. Then he kissed it. And then he kissed her.
The rest of the morning was a blur of tears and well wishes and laughter. But she made sure she slipped the napkin into her pocket so it would be safe.
As soon as she got home, she was going to put it in the box on her dresser with all of Rob’s other notes. She was going to keep them forever.
About the Author
NOELLE ADAMS handwrote her first romance novel in a spiral-bound notebook when she was twelve, and she hasn’t stopped writing since. She loves travel, art, history, and ice cream. After spending far too many years of her life in graduate school, she decided to reorient her priorities and focus on writing contemporary romances. She has lived in eight different states and currently resides in Virginia, where she reads any book she can get her hands on and offers tribute to a very spoiled cocker spaniel. You can find her online at:
noelle-adams.com
@NoelleAdams3
Love stories you’ll never forget
By authors you’ll always remember
eOriginal Romance from Random House
randomhousebooks.com
What’s next on
your reading list?
Discover your next
great read!
* * *
Get personalized book picks and up-to-date news about this author.
Sign up now.