“Did you—like, for real?”
Thank goodness I’m not the only one in this relationship who’s unbearably awkward.
“I did.”
She nods, and then I can’t help it anymore. I grab the glass and chug, and when I’m done, she’s still blinking at me.
“Luce, could you…could you say something? So I know whether to ask for more champagne or something harder?”
Like a mallet to knock myself unconscious so I don’t have to suffer through this embarrassment?
“Chanoch…” She doesn’t call me that often, but she likes to every once in a while. Usually when we’ve been particularly intimate. She’s still shy about it, wanting to get it right, and her heartfelt effort is charming. Her mouth curls around the letters of my name, and it sounds so nice. Like a verbal hug. Because she’s so soft and so sweet, and I want to hear someone say my name that way for the rest of my life. “Yes. Of course. Of course I’ll marry you.”
The cabin erupts in cheers and whistles, and it takes a minute for the words to sink in through the ruckus. She said yes. She’s going to be my wife. And I… Oh, crap, the ring is still in the box. Would a hint of smoothness in this moment have been too much to ask? When I crack the box and show it to her, she looks happier. But she doesn’t move to grab it, slip it on her finger.
No, she leans forward and takes my face between her hands and holds me there. Holds me there to kiss. On my mouth. On my cheeks. One might land on my eye.
“Yes, Evans, yes!” She’s shouting now, and I like it. I like that the first time I’ve ever heard Lucy raise her voice outside of the bedroom is here when she’s agreeing to be mine, and she’s so excited she can’t be quiet.
I let her bury me in kisses, kissing her back when I can and laughing when I can’t. I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy. A woman like Lucy loves me and trusts me and wants to spend the rest of her life with me. When she finally stops, she leans back, and her face is bright, her mouth kiss-swollen. Now I’d really like to drag her to the lavatory and have my way with her, but we’re going to have to wait.
“I love you, Lucy. I love you so much it hurts and you just made me the happiest man in the world.”
She’s already kissed me a hundred times, but it doesn’t feel like quite enough, so I lean into her, thread a hand through her hair and kiss her again. I’m going to make sure Lucy gets her happily ever after, which is the least she deserves. Or, okay, maybe what we both deserve.
Thank you!
Thanks for reading Due South. I hope you enjoyed it!
• If you’d like to know when my next book is available, you can sign up for my new-release mailing list at www.tamsenparker.com, follow me on Twitter at @TamsenParker, or Like my Facebook page at www.facebook.com/tamsenparker.com.
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• You’ve just read the fifth book in The Compass Series, and there’s more to come. In book six, The Cartographer, the inimitable Reyes Walter finally gets his own happily ever after on June 26th 2017. And His Custody, my second book with InterMix, will be coming on March 21st 2017. Stay tuned for pre-order links!
Other Books by Tamsen
The Compass Series
Personal Geography
Intimate Geography
Uncharted Territory
True North
Due South
The Cartographer (June 26th 2017)
Standalone Novels
School Ties
His Custody (March 21st 2017)
Short Stories and Novellas
Craving Flight
Looking for a Complication
(originally published as part of the For the First Time anthology)
Needs
(originally published as part of the Winter Rain anthology)
Anthologies
Winter Rain
Acknowledgements
At some point, it should feel silly to thank the same people over and over again, but I really couldn’t produce these books without my crew. So bear with me while I spend a few sentences attempting to express my gratitude.
Biggest heart eyes to AJ and Teresa for being my faithful and hardworking CPs. You ladies are the best, and I adore you. Many thanks to Jodie for her cultural and story input.
Thank you to my small corner of Romancelandia and the Twitterverse, and my chaptermates at NECRWA. Sorry you had to listen to me bang my head against a wall with these two. I’ll try to not write nice characters in the future since that seems to be my problem.
To Mr. Parker, who made a suggestion that turned into a key plot point (I know, no one is more surprised than me). He was super proud of himself, and let me tell you, dude makes a mean spreadsheet too. To kidlet, who thinks it’s cool that Mommy writes “grown-up books where people fall in love.”
My real-life friends, who mostly manage to keep a straight face when I talk about my job: MTS, AJ, LG, EH.
To my editor Christa for making this book more subtle and sophisticated, and in so doing, making it more consistent with my adorkable MCs. My copy editor, Rebecca, who is thorough, responsive, and reliable. I would work with her any day of the week. Also my proofreaders Christine and Michele, who catch things the other five pairs of eyes did not, and my cover concept designer, Amber, who earns me more compliments than I deserve, and Lexi my cover artist who saved my behind on this one. All the glitter unicorns for you!
And last, but certainly not least, to my readers and reviewers: thank you for following me this far, I hope I’ve made the trip worth your while.
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Due South: © 2016 by Tamsen Parker
Editing by Christa Desir (editorchrista.com)
Copy Editing by Rebecca Weston (rawestoneditorial.com)
Cover Concept Design by Amber Shah of Book Beautiful (www.bookbeautiful.com)
Cover Production by Alexandra Haughton of Romanced by the Cover (romancedbythecover.com)
Formatting by BB eBooks (bbebooksthailand.com)
ISBN 13: 978-1-942427-07-0
Kindle Edition
All rights reserved. Where such permission is sufficient, the author grants the right to strip any DRM which may be applied to this work.
Due South (The Compass series Book 5) Page 21