The Reluctant Romantics Box Set (The Fall, The Mind, The Heart)

I kissed her neck and felt her shiver, knowing the cause was me.

“Your parents are amazing.”

“Yeah, they are,” she agreed, offering more of her neck, which I accepted.

“I didn’t have to look hard to see what you were talking about. What they have is rare.” I felt her smile and grip me tighter to her.

“Want to go?”

“Not really,” she said, turning around in my arms to hold my face. I towered over her but she’d never seemed intimidated by my size, even in the early days when I’d freaked her out. I think she secretly loved it, though she’d never said it.

In that one minute she looked at me, everything around us lit up in a gold and purple haze. I leaned in and kissed her deeply. She sighed into my mouth as I crushed my lips to hers, hungry yet gentle. I could see the intent in her eyes as we broke apart. She was hungry, too, but I played dumb.

“Want to go sew together some oranges?”

“No,” she said with a furrowed brow.

“How about flash cards?” I said, turning from her to grab the champagne bottle we’d emptied.

“No,” she said, giving me an odd look out of the corner of her eye.

“All right then. We can go through the medical journal—”

“What are you doin’?” she asked now a bit of bite to her voice. “I don’t need to study today. Today is about us.”

“I get that. But, baby, we spent a whole day celebrating and you splitting and sewing up oranges is about us.”

“I don’t see you running off to work on a plane,” she scoffed as I packed up the truck.

“Because, I’ve been doing it my whole life, and when I see you practicing with your surgical kit, I can tell it makes you happy. I mean we can bullshit around half the night and you’ll still end up sneaking out of bed to do a few, or you can just admit to me now that you want to go home and practice.”

“I do not sneak out of bed,” she said. “And it’s not that interesting.”

“It is to you,” I said, crossing my arms as I closed the tailgate. She eye

d me, unsure how to react. It was my chance to show her that in my heart of hearts, I knew I would have to share her with the world. She wasn’t only a gift to me. She would be to other people, too. I took a step forward and lifted the cover off of the cardboard box I’d stuck there this morning.

She looked at the huge pile of oranges then up at me with a smile so beautiful it took my breath away. “I think I wished you into my life, too.” She chuckled as she picked up and tossed around her newest cadavers. Worry covered her brow as she looked back at me for reassurance. “You know I love you, right? I mean, you know how important you are to me, right? And that spending time with you is just...it means everything.”

I just nodded at her with a grin.

She shook her head, still a bit stunned, and then looked at me slyly. “How did you know?”

“Call it intuition.”

Rose

“Come on, woman, I don’t have all damn day!”

“Seriously, you’re acting like a total diva,” I huffed, pushing my fingers through the lace sleeves. “I mean, isn’t that my job? I’m the one who is stuck in here trying on tutus. Who thought of lace, anyway? This is not cool.”

“I did because you are the only woman past the eighties who can pull it off!” The curtain moved and Dallas’s annoyed expression turned soft. “God, I’m good.”

“Seriously?” I asked, not having bothered to look in the mirror.

“It was made for you. Turn around.”

“No, tell me why you’re so pissy. Aren’t I the one that should be downing champagne?” I took the tilted glass from her and greedily drank the rest.