She forgave him. She understood. Relief almost took him out at the knees as all the stress and strain and worry of the past week drained away. He held on tight and rocked her, beyond grateful that this main hurdle was past them. But it wasn’t the only one. “Yeah, well, even I admit the evidence looked pretty damning. I don’t blame you for doubting. In your shoes, I’d have kept the interview, too.”
At the reminder, she stiffened.
Reed rushed on before she could say anything. “Listen. It’s fine. I get it. You need to take the job. It’s the best thing for your career. So I’ll come with you to San Francisco.”
Cecily pulled back to look up at him in shock. “You’d give up Inglenook?”
Reed didn’t hesitate. “Brenda’s trained well enough to run things, and I can always hire more staff to help in my absence. I can find a bookstore to manage anywhere. I can’t find another you, and if I let you go, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life. I love you.”
Her lips quirked, “I kinda thought you might since you tried to chase me down like one of the heroes in Dinah’s books. You went to Greenwich.”
They’d told her then.
“I did. I was desperate to find you and explain.”
“You faced the third degree from almost my entire family.”
“It wasn’t that bad.” At her Really? look he said, “Well okay, I had a moment or two with your dad while I was explaining everything, and the fact that Dinah was on speakerphone the whole time was kind of terrifying, but I made it out with all my limbs intact.”
“You told Dinah about all this?”
“Yeah. She asked about a million questions about how the service works. I’m pretty sure she got a plot bunny out of the whole thing.”
Cecily’s lips twitched. “That would be just like her.”
“She’s a force of nature, your aunt. Or ex-aunt? I wasn’t entirely clear on how y’all are related.”
“She used to be married to my uncle. We stayed close. She likes you. They all like you. In fact, Dad came out to San Francisco to talk to me after he saw you.”
Had Reed really found an ally in Frank Dixon? “What did he say?”
“He reminded me of something yesterday that I’ve spent way too much time forgetting. I’m every bit as much a Dixon as a Davenport. And the thing is? Dixons are decisive. We know what we want and we go after it.”
Reed’s heart kicked up. “Yeah? What do you want?”
“You.” Cecily stepped back into him, framing his face between her palms. “I turned Verdant down.”
“You did?” Relief slid through him, followed by complete, dumbfounded shock. “You turned them down even without knowing the truth about Selina?”
“Yeah,” she admitted. “I mean, maybe they wouldn’t have offered me a job anyway, but I realized corporate marketing isn’t going to make me happy. I didn’t come alive in that interview until I started talking about the small business campaigns I’ve worked on in Wishful. That makes me happy. And I would never have realized that without you. I’d never have been willing to go after that without you.”
“I just gave you an option.” An option he’d hoped would work for her, but one he’d given up hope she’d take when things blew up between them.
“You helped me to see past the duty I felt I owed my family. So I’m coming home and opening my own firm, exactly like we talked about. I want small business marketing, and I want Wishful.”
Home. She’d called Wishful home. She’d chosen this life, this town, even without knowing where they stood. This was what she truly wanted. The vise that’d been cranked tight around his chest for days finally loosened, and he could breathe again. No more ticking time clock. No more artificial end to what was between them. They could slow down and enjoy the ride.
“Thank God.”
And as he lowered his lips to hers, drowning in the sweetness of having things finally set to rights between them, Reed found that slow was the last thing he wanted.
Epilogue
“Mr. McGee will see you now.”
Cecily rose from her chair in the waiting room of McGee, Buckley, and Connelly and followed the receptionist down the hall. Tucker McGee, the original Phil Davis in Wishful Community Theater’s production of White Christmas, walked around his desk to greet her, no limp in evidence.
“All the paperwork is drawn up. We just need to get your signature.”