She looked like she could hardly believe what he was saying, but then shock turned to movement and the next thing he knew she was flying into his arms.

He put his hands in her hair and had his mouth a breath from hers when she said, “Don’t kiss me yet.”

Knowing he was covered in grease and sweat, he asked, “Because I stink?”

“No,” she whispered against his mouth. “I love it when you have one of your rare imperfect moments. It’s because once you kiss me I’ll be too busy wanting you to hear what you have to say and I’ll definitely forget everything I need to say.”

Jesus. That almost pushed him over the edge, but he could see, could feel, how serious she was. “Who first?”

“Me.”

“Talk fast.”

Her mouth curved up into a quick little smile before she took a breath and said, “I’m the one who’s sorry. For leaving you that night.”

What was she apologizing for? “I made you go.”

“You didn’t make me. I could have stayed. I should have stayed and made you tell me what was wrong. I should have done whatever I needed to do to find out what happened to you out there in that burning race car.” She pulled back enough to lift her eyes to his. “What happened, Zach?”

“You were the only thing I thought about during the crash.”

“What about your family?”

“We’ve had my whole life together. But you and me,” he smiled at her, “we’d only had two weeks. It wasn’t enough. I wanted a lifetime of memories with you, not just the ones we’d crammed into fourteen days. It’s no excuse for the way I screwed up, but the thought of leaving you one day the way my father left my mother and all of us...I couldn’t stand it. I’m so much like him that I always thought I was going to die the way he did—too young, without any warning. I was so afraid of leaving you behind that I made you leave me first.” His chest felt tight as the old beliefs tried to take him over again. “I’ve never told anyone that before. Only you. Do you still want to be with me, even if I die the way my father did?”

“Oh, Zach.” Her hand moved to his jaw, her thumb stroking over the fading scratches on his cheek. “You can be such a fool. One I love so much. Of course I still want to be with you.”

That was when he knew for sure that she might actually take him back. Not just because she was in his arms, not just because she’d listened to his apology...but because she’d just called him out on his stupidity, the way she had so many times before.

“Can I kiss you now?”

Her gaze dropped from his eyes to his mouth and he could already taste her sweetness when she said, “Almost.”

He dropped his forehead against hers and groaned. “Would it speed things up if I mentioned how much I love you again?”

She grinned, her lips almost touching his—but not quite—as she said, “I fell in love with you so fast, so deep, I could hardly keep up with it. But even though I knew I loved you, I still didn’t think it was enough.”

“Because love never meant anything in your family.”

She nodded, sighing. “I’ve measured every man against my father since I was seventeen. You seemed so much like him at first. So charming, so confident, that I had to keep my guard up all the time. Only, it turned out that you aren’t like him at all. You’re sweet and kind and warm and honest...and the only man alive who could have torn through my control and made it possible for me to love.” She smiled at him, a smile so beautiful he lost his heart to her all over again. “But love is just one part of what I feel for you.”

He was the one pulling back in surprise this time. “It is?”

“You taught me to trust. To have faith and hope. How to laugh again.” She ran the pad of her thumb over his bottom lip. “And when I’m safe and warm in your arms, just like this, I know the true meaning of peace.”

Just as he’d been unable to wait so many times before, he had to take the kiss he wanted, devouring her lips with the hunger of a man who’d gone without for far too long. Heather kissed him back with the kind of passion that belonged between tangled sheets in dark bedrooms, not suburban sidewalks.

He never wanted to stop kissing her, not when he had an entire week of lost kisses to make up for. Unfortunately, his family’s clapping and cheering couldn’t be ignored forever.

Heather looked over her shoulder and her eyes went wide. “Have they been watching the whole time?”

His brothers and sisters and mother and baby niece were all out on the front lawn now. “Through the windows for most of it, but I’m guessing they couldn’t stand not hearing every word, or at least trying to read our lips. Which is a good thing, because I know how much they’d hate to miss this.”

He dropped to one knee and her mouth fell open. “Zach? What are you doing?”

The dogs both nosed his hand as he pulled the black velvet box out of his pocket and opened it up. “Asking you for forever.”

Her eyes lit up even as her mouth wobbled at the corners. He knew he wasn’t playing fair by offering her the ring so soon after they’d made up. But from that first moment he’d set eyes on Heather, he’d pulled out all the stops to make her his. He wouldn’t stop now, wouldn’t ever stop loving her with every piece of his heart and his soul.

“My father gave my mother this ring.”

She looked down at the ring, then back up at him. “It’s beautiful, Zach.”

“Will you be mine, Heather?”

“I’ve always been yours.”

He loved the sound of it.

Always.

And then she said something he liked even more.

“Yes.”

Epilogue

Ryan Sullivan sprawled out on the lounger under the big oak tree in his mother’s backyard, enjoying his beer.

Everyone was ecstatic that Zach had convinced Heather to take him back, but none more than Lori, who had been crowing about her victory on the bet they’d made to anyone who would listen, while the two dogs—one huge, one tiny—chased each other in circles on the lawn. Emma gurgled with happiness whenever the dogs came near.

It had been a heck of a year for his siblings. Weddings. Babies. Engagements. Even dogs.

Ryan didn’t have anything against people falling in love, and he was glad it had worked out so well for everyone...but the whole thing looked like a heck of a lot of trouble. The sex part, he was game for, of course. But all the breaking up and getting back together, the anguish he’d seen on his siblings’ faces when things went wrong?