Page 62 of Speeding Hearts

“I’m shocked,” he said, lowering the wrench in his hand on the roof of the car. “But she’s not wrong.”

My heart thudded in my chest. “About what?”

“About how I feel. About you.”

I shook my head. “What are you even doing down here in the pit?”

“I told Colin I’d fill in for the night. He said he was down a mechanic, that he’d need someone to make sure your car, in particular, was in perfect shape. I told him I wouldn’t trust anyone but myself to do that. And besides, I needed to tell you how I feel. How I can’t be your friend anymore.”

My stomach lurched sideways, even though I felt the same way. Still, my traitorous mouth said, “Why not?”

“Because it’s not enough. I knew from the moment I met you in your garage I was done for, and I tried to hold it off. I tried to keep my feelings out of it because you’re the best friend I’ve ever had. But I was lying to myself.”

Dean came slowly around the front of the car, and I gripped my open door. If I didn’t, I might have fallen down right there in front of the cheering crowd.

“I thought I could talk myself out of my feelings. But after being with you, after knowing you… I realized I was doing it all wrong. I need to own my feelings. I need everyone to know.”

“Know what,” I whispered, as he came up in front of me, filling my vision. Though there were hundreds of people around us, though the noise was deafening, for a moment it was just us.

“I want them to know that I love you. That I’ve loved you for as long as I’ve known you, and I need the world to know about it.”

The final flame of anger licked at my insides. “What about me, Dean? What if I don’t love you?”

His face shifted, but he didn’t break eye contact. “Then I’ll have made a fool of myself. But it’ll have been worth it, because I’ll have told you the truth about how I feel.”

With those words, the hardness in my chest finally splintered open, and I felt a hot tear fall down my face. Dean caught it with his thumb.

I could have this. I could really have everything I wanted.

“I do love you, Dean Hughes. I’m completely, madly, over-the-top in love with you, and I don’t want to just be your friend anymore. I want to be with you in every way.”

“Then that clinches it,” he said.

My heart ballooned to a thousand times its size as I looked into the eyes of the man I loved—the man I wanted to spend my life with. Then, I stood up on my toes and kissed him, for all the world to see.

Epilogue

Dean

One YearLater

“Getthe Peony over on the far end, and I’ll line up the Chrysanthemum over here.”

“You sure we’re not setting up a flower shop?” Will said.

I glared at Stella’s oldest brother, though I couldn’t help laughing, too. He was right—the names of the fireworks we were getting lined up did make it sound like it.

“Would have been easier than what I have planned,” I said. Though it wouldn’t have quite the same bang. Literally. “I just hope we don’t set fire to this place before we can finish the renovations.”

“Hank would never let that happen,” Will assured me.

Both Stella’s older brothers, including firefighter Hank, were here for the Oak Bender. It was the first since Stella had become general manager of the Oak Bend Speedway and the first since the track had become one of the hottest dirt track destinations in Michigan. There were races six nights a week now, and this was the biggest one.

It also happened to be exactly one year since I’d professed my love to said general manager—my best friend, Stella Archer. The perfect time, by all accounts, to ask Stella to marry me.

Mom had given me her mother’s engagement ring this spring. “Your grandparents were much better at love than I ever was—you deserve their good luck,” she said.

She’d managed to convince me her and Dad had been doomed from the start—that their split had nothing to do with me. Their handling of my accident had been the cherry on top of a difficult relationship—one they’d hidden from me by keeping their fights behind closed doors.

---