Page 105 of Tide and Seek
He shook his head.“No.I’m just grateful you’re alive.Sitting here is a privilege.I truly thought I’d lost you, Royce.”
I squeezed his fingers.“I’m right here, good as new.”
He smiled weakly.“Well, to be honest, you look a little worse for wear.But I’ll still keep you.”
“Thanks.”I laughed gruffly.
“I have a strict no-return, no-refund policy.You’re stuck with me.”He was teasing, but there were dark shadows under his eyes.It was obvious he’d been under tremendous strain and still wasn’t over the trauma of what we’d gone through.
“Suits me just fine.”
“I talked to the doctor while you were snoozing.They’re discharging you tomorrow morning.”
I nodded approvingly.“That’s great.”
“The nurse suggested I go home and sleep in my own bed tonight.”He smirked.“So I politely declined and suggested she find me a cot because I wasn’t going anywhere.”
I grinned.“Uh-oh.Were you at least tactful about it?”
He looked like he was trying not to laugh.“I think I was very tactful.She said she’d get me a cot.”
“Hmmm, before you get in it, be sure it’s not wired to the electrical socket.”
He blinked at me.“That’s a scary thought.Thank you for putting that in my head.”
“I just know sometimes you… er… rub people the wrong way when you think you’re being perfectly nice.”I tugged him closer.“But I know you mean well.You just want to stay by my side.”
“Exactly,” he said softly.“I want to be sure my fiancé is safe and sound.”
“I like the sound of that word on your lips, Max.”
“Me too.”He leaned down, brushing his mouth lightly over mine.“I’ll do my best to make you happy, Royce, till death do us part.”
I smiled, my cheeks warming a little.“Just by proposing, you’ve already made me happier than a hound riding shotgun with the window down.”
His dark brows rose.“And that’s a good thing?”
“That’s a very good thing.”
Epilogue
Maxwell
The late morning sun was already warm on my skin as I reclined in one of the deck chairs, a glass of iced coffee sweating in my hand.The ocean stretched out before us in shades of turquoise and deep blue, the rhythmic crash of waves providing a soundtrack that was starting to feel almost familiar again.
Royce sat beside me in the other lounge chair, looking better than he had any right to after his ordeal.He still had a nasty bruise blooming purple and yellow along his jaw, and I’d caught him moving stiffly when he thought I wasn’t looking, but the color was back in his face and his eyes were clear.He was nursing his own iced coffee, one arm stretched out toward me so our fingers could tangle together between the chairs.
C.J.had arrived twenty minutes ago in cobalt blue shorts and a tank that matched, her short blonde hair artfully mussed, wearing oversized sunglasses perched on her nose.She’d hugged us both fiercely, pressed the bouquet of plumeria and hibiscus into my hands, and declared that she was “absolutely not leaving until she’d told us everything because the rumor mill was already out of control and someone needed to set the record straight.”
Now she sat on the deck railing, holding her own glass of iced coffee.“So,” she said, taking a sip of her drink, “I have tea.And by tea, I mean the actual details about what the heck happened here at Ocean Whisper Estates.”
I frowned.“How did you get the details?Detective Hartley was pretty close-lipped with us at the hospital yesterday.”
She got a sly look.“Well, I know a guy who works homicide down in LA.He shared the deets of the case with me.”
“You seriously know everyone, C.J.”I shook my head.
“Good thing I do.Otherwise you two might’ve gone back to Rainy Dale in a few days with nothing useful.Just think how boring that would be, everyone asking questions and all you could say was, ‘I don’t know.I have no idea what happened.’”
