Page 63 of The Way Back Home
Josh raised an eyebrow. “Will you?” he said, his breath warm and moist on her fingertips.
“Yes.”
A manic gleam came into his eyes. “Marry me.”
Teagan’s eyes grew wide with shock. “Did you even hear what I said?”
“Marry me, Teagan. I’ll go down on bended knee right now if it will make you happy.”
“You’re insane.”
His eyes flashed with dark lightning. “Agree to be my wife, here in front of everyone, and I’ll give you my word that nothing will happen to the Zieglers.”
Teagan froze, her blood instantly going cold. “What?”
He shrugged. “They seem like good people. I’m just saying it would be a shame if something happened to them.”
“How did you …” Teagan asked.
“I’ve always been with you. Watching over you. Protecting you.” Josh glanced across the street.
Teagan nearly choked when she saw Noah’s sisters walking around the square, children in tow.
“Such beautiful children too. Family is so important, don’t you think?” he said with a smile that chilled the marrow in her bones.
Terror like she had never known washed over her. He wasn’t kidding. Somehow, he knew that they had helped her. He knew who they were, where they lived. She had doomed them all by coming here with Noah.
The sheriff paused outside the diner as a reporter shoved a microphone in his face. He tried to wave them away, but they were persistent.
Josh shifted slightly, giving her a glimpse of the weapons beneath his coat. Any fight left in her drained away as the horrible truth sank in. Josh didn’t issue idle threats, and he didn’t care who he had to hurt to get what he wanted. If she called out for help, people would die.
She closed her eyes. She had to get him away from here.
Teagan blinked the tears away and glanced out of the window again. The Zieglers were crossing the street, getting closer. “Swear it,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “Swear that if I go with you, you’ll stay away from them.”
The back of his hand caressed her cheek. “All I want is you, Teagan. When I have that, I’ll have no reason to concern myself with anyone else.”
Josh slid out of the booth just as the sheriff made his way through the door, the news crew struggling to push in behind him. With practiced showmanship, Josh got down on one knee and pulled a small box from his black leather jacket.
A hush fell across the diner.
“I have carried this with me every day for the past ten years, believing in my heart that, one day, you would come back to me. I don’t want to spend another day without you. Marry me, Teagan. Be my wife.”
A chorus of gasps and sighs rippled across the diner as everyone held their breath. Tears spilled over Teagan’s lashes. Not of joy, but despair. They didn’t know she’d just signed her own death warrant.
This was the end. Josh had won.
“Yes,” she said, bile rising in her throat as her insides went cold.
Josh slipped the ring on her finger and gathered her in his arms, kissing her deeply. It took everything she had not to push him away and vomit on his shoes.
“Tell me you got that,” the reporter’s voice said incredulously, right before the diner erupted in applause.
Josh looked up, as if surprised to find they weren’t alone. If nothing else, he was a consummate actor. He’d been fooling people for years.
They were interviewed right there in the diner—or rather, Josh was. Teagan said nothing, Josh’s tight squeezes at her hip warning her to let him answer for both of them. The sheriff was the only one who didn’t seem completely convinced. He wasn’t the same oneTeagan remembered. His gaze was probing, his questions pointed.
Once the crew had their sound bites, the sheriff pushed his way to the front. “Miss McKenna, I’d like a private word, if you don’t mind.”
