It Takes Two (33 page)

Suddenly Isabelle had a hard time swallowing.

Shane loved her unconditionally. No matter what happened or how she felt or if she was fun or sick or wanted sex on his bar covered in Kahlua or to just cuddle all night, he loved her.

Wow.

“You’re right. That’s amazing,” she said, sitting up and crossing her legs, her entire body feeling warm and light. And not yoga warm and light. “I could knit
every day
for the rest of my life and he’d still be there.”

Emma reached over and patted her hand. “I know he loves you, honey, but let’s not push it, okay?”

“Uh, Shane?”

Shane looked up from the teeny tiny pieces of paper scattered all over the tabletop in front of him.

Conner stood in the doorway to the dining room of the bed-and-breakfast where Shane had been camped out for the past three hours. His eyes hurt from squinting at the tiny scraps, his fingers were sticky from the glue and his heart hurt from not seeing Isabelle for seven days.

“Hey, Conner,” Danika Bradford greeted as she came through the swinging door from the kitchen with two glasses of iced tea.

“Hey, Dani, what’s up?” Conner asked, watching Shane suspiciously.

Yeah, there was reason for him to be suspicious. Shane was in love with Conner’s sister and about to ask her to move in with him. Again. He had a whole new approach this time though. Well, mostly new.

“I’m here helping Morgan put some new faucets in the bathrooms in the guest rooms.”

It was widely known that Danika had been thrilled when Dooley’s wife, Morgan, had bought a bed-and-breakfast. Doing fix-it jobs and renovations for Morgan was Dani’s idea of heaven, while playing with Dani and Sam’s twin girls was Morgan’s favorite way to spend the afternoon. It was a perfect set-up.

Shane hadn’t been surprised when Dani suggested he meet her at the B & B when he’d asked for her help.

“Shane’s helping with the faucets?” Conner asked.

Shane itched to brush the scraps of paper and paint brushes into his lap and play along with Conner’s assumption. It wasn’t completely unlikely that he could be helping with the sink project. He could twist some screws.

Before Dani could tell Conner the truth, the kitchen door swung open again.

“Well, hi, Conner.”

Conner straightened fully and his mouth stretched into the grin that no one but Sara Bradford Gordon ever got from him.

“Hey there, Sara.”

“Did you come to help with the fixtures or the decoupage?” She set a plate of brownies on the table beside the box Shane was working on.

Shane wondered if Conner had ever tasted her brownies. If he had, it was no wonder the man thought he was in love with her.

“Whatever needs done,” Conner said smoothly. “I want you to always think of me first when you need a guy who’s good with his hands.”

Sara’s eyes widened and her cheeks got a little pink.

Shane had to admit that Sara handled Conner’s flirting well. She acted appropriately flattered and slightly amused, while never leading Conner on or making anyone question her love or commitment to her husband.

“Well, everyone knows that women go crazy for a guy who does crafts.” Sara reclaimed her seat at the table and reached for the jewelry box she was doing.

“Is that right?” Conner moved closer.

Fuck.

Conner was thirty minutes early picking Shane up for their game. He’d asked Conner for a ride to the game so that he’d have a chance to tell Isabelle’s brother his intentions. He knew he should have considered his friend’s opinions and feelings more in the past and now meant to show both Conner and Isabelle how serious he was by asking for Conner’s approval before he asked her to move in this time.

Of course, if Conner said no, Shane was doing it anyway. Still, he thought it would be a nice gesture.

He didn’t, however, intend for Conner—or any of the other guys for that matter—to find out about the box.

Dani Bradford was the only one besides Isabelle that he knew would know how to decoupage and today was the only day she was free. And he needed to talk to Conner before he talked to Isabelle—or so his hazy concept of etiquette led him to believe. And he was going to see Isabelle today—the minute she set foot back in Omaha. And there was no way he was going to keep from asking her to move in with him the moment he had the chance.

So he had to have this box done before their game.

He rubbed his finger and thumb together, feeling the glue residue he may never fully get rid of and the glitter that Sara had talked him into using. He was stuck with Conner finding out. Literally.

“Have you ever decoupaged before?” Sara asked Conner.

He raised an eyebrow. “Not unless that’s a fancy term for something I have been doing without knowing it.”

She raised an eyebrow right back at him. “You glue little pictures and stuff onto something.”

Conner looked at Shane, then at the box in front of Shane that was eighty-percent covered with little bits of paper with handwritten words on them, then back at Shane.

Shane braced himself. Conner wouldn’t be too hard on him with Sara here. He wanted Sara to think he was a nice, charming guy.

But instead of commenting on Shane’s new hobby or his masculinity, Conner said, “I assume that’s for Isabelle?”

Sara grinned. “Isn’t it sweet? He knows she likes to decoupage so he asked Dani to teach him. And all those little notes he’s putting on there are things about him he wants Isabelle to know.”

Shane grimaced. He’d told the girls because they, of course, had noticed what he was covering his box with. But he didn’t need Conner to know that he’d handwritten the words, or that they were things like his favorite book from childhood, his favorite Christmas treat, and the name of his grandmother. They were the things they hadn’t gotten to yet. With the box, they could sit together on the couch and talk about all of those words and what they meant to him and all the things he wanted to know about her.

“What are you putting in that box?” Conner asked him.

Shane took a deep breath, then met his friend’s gaze. “A key. To my new house. Where I want her to live with me.”

“House?” Conner tucked his hands in the front pockets of his jeans. “That’s pretty mature and stable and stuff.”

Shane picked up a little scrap of paper that said
Oscar
. His first dog.

“I’m settling down. With Isabelle. I hope—” He stopped and cleared his throat. He wasn’t good at asking for permission. “I hope that’s okay with you. I’m in love with her. I want to be there with her every day. And night.”

Conner closed his eyes and groaned. “See, you were doing okay, until that last part.”

Since Conner wasn’t looking, Shane grinned. “So I shouldn’t mention the new king-sized bed.”

Conner covered his face with one hand. “No, definitely not.”

“Or the hot tub.”

Conner’s other hand flew up as he groaned louder. “No.”

“Or the Tantra Chair.”

Conner dropped both hands and stared at Shane. “You did not order a Tantra Chair.”

“Oh, I did. In burgundy.”

“But you won’t put it in your living room. I don’t care what the website shows…that isn’t right.”

“Front and center,” Shane said, fighting the urge to laugh. “It goes perfectly with my new couch.”

“I won’t ever be able to come to your place,” Conner said.

“Huh. I hadn’t even thought of that,” Shane said casually.

“You’re a bastard.”

“Who loves your sister.”

“I know.”

“Who’s going to live with your sister.”

“On one condition.”

Shane rolled his eyes. Of course there was a condition. Like separate bedrooms.

“You put a ring in that box with the key.”

Shane frowned. “Any old ring?”

“Any old ring that costs you an arm and a leg and means you’re going to marry her,” Conner clarified.

Shane felt his heart stutter, then flip, then expand. Conner was telling him to
propose
.

Conner
was telling him to propose.

To Isabelle. His sister.

Shane figured he had two choices here. He could point out all the reasons that proposing was crazy. Or he could go for it. Hell, Conner might even be willing to drive him to the jewelry store.

It wasn’t that tough of a decision.

He always went for it.

“Okay, let’s go.” Shane shoved his chair back.

“But you haven’t finished the box,” Sara protested.

Shane reached for a picture lying in Sara’s stack of materials, grabbed a glue bottle and glued it on the box over the remaining blank spot.

Dani came back into the room. “How’s everything—” She zeroed in on Shane’s box. “Isabelle has a thing for frogs?” she asked.

“She and Ava have that in common,” Sara said dryly. She had been decorating a jewelry box for her niece.

“It won’t matter,” Shane assured them. “She’ll be impressed anyway.”

“You don’t have even one layer of varnish on,” Dani pointed out.

“I’ll do it later.”

“If you get the paper wet or dirty before you varnish it—”

“I know,” Shane interrupted. “But I have to go.”

“Leave the box and I’ll finish it for you. Then you can give it to her this weekend or something,” Dani offered.

Sara nudged her sister-in-law. “He needs it today.”

“But she doesn’t even know about it or the key, right?” Clearly it was bugging Dani immensely to leave a project unfinished.

“Now it’s going to have a ring in it too,” Sara said.

“Well, great, but…” Dani trailed off as the words sunk in. “A ring?”

Sara grinned. “Yeah. A
ring
.”

Dani looked from Shane to Conner and back. “Well, what are you still standing
here
for?”

As he jogged to the car with Conner, Shane couldn’t help but grin. He’d had no idea how involved decoupage could be. But he was definitely walking away from it feeling better than he had walked away from the yoga class. Things were getting better.

“So it’s fine?” Isabelle asked Trudy. “No problem at all with bringing in a model of Mount Rushmore and making the place up to look like the Corn Palace?”

“Nope. It’s fine. You and Shane have pulled in the best crowds I’ve had in a long time,” Trudy said with a grin. “Decorate however you want.”

“This Mount Rushmore thing is pretty big,” Isabelle said. “I mean, it’s going to take up some space. If there’s anything else going on here, it might be in the way.” She and her sisters had created the paper mache model during the past week at the cabin.

She wondered if Shane had any idea what paper mache was.

Trudy turned away from stacking glasses on the back counter behind the bar. “Isabelle, nothing else is going on here tonight. No one has told me they’re bringing in a mechanical bull or a petting zoo or setting up a bowling alley or anything. Isn’t that a good thing?”

Sure it was. Of course it was. She wanted the place for
her
plan for tonight.

But she wouldn’t have been upset if Shane had planned some big thing for her first night back in town.

They hadn’t seen each other or even talked in seven days. And this was
Shane
.

He didn’t have any big welcome-home-I’m-so-glad-to-see-you thing planned?

Of course, she wanted it to be something they could sneak out on within an hour or so, but some over-the-top gesture wouldn’t have been out of line.

Which was why she’d come up with a plan of her own. Shane was a unique guy. When a girl wanted to tell him that she was madly in love with him and wanted to wake up next to him every morning for the rest of her life, she needed a unique gesture to show it.

She didn’t have the experience with over-the-top public displays of affection that Shane did, of course. Her gesture involved decorating with a few dead presidents and a bunch of corn and setting up a mini treasure hunt for a dragon pendant—that had cost her thirty-two sixty-five on eBay and matched the one she had hanging around her neck. The pendant might not have been magical or had a romantic backstory, but it had sure contributed to some of the healing between her and Shane. Hanging onto a copy as a reminder that she could be and have everything she wanted to be seemed like a good idea.

But they could easily get out of here and naked within sixty minutes. Seventy-five tops.

She grinned as she rolled up the treasure maps she and Olivia had created of Trudy’s. She
did
have experience with over-the-top-not-as-public displays of affection. Especially ones that involved chocolate body pens and naughty dice.

“We never actually made it to Mount Rushmore,” a deep voice said in her ear.

She sighed, pulling in the feel of him behind her.

“I know, but it reminds you of our trip, right?”