Jake stiffened in outrage. “I beg your pardon. I’m quite a catch.”
“You’re a ten-dollar Stetson on a five-cent head,” Lee informed him archly.
Jake turned that outrage on her. “Oh, God. You are feeling better.”
Lee grinned at him. “I got plenty more where that came from.”
Amanda actually giggled. “Yeah. Right here.”
Jake turned to her, took her two hands in his, met her amused gaze with his suddenly intense one. “Will you?” he asked.
“Will you?” the other three echoed even more intensely.
“Hey,” he protested, not bothering to turn from where Amanda was answering him even without words. “I do my own proposing.”
Gen turned to her sister. “This from a man who wouldn’t even accept a date to Sadie Hawkins Day.”
Jake didn’t even hear the teasing. He didn’t see the ten-dollar bills being pulled from pockets behind him. He just saw Amanda, just suddenly saw walls tumble and the fresh spring sunlight pour in, and he trembled with the heady rush of freedom.
“I’m sorry,” he said to her. “I’ve been bullheaded and afraid and confused. I promise not to be any more if you marry me.”
Amanda grinned. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep. All I want is the important one.”
“To love, honor and all that?”
She nodded. “That’s the one. And to keep a heater up in that cabin all winter in case I need to get away to write.”
Jake didn’t exactly answer her. He pulled her into his arms and reminded them both of what lay in store for them. He heard the crinkle of money behind him, but he decided to ignore it. He knew exactly who ended up with it all, anyway.
“I told you guys she’d be the one,” Lee crowed.
