My smile grew bigger.
“Then…” She took in a shaky breath, but the corners of her lips turned up. “I was going to tell you that I lied when I said I just wanted one night. Because I want all your nights, and your days, too. I was going to tell you that you were wrong about us. And the future. Because the only future that I can see that makes any sense…”—more tears fell—“is one where you and I are together. Married. With babies, and Romeo, of course. That’s what’s real. That is the only thing that could ever give me the life I want. My best life. You are my best life. You are my more.”
“Harmony…” I tried to reach her face, but one arm was in a sling and the other was heavier than a truck.
“I also had other stuff in there about how if I was ever going to travel, I wanted you by my side. And even if you were right, and fifteen years from now I wanted to live in New York, that we could take a summer and go start a Reed Ranch there because there were kids all over the country in need. And that the only thing that mattered was being together. Oh and I did have a real confession too…um, I kind of set up the entire ‘I’ve fallen and I can’t get up’ thing. I was just mad because it seemed like you were giving me impossible tasks.”
“I was,” I made my own confession.
“I knew it.” She pointed at me in accusation.
“Sorry, like I said: torture.”
She nodded in understanding. “Then, the grand finale. I was going to get on one knee, like so.”
Scooting off the chair, she knelt beside the bed, still holding my hand. “And I was going to say, Hudson Reed, will you make me the happiest girl in the world and be my husband?”
I honestly could not believe what I was seeing. Harmony Briggs was on her knee, proposing to me.
“Well…” she prompted.
“What?”
“Will you marry me?” she repeated, although this time it was much less heartfelt.
“Harmony.” There it was—the warning tone she never heeded.
Clapping her hands together, she got back up in the chair and chirped, “I’ll take that as a yes.”
“You can’t propose to me,” I argued.
If Harmony and I were getting married, and we most definitely were, I was going to do the proposing.
“Too late. I just did.” She shrugged, wearing a very self-satisfied grin.
I knew something that would wipe that right off. “Do you want to know the real reason that I didn’t propose to Ali?”
Her face fell.
I’ll take that as a yes, I repeated her words. To myself. I might’ve gotten shot today, but I didn’t have a death wish.
“I didn’t just go to the jeweler that Cara saw me in. I went to three. And every time any of them showed me a ring, the only person that I could picture putting it on was you.”
She pursed her lips in the expression that had been my first clue she was a romantic.
“Once I realized that, I knew that I would never get you some generic store ring. That I would ask my mom for my Grandma Burke’s ring and that would be—”
“Done,” she said.
“Excuse me?”
“Done.” Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out my Grandma Burke’s ring. “I asked her this morning.”
“You asked my mom for my grandmother’s ring?” This had to be the drugs.
“Yeah, and it’s a good thing I did because it was the only thing that convinced these yahoos I was really your fiancée.”
“You asked my mom for my grandmother’s ring?” I repeated, still in disbelief.
“Yep. I also asked her for your hand in marriage.” She wagged her brow. “My mama raised me right.”
Like it always did if I spent any amount of time with Harmony, a huge smile spread on my face. “What did she say?”
“After she gave me her blessing,”—Harmony slipped the ring on and seeing it on her slender finger made my chest ache with love—“she laughed and said, ‘this should be fun.’”
Yeah, that sounded like her.
“Oh, speaking of your mom. She’s on her way with your dad. They were already headed out on their anniversary vacation, but they’ll be here soon. And Holden was up in Dallas, training, but he should get here around the same time”
“They don’t need to—”
She held up her hand. “Save it. Their son and brother got shot. They’re coming.”
“Is this how it’s going to be? You bossing me around all the time?”
A flush crept up her face. “Well, not all the time.”
“Damn, how did I get so lucky?” I breathed.
“I know, right?” she teased. “You hit the jackpot.”
“I did,” I answered seriously.
“No, I did,” she responded just as somberly.
“I love you, Princess.”
Her face scrunched. “Is that really what we’re sticking with?”
I took in a painful breath. “I call you Princess because your junior year, I was in the principal’s office, picking up my brother because he’d gotten in a fight, and I heard you arguing that if Cara wasn’t allowed to be in the homecoming court because of absences then they could take your crown and shove it where the sun don’t shine.”