Total pages in book: 36
Estimated words: 34995 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 175(@200wpm)___ 140(@250wpm)___ 117(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 34995 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 175(@200wpm)___ 140(@250wpm)___ 117(@300wpm)
I can’t help it any longer.
I throw myself back into his arms.
Because all of those words he’s saying only mean one thing, and it’s what making my own heart feel like it’s about to burst.
“Santino...”
His powerful body stiffens upon hearing me whisper his name, and I realize that a part of him is expecting me to turn him down.
“I know I could’ve explained things better,” he grits out. “But I’m not good at this, and I need you...I need you to give me another chance. I’m going to be better at this, so just—”
His words disappear as I stand on my toes so I can reach up and cover his mouth with mine.
I love you, too.
And I know he’s heard this because he’s suddenly kissing me back, kissing me more deeply and fiercely than ever, and his kiss...
It’s saying the same thing, too.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
Epilogue
THREE WEEKS LATER
“Mrs. Pit Stop!”
The nickname makes my cheeks warm even before I look up from the espresso machine I’ve been cleaning for the third time this morning. Jolie stands at the counter with that familiar grin, her worn copy of Wuthering Heights tucked under one arm like always, the dust jacket faded to the color of old parchment.
“Stop calling me that,” I say, but my smile gives me away.
How can I not smile? I’m standing in the café I helped design—warm cedar walls that still smell like fresh-cut wood, industrial espresso machine that hums like a living thing, windows overlooking the track where children’s laughter echoes between engine roars. The apron I wear says “Pit Stop Coffee” in racing-stripe letters across my chest, and the ring on my left hand catches the Wyoming morning in fractured rainbows.
Twenty-four days married.
I still wake up reaching for him, needing to confirm he’s real.
“Can’t stop, won’t stop,” Jolie says, leaning against the counter the way she always does when she’s about to say something that will make me want to hide in the walk-in cooler. “It’s too perfect. Plus, you’re literally running a pit stop. Santino made you a café attached to a racing school. If that’s not romance novel territory, I don’t know what is.”
“It’s just coffee—”
“Semantics.” Jolie glances at her phone, and her dark eyes go wide in a way that makes her look younger than twenty-three. “Oh! I have to go. Today’s my first day.”
“First day of what?”
“The one-day racing experience course.” She’s already backing toward the door, clutching her book against her chest like a shield. “I signed up weeks ago. Remember? I told you at Bible study?”
Oh, right.
I did forget about that...but I have no time to wish he luck since she’s already out of the door.
I turn back to the espresso machine.
The café is empty. Most parents drop their children at the school and disappear for hours—skiing at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort or shopping in town or whatever wealthy people do with their free time. I have the whole space to myself, which means I can finally tackle that inventory spreadsheet that makes me want to cry every time I open it.
The sound of the lock clicking makes me freeze.
I turn.
Santino stands at the door, one hand on the deadbolt, the other flipping the sign from OPEN to CLOSED with the kind of deliberate precision he brings to everything. He wears dark jeans that fit him in ways that should probably be illegal and a charcoal sweater that makes his shoulders look even broader than they are, and when his eyes find mine across the café, something in my chest does that flutter-crash thing it always does.
Like my heart can’t decide whether to race toward him or protect itself.
“Why are we closing early?” My voice comes out softer than I mean it to.
He crosses the café without answering, his footsteps deliberate on the polished concrete floor, and I find myself counting them automatically. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven steps from the door to the counter, seven steps that feel like forever and not long enough, and then he’s right there, close enough that I can smell the coffee on his breath and the faint cedar scent of the racing school clinging to his clothes.
“Because,” he says, his accent turning the word into something dark and promising, “I have been counting.”
“Counting what?”
His lips curve. Not quite a smile. Something more dangerous. “Thirty-six.”
I blink. “Thirty-six...what?” I’m trying to do the math, my mind scrambling through dates. We’ve been married twenty-four days, which means he proposed—
“Thirty-six,” he says again, and this time there’s mockery in his tone, something teasing and possessive and entirely too smug for ten o’clock on a Tuesday morning.
“I don’t understand what you’re—”
“If you have built up enough stamina,” he murmurs, stepping closer, close enough that I can feel the heat radiating from his body, “we can make it thirty-seven within an hour.”