In Rides Trouble (Black Knights Inc. #2)(74)
Finally, Shell ventured, “So besides your moronic misconception of what your promise to me meant, is there anything that’s keeping you from going down on one knee and begging the lovely Rebel Reichert to love you forever and ever, amen?”
“Did you just quote Randy Travis?”
“Maybe.”
“Where did I go wrong?” He glanced toward the ceiling, grinning when she pinched his arm.
“So I’m a little bit country and you’re a little bit rock’n’roll. What’s wrong with that?”
“Hell, I think I liked it better when you were quoting ol’ Randy.”
“Oh, don’t pretend like you didn’t love Donny and Marie. I seem to remember you had a life-sized poster of Marie Osmond stuck to your ceiling. What was it doing up there, Frank?” Shell batted her eyelids with such fervor, he worried she might start losing lashes.
“Can it, creep,” he grumbled.
Chuckling like only a little sister can chuckle when she’s got her big brother over a barrel, she asked, “So? What’s stopping you?”
“What’s stopping me from what?”
“Ugh, the problem with you men…scratch that. Let me rephrase. One of the problems with you men is that you can never follow a conversation. So, what’s stopping you from going down on one knee and professing your love for Becky?”
“It’s not that we can’t follow conversations,” he told her in defense of every male on the planet. “It’s just that we’re linear conversationalists. When we veer off track, it takes us a while to reorient ourselves.”
“Just answer the damn question.”
“What’s stopping me from going down on one knee?”
She nodded.
“Bad knees?” he offered.
Folding her arms in the huffy pose she’d perfected in childhood, she tilted her head and watched him as he considered the question.
So, what’s stopping me? What’s stopping me now that—
And suddenly, like a bolt of lightning from the clear blue sky, the answer struck him. He glanced at his sister in slack-jawed astonishment. “Well…nothing, I guess. I…”
Holy shit. There was nothing standing in his way. Nothing keeping him from finally claiming the only woman who’d ever managed to touch his jaded heart, the only woman he could envision walking down the aisle with, the only woman he could ever see growing round with his children, the only woman he could look at and imagine growing old with…
Holy, holy, holy shit!
So he could still be surprised, because suddenly the universe—in the form of his beloved sister—had just handed him the one and only thing he’d ever coveted, the one and only thing he never dared dream could be his.
She chuckled at the look of shock, hope, and sheer joy plastered all over his face.
“I was beginning to think I’d never see the day.” She squeezed his arm, and he was so overcome, he jerked her against his chest, hugging her tight—damn the pain in his shoulder. He barely felt it.
“Oh man, Shell,” he whispered over and over again.
“Oh, Frank,” she murmured, smacking a loud kiss on his ear. “I’m so happy for you.” She pushed back, her smile watery. “I really like her, you know. I mean, I only just met her, but she seems really spunky.” She made a face. “She’d have to be to put up with you.”
“She’s great, Shell. So smart and talented and kind. She feeds her cat too damned much, and she’s too nosy by half, but she’s got the biggest heart and she’s so flippin’ brave it kills me and…what?”
Shell was shaking her head, laughing. “You really are in love, aren’t you?”
“Yeah,” he sighed, feeling like the world must’ve leapt into a closer orbit with the sun. Suddenly everything was warmer, brighter…“I’m really in love.”
***
“What are you two grinning about?” Bill asked as he shouldered into the hospital room, juggling a cardboard carton full of Starbucks and a bag of fresh-from-the-oven blueberry muffins.
He was struck again by the sight of Michelle.
Shit, all this time he and the rest of the Knights had thought Boss was sneaking up to Lincoln Park to see some Pamela Anderson archetype when, in fact, the man had been visiting his sister. It was so absurd, he couldn’t help but snicker.
Of course, now the small smile that flickered over Rock’s mouth whenever the subject of Boss’s lady love was raised made a whole helluva lot more sense. Rock was the only Knight who’d been with Boss before the founding of Black Knights Inc., and the squirrely son-ofagun had obviously known all along what the deal with Michelle really was.
Bill glanced over at Rock and vowed to give the cagey bastard an earful for letting them all make such fools of themselves…
“It’s a brother/sister thing,” Michelle explained, and he had to remember what he’d asked her. Oh, yeah. He’d asked what they were grinning about.
“Ugh, I understand those,” he groused, and she flashed him a warm smile of thanks as he passed her a tall white-chocolate mocha, extra whipped cream. The woman liked her coffee sweet. God help her if she ever came to visit the shop. He lifted the lid on his own house blend and blew across the steaming liquid. “Only the brother/sister things Becky and I share usually end in insults, minor injuries, or yelled promises of retribution.”