The Chase (Fast Track #4)(51)
Author: Erin McCarthy

His eyes got huge. “What? Are you actually serious?”

“Yes, yes, I’m serious.” She had never been impulsive, and she spent all her time worrying and stressing and overthinking. She didn’t want to worry about her relationship anymore, she just wanted to enjoy it. Besides, she didn’t think this was really all that impulsive. Evan had been the man she’d wanted to marry ten years ago. Knowing that he had always supported her made her wish she’d been smart enough to let him put a ring on her finger all those years ago. “I love you. I don’t want to pretend I don’t. Remember that first night, at the bar, when we started talking? And I said if we hadn’t both been chicken, we would probably have never broken up? I don’t want to be a chicken this time around . . . I want to be with you.”

A grin split his face. “I want to be with you, too. I would absolutely love to marry you. I love you, too, Kendall. God, so much.”

“So we’re getting married?” She was strangely shocked he had agreed that easily. She had expected questions, concern, distrust at her out-of-the-blue decision. But that would have been her reaction, not his. Evan just went with his feelings, and she was grateful that he loved her enough to just take that leap with her.

“You asked. I said yes. So I’d say we’re getting married!” He picked her up and spun her around, making her laugh breathlessly. “Holy shit, I just wish I’d asked you first.”

All the stress she’d been feeling, the worry, the doubt, disappeared when he held her like that, solid and purposeful. She felt giddy, relieved. “This week was hard, you know? Wanting to be together and not being together. I thought about you all day, about how you understand me, how you love me, how I hate having to pretend we’re not dating and I just thought . . .”

Suddenly she really was crying. The tears that had threatened earlier came spewing out, and Kendall bit her lips, horrified. She wasn’t even sure why she was crying.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay.” Evan put his hand under her chin. “Love doesn’t have to be complicated. Life is, but not our love. I just want to be with you.”

“Carl is going to flip, isn’t he?” It had only been a couple of minutes, and she could already feel doubt creeping in. She wanted to smash it instantly. Evan was right. They were making it complicated, when it didn’t need to be.

He just grinned. “He said he didn’t want us dating. He didn’t say anything about getting married. I figure his whole problem is with presenting a sexual image, which being married tempers. It’s acceptable and romantic for a married couple to kiss or gaze hotly at each other.”

“True. And I’m looking forward to that.” The next party she went to, she was walking in with Evan at her side.

“And he was worried about us dating a few months, then having a tiff and breaking up.” Evan gave her a look so hot, yet so tender, Kendall literally forgot to breathe. “We’re not breaking up.”

“No,” she said in a breathy little voice she never would have recognized as her own. “We’re not.”

“Would you like to invite Kendall in,” a voice called from the front porch, “or are you just going to keep her in the driveway all night?”

Elec was standing on the front porch and Kendall fought a blush. Crying and blushing in one day. She clearly was in love. “Hi, Elec, how are you? Thanks for letting me stop by.”

“We’re glad to have you, if my brother will ever let you inside.”

“We’re getting married,” Evan told Elec, squeezing Kendall’s hand.

She hadn’t expected him to blurt it out like that, and when Elec’s eyes widened in surprise, the blush she’d beaten back emerged victorious. Here it came, the first of many people who would tell them they were nuts. She steeled her back for it.

But Elec just nodded. “Well, congratulations then. I wish you both much happiness.”

He sounded so calm, so matter-of-fact, that Kendall didn’t even know how to react. That was not what any of her family would have said. There would have been all sorts of opinions about rushing into something so impulsively, and truthfully they weren’t going to support her marriage to another driver, long engagement or not, because it would keep her firmly entrenched in a career they didn’t approve of.

Which made her phenomenally sad, but she refused to feel that right now.

Now there was just joy, that life had taken her full circle back to Evan.

“Thank you.”

Evan kept her hand snuggly in his and started up the steps of the front porch. Then he stopped suddenly. “Hey, let’s get married tonight.”

“Tonight? How would that be possible?” Kendall laughed, knowing it wouldn’t work, but a part of her was giddy and inflated with the intoxicating thought that she could be married by tomorrow.

“We’ll go to a chapel. I’m wearing this jacket already, and hell, you have on a white dress. It doesn’t get any more convenient than that.”

“But we’d need a license and it’s Easter.”

Elec paused with his hand on the doorknob. “Being a local celebrity has its benefits. I went to high school with a woman who works as a clerk at the courthouse and she’s a huge racing fan. If you’re serious.”

Kendall looked up at Evan, her heart suddenly kicking into overdrive. “Are we serious?”

“Oh, we’re serious. I already have a ring, remember?”

Which made her burst into tears.

Which sent Elec into the house faster than a cat after tuna.

“I’m sorry.” She sobbed and clung to Evan’s chest, not really sure why she was crying.

He rubbed her back, her hair, her arms. “It’s okay, baby, I get it. This has been a long time coming, huh?”

She nodded, peeling herself off of him, and contritely brushing at the tearstains she’d made on his white shirt. “A very long time.”

“Are you done?” he asked her with a grin.

“Shut up,” she said reflexively. “But, yes, I’m done.”

“Good, because I don’t want to go into the house and announce we’re getting married with you looking like someone just died.”

Kendall sniffled. The truth was, Evan always knew exactly how to make her feel better. He knew when to tease and when to be serious. He knew when to grin and when to take her into his arms. He just . . . knew.

Feeling like she might start bawling in earnest, Kendall took a deep breath and rubbed her hands down the front of her black-and-white wrap dress. “Is your family going to freak?”