Page 63 of An Unexpected Home

“While I hate to spend the money, I agree with Brandon that it’s probably better to be safe.”

“Is that a yes then?” Leah asked.

“Go ahead,” Carly said. “But I’m not dealing with him. He’s all yours.”

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After all the classes had ended at eight, Leah was shutting down for the night when Brandon strolled in.

“Hey, what are you doing here?” She smiled. She loved that he would just surprise her and show up randomly anytime he wanted.

“I heard there was talk of a nighttime boat ride and I thought I’d see if you were interested?”

Carly and Melanie were taking Carly’s dad’s pontoon boat out for a quiet ride and they had invited her. It sounded like heaven so she had readily accepted.

“Is there room?” she asked, having no idea how big the boat was.

“Plenty,” he said. “Logan is coming, too.”

“Sounds fun.” She grabbed her bag just as Carly and Mel walked in.

“Hey Bran, you going on the lake with us?” Carly said.

“That was the plan.”

“Great,” she said. “You guys can follow us there.”

Inside his car, Leah asked, “You have a boat right?” She vaguely remembered him telling her that he did.

“I do,” he answered. “Two actually. A pontoon and a speedboat.”

“Are they at your house?”

“They are both in storage elsewhere right now. I usually get them out around Mother’s Day.” He got quiet. “Speaking of Mother’s Day...my mom always has a big dinner and she has invited us.”

“Us?” she asked, a little off balance at the thought of going to his parent’s house for dinner.

“Yeah, us.”

“I don’t know, won’t that be weird?”

“Why would it be weird, unless of course you don’t want to go?”

“It’s not that I don’t want to go, I just...” She was doing this all wrong and she could tell from his expression that she was hurting his feelings. “Listen, I love you and I want to meet your parent’s but is Mother’s Day the right time? And yes I know that I technically already met your mom but...” He had stopped driving and he’d pulled over to the side of the road.

“What’s wrong?”

“Did you just say that you loved me?”

“No,” she said adamantly. No she hadn’t, had she?

She replayed the conversation over, OH MY GOD, she had. She just spouted off and it had come out of her mouth. It was the truth, she did love him. But she wasn’t sure she was ready for him to know yet. Hell, she wasn’t sure she was ready to be in love yet. But it had happened and there seemed to be nothing she could do about it.

“Brandon I didn't mean –”

“You didn’t mean it?” he asked, deflated.

“That’s not what I was going to say,” she told him and took a deep breath. “I didn’t mean for it to just come out like that and I don’t want you to think you have to say it back. I don’t want my feelings to affect your feelings.”

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