Page 111 of Getting Wrapped Up

A sharp jab of pain hit her in the chest at his confirmation of her fears. She might have even gasped.

“No,” he said, reaching out and taking her by the upper arms. “I mean, I didn’t want to involve you in all of this because I didn’t want you to think I should stay. I didn’t want you to assume I wouldn’t want to leave.”

“Leave?”

“Sapphire Falls. I figured if you knew I was happy here and was truly getting involved, you’d never ask me to move to California with you.”

She frowned. What was he talking about? “I was never going to ask you to move to California.”

A flash of hurt crossed his face and he leaned back. “Oh.”

“I mean, why would I? I want to be here.”

He studied her face. “You want to behere?”

She nodded. “I want to move to Sapphire Falls. But I was waiting for the right time to tell you. And then all of this stuff kept coming up that made it seem like you were so happy in your life here without me.”

He laughed and shook his head. “I was trying to convince you Iwasn’thappy here.”

“I thought…but…and…you were trying to keep the good things away from me.”

“But it didn’t work, did it?” he asked. “Really? The guys at the diner, the sledding, this Cupid-crazy dance, even this guy.” He gestured toward Tucker. “The good so outweighs the bad here that it was an impossible task from the start.”

“But you did want me tonotlove it here?”

“I wanted you to ask me to go to California with you. I wanted you to thinkIdidn’t love it here.”

She let his words sink in. The look in his eyes was completely sincere. She stepped closer. “There’s no way you can hide how you feel about this place, Levi.”

His hands went from her arms to her hips. He sighed and nodded. “Good. I don’t want to hide it. And I hope I’m not hiding how I feel about you either. I love you, Kate. More than I would have ever believed possible. I’ve known you eight weeks and I can barely remember my life without you. And I certainly can’t imagine my life over the next eight weeks, or eight years or eighty years, without you.”

She closed the rest of the small distance between them, wrapping her arms around his waist. “Ask me to move here,” she said.

“Move here,” he said immediately. “Move in with me. Be here with me.”

“Yes.”

He breathed deep and gave her a big grin.

“On one condition,” she said.

“Anything.”

“Tucker comes over to get rid of any snakes.”

Levi looked over at the other man. Tucker pushed his hands into his front pockets and gave him a big smug grin.

Levi looked back to Kate. “Really?”

“What do you know about snakes?” she asked.

“Well…” He nodded. “Yeah, okay.”

“I’ll get you my mom’s cobbler recipe, Katie,” Tucker said. “You can start practicing and by snake season you’ll be good enough to repay me in baked goods.”

Levi was shaking his head before Tucker even finished. “No cobbler. No way.”

Tucker laughed.

---