Page 53 of Indirect Attack
I caught Ben’s swallow out of the corner of my eye. “I did go to ask you. But Greg got in the way.”
The words turned over in my head for a long moment, and then my eyes widened in shock. “You came over that night to ask me to marry you?”
I couldn’t quite believe what I was hearing.
“Yeah.”
“You came over to ask me to marry you without mentioning anything first?”
Licking his lips, Ben looked suddenly uncomfortable. “I wanted it to be a surprise.”
“It certainly would have been.” Frustration was starting to edge out my excitement. “You didn’t say anything. We’d barely talked for months. And you showed up expecting me to be there for you to ask me to marry you?”
Incredulous didn’t entirely cover how I was feeling.
Ben’s hand hovered over his head like he wanted to run his hands through his hair, which had grown out since his discharge, but he stopped so he didn’t mess it up. “Look, we’ve established that I didn’t exactly make the best decisions back then. Can we leave it at that? It all ended up okay, right?”
His words extinguished the heated annoyance—yes, everything had worked out okay. And we were both older, more mature, with life experience under our belts. Our relationship formed when we were both so young would have been far different than the one we’d forged over the past months.
“You’re right. It all worked out okay.”
My excitement came back full force, forcing out the last of the incredulity as I looked back down at the ring on my finger, the reality of the situation sinking in.
Ben and I were engaged—we were actually engaged! He wasn’t just my boyfriend anymore, but my fiancé. I had a fiancé. And we were going to get married.
I let out a squeal and threw my arms around Ben’s neck. He lifted me and spun me around, laughing in delight along with me. His eyes were bright with happiness when he put me back down, his arms still tight around my waist.
“So you still haven’t answered my question—do you want to get married to me right now?”
“I still don’t understand the question,” I replied.
Ben smiled that same secretive smile, jerked his head toward the house again, and then took my hand. “Come on. I’ll show you.”
He led me back through the house, through the kitchen to the back door from which I could see whatever was going on out back when we’d pulled up.
Opening the door to the back porch, I could see it looked like a small gathering—was it the next-door neighbors doing something in their yard? I didn’t know where our land ended and theirs began.
In the field behind the house, a distance away, I could see dozens of people in chairs set up in rows. A trellis stood at the front of the rows, and a figure waited underneath the flower-covered arch.
For a moment, my brain stopped, like too many thoughts had gummed up the gears. Then one finally slipped through—a wedding—and Ben’s words finally made sense.
I whipped around to face him, unable to say anything for a long moment, only able to stare.
“A wedding?” I finally managed to ask, my voice oddly strangled.
“Our wedding, I hope,” Ben answered. Then a shy light crept into his eyes, red dusting his cheeks. “Do you like it?” he asked uncertainly.
Blinking back tears, I managed to squeeze a “yes” through my tight throat. And for a moment, the only thing we could do was look into each other’s eyes. Had Ben really done all of this for me? For us? Planned a secret wedding so we could get married? Outside of saving my life, this was the most incredible thing anyone had ever done for me.
Ben’s brothers ended the moment, coming loudly around the side of the house through the overgrown grass.
“Hey, there you guys are.” Herman put a hand out to stop Sam, who hadn’t noticed his brothers had stopped. The youngest Rusev looked up, then pushed his brother’s hand away from his chest. “We were afraid we were going to miss all the festivities.”
“We would have been on time if someone hadn’t insisted on steaming his uniform,” Tri huffed, his mouth a thin line of annoyance.
“Hey, it’s an important day. I wanted to look my best.” Herman’s grin was enormous and entirely unapologetic.
“You guys almost ruined the entire thing.” Ben rolled his eyes. “Jasmine saw you getting into Tri’s rental.”
