Free Proposing to Preston: The Winslow Brothers #2 (The Blueberry Lane Series Book 8) by Katy Regnery

balled into fists at her sides.
    “I used to think of it sometimes, summer nights, when the moon was so bright I couldn’t sleep.”
    “As long ago as that?” asked Ethan, his face hopeful, his green eyes thick and glassy with longing.
    “The first time was at Shadow Pond.”
    “Was that why you gave me my coffee before the others?”
    She giggled softly, recognizing the sad, foreign sound as her own sorry voice. “I don’t know. Did I? I was dreadfully put out when you wouldn’t go to the picnic with me; and then, when I saw you coming down the road, I thought maybe you’d gone home that way o’ purpose; and that made me glad.”
    He reached for her hand, clutching it in the warm strength of his. Her hand molded perfectly to his just like she knew it would—like they were made for each other.
    “I’m tied hand and foot, Matt. There isn’t a thing I can do.”
    She pulled her hand away, because his touch didn’t belong to her, and it burned her skin. “You must write to me sometimes, Ethan.”
    “Oh, what good’ll writing do? I want to put my hand out and touch you. I want to do for you and care for you. I want to be there when you’re sick and when you’re lonesome.”
    Her heart clutched, but she mustered her strength to reassure him. “You mustn’t think but what I’ll do all right.”
    “You won’t need me, you mean? I suppose you’ll marry!”
    She gasped, the terribleness of another man but Ethan ever touching her almost making her sick. She belonged to him . She was his . “Oh, Ethan!”
    “I don’t know how it is you make me feel, Matt. I’d a’most rather have you dead than that!”
    Face to face with losing the sweetness of him in her cold, bleak life, she wondered if death would be better than any life that didn’t include Ethan. With sudden clarity, she knew it was true.
    “Oh, I wish I was, I wish I was!” she sobbed, watching his face turn away to look out over a meadow, toward the dying light of the setting sun.
    “Don’t let’s talk that way,” he finally whispered, reaching for her arm.
    Her voice was low and destroyed, a sob and moan and keening desperation rolled into broken words. “Why shouldn’t we, when it’s true? I’ve been wishing it every minute of the day.”
    “Matt! You be quiet! Don’t you say it.”
    “There’s never anybody been good to me but you,” she murmured, feeling lost, feeling bereft.
    “Don’t say that either, when I can’t lift a hand for you!”
    She looked up into his bright green eyes, longing to run her fingers through his black, silky hair all over again.
    “Yes,” she sobbed in a whisper, her decimated heart breaking into a million pieces behind the prison of her ribs. “But it’s true just the same.”
    “And, cut!”
    Elise started, blinking madly at Ethan—no, Preston—no…it was Steve, the Assistant Stage Manager, who stared back at her, his mouth parted open, his eyes wide.
    “Wow,” he murmured, nodding with respect and admiration in his kind brown eyes.
    Elise took a deep breath and swallowed, feeling Mattie Silver let go of her and start to fade away, back into the vapor of hot lights, seeping into musty velvet stage curtains until Elise needed to call her back again. She turned to look at Mr. Fischer and the other production folks, still seated at the long table, staring at the stage in silence.
    Mr. Fischer’s eyes were wide and thoughtful, before raising his elbows to the table, and breaking into slow and deliberate applause.
    ***
    Most evenings, Preston liked the New York Public Library.
    No, he more than liked it. He loved it.
    There was an austerity to the exterior of the building—a European-style grandness that he respected, and inside, it was both beautiful and functional. He loved the white marble lions that guarded the front doors, the sturdy wooden tables and chairs with brass reading lights and murals of the sky of the ceiling of the Main Rose Reading Room. He loved the smell of books, the