Ty stood up. “As long as your mind is together enough to say yes to me, I don’t give a damn about witty quotes.” His heart racing, he leaned forward and gave her a slow, deep kiss, wanting to take it hotter but knowing he couldn’t in this venue. “I love you,” he whispered. “I’ll try to be a good husband, I swear.”
“I love you, too.”
Then he turned to the media crowd gathered and lifted his fist again. “She said yes! I’m getting married. How’s that for sweetening the day’s victory?”
Knowing he was grinning like a damn fool, he put his arm around Imogen to pull her close, and basked in what was hands down the best moment of his life.
TY had asked her to marry him. He had gotten down on one knee and said lovely things that she’d been too stunned to retain in her brain, and somehow she had managed to choke out a yes. Now she was surrounded by reporters taking their picture, interviewing Ty while she stood there, still stunned, and occasionally being asked a question herself.
“Did you suspect he was going to propose?” a blonde in her early forties, with her hair pulled back in a sleek ponytail, asked with a smile.
“No. I had no idea,” she said most sincerely.
Conscious of the need to be aware of both Hunter and Pete’s whereabouts since they were her responsibility, and making sure she could stay standing instead of collapsing in a puddle of shock seemed to take all her collected faculties at the moment. Forget charming or witty. And she was fairly certain that her face resembled the Joker more than a newly engaged woman.
Engaged.
She was engaged.
She had known the man for only a few months, had only been dating him for weeks, and she had agreed to marry him.
Never in her entire twenty-eight years of existence had she done something so impulsive.
She kept waiting for it to feel like a gigantic mistake, but aside from the surreal aspect of the situation, she didn’t feel doubt.
She just felt . . . disbelief.
Out of all those women in the world who threw themselves at race car drivers, why would he pick her?
It challenged the tenets of logic.
But then again, she believed that he loved her. She had seen it in his eyes, heard it in his voice. She trusted that, she really did, so why had her mind never leaped forward to the concept of marriage and happily ever after?
Because she had been scared to. Afraid that he would change his mind. And those kinds of doubts bothered her. It told her she wasn’t as confident and secure as she would like to be, that she exhibited a vulnerability to men. To this man. Or did she? And if she did, was that a bad thing?
Sometimes, the fact that her mind didn’t shut down, and analyzed from seven thousand directions over and over again, was a real pain in the ass.
She had just received a marriage proposal from the man she loved and she was dissecting it for weaknesses.
“Sorry about the media blitz,” Ty whispered in her ear, his breath tickling her skin. “Didn’t think that part through, babe. I just saw you and knew I wanted to marry you so I asked. I couldn’t wait.”
Imogen looked at Ty, at the one man who could halt her stone-cold logic and make her just feel. For the first time since he’d dropped to the ground, she felt a smile crack. “It’s okay. I’m glad you didn’t wait.” She needed that, to be caught off guard, to learn to trust her first gut reaction to her emotions. There had been no hesitation on her part—he had asked and her heart had sung out a big fat yes.
He grinned at her. “Good. I would pay a thousand dollars to be able to kiss you with tongue right now.”
She laughed. “That would get some airtime.”
“No joke. I think they’re done bugging you. If you want to take the kids back to the coach, I’ll be there soon. Or you can just wait to the side. Where the hell is Tammy, by the way?”
“She felt sick, so she left early.”
“Oh, does Elec know? I imagine he’d want to collect the kids.”
“I doubt it. She looked like she was going to throw up, so it’s unlikely she’s had a chance to call him.”
“I’ll get someone on tracking him down. You want to wait here, then?”
“Sure.”
Imogen gathered Hunter, who was bouncing and jumping and chattering a mile a minute, and Pete, who looked profoundly bored.
“Are we going back to the coach?” he asked. “I’m hungry.”
“We’re going to wait for your stepdad, and he’ll take you back. I’m sure he’ll feed you.”
“Ice cream!” Hunter declared, her arms shooting up in the air. “So when are you and Ty getting married?”
“I don’t know. We haven’t talked about that yet.”
“My mom and Elec got married and now he sleeps in her bed with her. I think that would suck. When I get married, my husband is going to have to have his own room.”
Imogen almost laughed. “You might change your mind about that at some point. Presumably if you marry him, you’ll like him enough to want to spend a lot of time with him.”
“I don’t know.” Hunter looked doubtful. “It seems silly to me to stuff two people in one bed together.”
The very thought of that, settling into sleep every night with Ty beside her, waking up to his cheerful chatter and big warm hands, made her deeply, profoundly happy. “Maybe it is silly, but when you love someone, you want to cuddle.”
Hunter looked ready to refute that when she spotted her stepfather striding toward them.
“Hey, squirt, what’s up?” he asked.
“Good race,” she told him as he picked her up and settled her on his hip, her long legs dangling.
“Thanks, baby girl. You guys ready to go? Ty told me Mom is sick. We should head back and check up on her.”
“Can we eat?” Pete asked.
“Most likely I’ll let you eat at some point,” Elec said, ruffling Pete’s hair. “You’re a bottomless pit.”
“Yep.” Pete grinned.
Elec looked at Imogen. “Thanks for watching them. I really appreciate it.”
“No problem. We had fun watching the race.”
“And I hear congratulations are in order.” Elec grinned. “Ty popping the question is all anyone’s talking about.”
She felt her cheeks heat. “Thanks.”
“We’ll catch you later, then,” he said, and headed off with the kids.
Imogen’s phone rang and she stepped a little farther back from the media zone to answer it. It was Suzanne. “Hello?”