Page 85 of That Stranded Feeling

I rest my cold face on his warm chest, no longer afraid to lean on him.

“When this week is over,” he whispers into the top of my head, “we’ll figure it out. But if I’ve learned anything fromFrozen, it’s that love is putting someone else’s needs before your own.”

Love?

Did he say love?

He said love.

I pull back and look up at him. “Did you saylove?”

He smiles and shrugs. “I know it’s only been a few days, but they say when you know, you know.”

I pull back, sniff, and wipe my face. “Now I’m going to cry as much as I did last night when the snowman said that the only thing that thaws a frozen heart is an act of true love.” I look up at him. “You’ve certainly managed that.”

“Oh, yours wasn’t frozen. It was just chilled so it would stay fresh for me.”

I slap him on the chest. “Oh, stop the cheesiness.”

He raises his non-tin-holding palm skyward and raises his eyebrows. “Anyway, sooo…?”

“What?” What is he asking? Oh God, yes, the love thing. “Of course, yes! Of course, I love you too. And of course, we can take it one step at a time.”

He reaches to wrap his arms around my shoulders, and whacks me in the back of the head with the blue tin.

“Ow!”

“Oh, shit.” He rubs the spot of impact. “Sorry, got carried away.”

I point at the tin. “Do I at least win the prize now?”

He nods and hands it to me. “Happy belated Valentine’s Day.”

My eyes shoot up from the tin to his face, and I freeze for a second. “You’re wishing me Happy Valentine’s Day?”

He nods.

I point at the tin. “And you’re giving me a Valentine’s gift?”

“Yup.”

“So, you suddenly don’t think Valentine’s Day is a tacky, clichéd, cheese fest?”

He pushes his sexy tousled hair off his face, sighs, and tilts his head to one side. “Well, let me put it this way. Maybe I’m starting to understand that what your grandparents had, and what Maggie and Jim have, is something real. Something that absolutely does exist. And it makes you do crazy things. But you don’t care they’re crazy.”

His words are like sunlight warming my heart.

I tug at the ribbon around the tin. Before I’ve even fully lifted off the lid, the aroma of bananas wafts out. And there it is, a perfectly formed, freshly baked loaf of banana bread.

He proudly points at the red flecks. “With cranberries.”

My heart soars with love for the man I know will make me banana bread when I’m old and gray and knitting in a chair by the fire.

Elsa and I step aside to let him in.

“Welcome back.”

EPILOGUE