Page 9 of The Mr. Right Checklist

“I’m sure your neighbors across the street love that.” I head for the hall with Molly, chuckling.

“Can you just forget you saw those?” she pleads, following me downstairs.

“Probably not.”

“Brat.” She swats my shoulder from behind. “I’ve had enough embarrassment for one day.”

“Speaking of embarrassment, how could you not realize Cecilia was talking about me? Didn’t you do any due diligence or ask for pictures of her boyfriend?” I ask as we head into the living room, which looks like it was hit by a tornado. I turn to Molly. “Sit.” She obeys. “Stay.” My beast grins up at me like she didn’t create the mess surrounding us.

“Don’t worry. I don’t think Clem will come down while you’re here.”

I arch a brow. “You sure?”

“Would you come down if you just got chased by a new friend who was ten times your size?”

A new friend? “Good point.” I unhook Molly’s leash so she doesn’t get caught on anything, and give her a pet. “Lie down.” Molly slides down to her belly and rests her big head between her paws.

“To answer your question, even if I had seen pictures, it wouldn’t have changed anything. It’s not like I know who you’re dating.”

“But if she didn’t have any pictures of us together, it might have tipped you off that something was wrong.” I pick her laptop up off the floor and set it on the coffee table, hoping it didn’t break, and begin picking up the dirty dishes that are now strewn across the floor as Destiny rights a lamp.

“Maybe, but probably not. Cecilia was my first client, and I was so excited, I didn’t even realize I hadn’t asked for pictures or proof of her relationship until the whole thing blew up.”

“Your first client? You just started this business?”

“Yup. I know you must think I’m crazy after everything that happened, but I’ve dreamed of being a proposal planner since I was a little girl.” She starts gathering what look like craft supplies and papers that are scattered around the floor. “I was sure I could be the best proposal planner ever to walk this earth. But now . . .” She shrugs and sets what she’s picked up on the coffee table.

I tell myself to let it go and get out of there. That it doesn’t matter that self-doubt sounds wrong coming from such a confident woman or that her hazel eyes, which have been dancing with delight every other time I’ve seen her, even when she’s argued with me, are shadowed with sadness. But apparently my brain didn’t get the memo, because “Why this business? Why marriage proposals?” comes out before I can stop it.

She looks at me as she picks up a few notebooks from the floor, and her eyes warm. “Because I love love, and what could be better than helping people get to their happily ever after?”

“So you’re an expert on love?” I pick up a blanket to fold and realize it, and the pillows on the couch, match the sheets in her bedroom. I wonder why she slept on the couch. Lovers’ quarrel?

“I’d like to think I am.”

I glance at her left hand. “I don’t see a ring. Have you ever been engaged or married?”

“Well, no.” She moves to the other couch and starts folding another blanket.

This woman has got me all kinds of confused. “Have you ever been in love?”

“No,” she says softly. “But I’ve seen love and I’ve felt it.” Her entire face brightens. “I know what true love looks like, and it’s the most beautiful thing you can imagine. We didn’t have much when I was growing up, but we had an abundance of love.”

“Loving your family and being in love are two different things.”

“How do you know? Have you ever been in love?”

“Yes, a long time ago. I did the whole engagement-wedding thing, and it didn’t end well. I’m never drinking that Kool-Aid again.”

“Never? That’s sad.”

“It’s really not. It’s called preserving my sanity.” I put the folded blanket on the couch and pick up the throw pillows from the floor.

“You just haven’t met the right partner yet. I can’t wait to fall in love. Want to know why I think I’m an expert on love? It’s because of my parents. They were crazy about each other. You couldn’t walk by them without feeling their love emanating around them. It was like another person standing with their arms around them, buffering them from everything else, keeping their love safe. Even the way they met and fell in love was romantic.” She barely slows down to take a breath as she snags things off the floor. “My mama had gone through a bad breakup, and on a whim she closed her eyes and jabbed her pencil tip on a map of the world. That’s how she ended up on a ten-day trip to Braga, Portugal. She didn’t know a soul, and she couldn’t speak the language, either, but she wasn’t afraid to go alone. She met my dad on her first day there, and he spoke English, which had to be fate. She’d been riding a bike she rented, and it got a flat tire. She walked two miles to his family’s auto shop to see if they could fix it. The way they told it, they took one look at each other and felt something absolutely magical.” She presses her hands to her chest and looks up at the ceiling, dreamy eyed and sighing.

Her excitement is endearing, making her hard to look away from.

“They spent every day together and fell madly in love. But at the end of those ten days, they couldn’t see a way to be together. My mother was all my grandmother had, and they lived together in Georgia, so she went back home to be with her, and my daddy stayed in Portugal. They didn’t exchange phone numbers or addresses or anything. My mom told him it would be too painful to hear his voice and know they couldn’t be together. But privately, I asked if she’d tried begging him to go with her, and she said, Smart girls don’t beg for love, and true love doesn’t require beggin’. She cried the whole way home. I asked her what that was like, and she said she felt like a falling star. Lost and alone. I couldn’t imagine her ever feeling that way, because if you knew her, you’d know how confident and capable she was. She set out on that adventure to Portugal alone and unafraid, but she said when she got home, she couldn’t figure out who she was without him. Ten days was all it took to forever change her.”