Snowbound Halloween by Veronica Tower Read Free Book Online

order.
    Nick looked relieved but there was no time for him to say anything.

    “Here,” Nick said as he handed Thea a layered drink which even in the poor light she knew was a black and tan. He was holding one himself, which was really unusual even though it was his favorite. Nick rarely imbibed when he was working.
    “I don’t want this,” Thea told him. That wasn’t precisely true. She couldn’t ever remember wanting a beer more, but with a baby growing inside of her she was not going to drink anything that could possibly hurt it.
    Nick managed a little smile but Thea didn’t think his heart was in it. He looked tired and worried and maybe just a little bit hurt and angry. “That may be true, but I think you need it. You’ve been pushing yourself nonstop for about six hours. I appreciate the help but it’s after midnight and I think you should take a break, sit down on one of the stools and tell your bartender what’s been bothering you all evening.”
    Thea was tired, and Nick’s efforts to press her to tell him something private here in the still-crowded bar stoked her anger again.
    “It’s too busy,” she told him and tried to step past him to slip behind the bar and go fill an order.
    Nick caught her arm to stop her. “As the owner of The Church Key, I’m telling you to take a break.”
    Thea tried to pull her arm free. “I don’t want a break! I’ve got customers-”
    “They can wait!” Nick insisted with a lot more heat. “Sit down, take a long pull on your beer and tell me-”
    “I can’t drink it, I’m pregnant!” Thea snapped at him.
    For the briefest instant, Nick froze. Then a warm excited smile lit his face and he spontaneously hugged her, almost spilling both of their drinks. “That’s wonderful, Thea! Why did you wait to tell me? This is incredible news!”
    He froze again, as if another way of interpreting what she’d just said had just suddenly occurred to him.
    He released the hug, expertly sliding his beer onto the bar and took hold of her shoulders. Holding her out at arm’s length he looked hard into her eyes. The electricity was still out, so he probably couldn’t see as well as he wanted to, but he evidently saw enough.  “I’m being insensitive, aren’t I? We really haven’t talked about having kids except for that one time last winter and…this had to be a surprise. You know you’re not going to do this on your own, don’t you? I love you! I’m going to-”
    Nick impulsively dropped onto one knee, pulling the drink out of her hand to set it on the floor.
    Stunned, Thea watched him take both of her hands in his and look up at her with those beautiful blue eyes.
     “Thea,” he said, “I wake up every morning thinking about you. Being with you is the highlight-”
    “Oh, my God, Nick is proposing!” Caitie Morrow shouted. “Quick, Tim, Bob, get your cell phones out and start filming. I can’t believe it! My little boy is finally getting married.”
    The gush of warmth that had been flushing through Thea’s body suddenly froze beneath her skin as a wave of silence rolled across the bar and just about everyone turned to look at Thea and Nick. She felt incredibly embarrassed to be the center of such attention—especially under these circumstances where it was impossible that her knight in shining armor had brought an engagement ring. It was going to look so strange and awkward. People were going to figure out she was pregnant.
    Cell phones began to point in their direction and Nick also began to show the stress of a couple hundred people watching him propose. He cleared his throat. “Well this is a little more public than I’d envisioned doing this, but what the hell, you’re all practically family right?”
    A general chorus of consent reverberated around the bar and Kara’s fiancé, Ron, shouted above the resulting din. “Come on, Nick! We’re all waiting to toast you!”
    A couple of hundred drinks rose toward the ceiling in immediate agreement