Here We Come (Aggie's Inheritance) Read Online Free Page A

Ian’s spot and stared at the empty seat. Somehow, someone had managed to grab him in the melee. She strolled to the back of the van, opened the door, and pulled the box with Vannie’s pies, hard crust and all, from it, shutting the door with her backside. Before she could make it up the walk, Laird and Vannie rushed back out the door to her.
    “I’ll take that!” Laird reached for the boxes.
    “Go see what is out back! Grandma said to.” Vannie’s eyes sparkled with excitement as she gently shoved Aggie toward the back gate.
    Aggie glanced back and saw the children rush into the house again, barely missing a spill that would have created pie goulash in the process. Praying for patience, she pushed open the gate, glancing toward her father’s workshop , but she saw nothing. As she rounded the corner of the house, she spied Luke on one knee, his heart in his eyes and a ring box in one hand.
    Aggie’s heart leapt into her throat simultaneously with the thought, I hope someone is recording this! A glance at the family room window assured her that the entire Stuart-Milliken-Winthrop clan was watching the scene with visible re lish—truly. Martha held a jar of it in one hand.
    She saw through the silly, over-dramatic flourishes he made, sweeping one hand out and clutching the ring to his heart. His eyes told her that no matter how ridiculous he may act to cover his self-consciousness, he loved her. Aggie swallowed a lump-one of many that seemed to reappear as quickly as she thought she dispatched of them.
    “Aggie, your father assured me that no one inside that house can hear a thing. So, if I watch the recording of this later and hear myself, I cannot promise I won’t be red for eternity.”
    Still a little stunned to see him, Aggie’s first words were the epitome of graciousness that any young woman would hope to express at such a moment. “You said you weren’t coming.”
    “I remembered something you said the other day, combined with something you said after a certain spider dared to live a little too long, and then something Laird—”
    “Laird? What did he say?”
    “Oh, something about overhearing you mutter that you never get any time alone with me and how can you confess certain delightful things if you never have any time—”
    “Ok, ok. I get the picture.” She sent an exaggerated angry look in Laird’s direction. From the other side of the glass, the boy’s eyes widened to immense proportions and he pretended to bite his nails while quaking in fear.
    “Um, Aggie?”
    “Yeah?”
    Luke jerked his head at his outstretched arm. “Mind coming a little closer so I can give my arm something less painful to do?”
    Although it wasn’t the truly private moment she’d imagined for longer than she cared to admit to herself, Aggie crossed the last of the yard and seated herself on his knee. “Think it can hold me?”
    Luke wrapped both of his arms around her and wh ispered, “If I said I loved you—yet again— what would you say to that?”
    Family and window forgotten, Aggie turned to meet Luke’s eyes. Her voice cracked with emotion when she answered, “I’d say that it’s about time that I told you I love you , too.”
    Feigning a swoon, Luke collapsed onto the dormant grass, Aggie following right behind him . “Oops. Didn’t mean to take you down with me.” He helped her to her feet, dropped back to one knee in his previous pose and continued his “scene.” “Then, in that case, Aggie, may I ask, in front of God and all of these very nosy people, will you marry me?”
    As difficult as it was to hug a man determined to live out the rest of his days on one knee, Aggie squeezed his neck. Behind her back, Luke held up a pre-printed “cue card” that read, “Applause now.”
    “What—are they—” She glanced at the window where the family cheered and clapped.
    “Well,” he explained, holding the cue card where she could read it, “I believe they think you have accepted my