A Murder of Crows (A Darcy Sweet Cozy Mystery #7) by K.J. Emrick Page A

room and Darcy could hear him running upstairs.  Men, she thought , with a little laugh.
    Jon watched her from the doorway between the kitchen and the living room.  Then he smiled and turned away.  “So.  I should call your sister at the police station and see what I’ve missed.  I should catch her up on how Marla’s murder investigation turned out, too.”
    “Jon, wait,” Darcy heard herself say.  He did, turning back to her without a word.
    Darcy knew she had been all over the map these past few days, what with Marla’s murder and Jeff’s ghost and all the rest of it.  She had been on an emotional roller coaster ride and only now was she finally able to get off and settle herself.
    The thing of it was , she knew what she wanted out of life now.  If she was being honest with herself, she’d known all along, but she’d been too scared to say it.  Her marriage to Jeff had ended in divorce.  Now she knew that had only been the tip of the iceberg.  She didn’t want that for her and Jon.  She didn’t want to ruin what they had right here, right now, in this house.
    And while she’d been afraid of losing that before, she wasn’t afraid of it any longer.
    She went over and took him by the hand, leading him to sit with her on the couch.  Clearing her throat and feeling suddenly very nervous, she looked up at him, but not quite into his eyes.
    “So, I want to ask you something.”   She took his hands in hers and studied his fingers.  Especially his ring finger.  “I know I was hard on you in Ryansburg.  I don’t want you to think that I don’t want to be with you.  I really, really do.”
    He sat there, not saying anything, while she gathered her nerve.  “So here’s the deal.  I have never loved another man the way I love you.  I know that what Jeff and I had was wrong for us.  But that was him and me.  I won’t project that onto what we have.  So, tell me Mister Jon Tinker.”  She couldn’t believe how hard her heart was hammering.  She took another deep breath, and went for it.  “Will you marry me?”
    He didn’t say anything, but a smile slowly spread across his lips and his eyes lit up.  Darcy knew what his answer would be.  It had been obvious that he wanted to marry her for a long time.  Maybe she was reversing things by being the one to ask him, but that was the kind of girl she was.  Unconventional.
    Then his smile slipped a no tch.  “Darcy,” he said, hesitating.
    Oh, no.  Oh no, oh no, oh no, she thought to herself.  Don’t hesitate.  Don’t do that!
    He saw her look of panic and took his hand away to cup the side of her face.  “Don’t worry, it’s not like that.  I love you.  I love you with all my heart for who you are and the things you do.  You’re brave and honest and beautiful.”
    “Thank you,” she said, preening under the list of compliments.  “And you want to spend the rest of your life with me, right?”
    “I do,” he said quickly, “but we need to talk.”
    “Talk?”   She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.  “Talk about what?”
    As he was about to answer her, his cell phone rang from his pocket.  Ro lling his eyes he took it out and looked at the screen.  “It’s the office,” he told her.
    “Let it go to voicemail,” she said, but he had already thumbed the answer button.
    “Hello.”  He listened to the voice on the other end of the line.  “Yes.  Now?  This isn’t a good…no, I understand that.”  He sighed, heavily, and rubbed his forehead.  “I’ll be right in.”
    He stood up, putting the phone back in his pocket.  “I swear that place will fall apart one day when I’m not there.  Darcy, I have to go in.  Something came up that I need to be there for.  Actually, I think you should come along too.  I know we just got back, and we still need to burn our mattress and buy a new bed and all, but this is really important.”
    Darcy was confused.  She didn’t know what was going on.  She