Hot Alaska Nights
Page 28
"I'm going arrange for my security people to send a team to pick you and the children up. We won't turn the tape over to authorities here until you are safely on a plane headed for Alaska."
"You want me to come to Cailkirn?" she asked, hope sounding in her voice.
"If you'd like."
"I would. I really don't think either Dad or Robert is going to be okay with me standing up for Deborah. I don't know what they'll do."
"Better to be safe than in harm's way."
"Okay. I'll be looking for your security team."
Rock got up and went to speak to the head of the security team that were now living and working on Jepsom Acres.
Deborah finished the call with her sister and then stared down at the table, an inexplicable urge to cry assailing her.
"She loves you," Carey said perceptively. "That can be hard to take when you've spent a long time wondering."
"Like you ever had to wonder," Marilyn scoffed.
"I didn't know if you and Rock would accept me being gay."
"Then you don't know us very well."
"Don't be like that to your brother, Marilyn. He was scared. Give him a break."
Marilyn jumped up and went around the table to hug Carey. "I love you, you big idiot."
"Love you back, pest."
"And my sister loves me." Hot tears tracked down Deborah's cheeks and she did nothing to stop them.
"So does our brother, if you hadn't noticed," Carey said in that duh tone he'd perfected so well.
"I think that's something I need to hear from him."
"I'm not sure how many ways I can say it before you'll believe me," Rock said from the doorway to the dining room.
Deborah stood up from the table, drawn to him by an invisible and inexorable band. She stopped in front of him. "I wasn't aware of you saying it even one way?"
"If I didn't love you, would I be willing to live in Los Angeles?"
"You'd move for her?" Carey asked, awed. "You really do love her."
"That's enough from the peanut gallery. Let's go talk about this somewhere more private."
Deborah nodded, ignoring the protests of the younger siblings, who were clearly enjoying the exchange.
Rock took Deborah by the hand and led her outside and in the direction of the land the film crew had been told to stay off of. "Want to see my helicopter?"
"I want to hear how you told me you love me."
"Deborah, I'm letting a whole damn film crew invade my home and property for months. What else would you call it?"
"You're doing that for Carey."
"Am I?"
"Aren't you?"
"Not entirely, not even from the very beginning."
"Oh."
"Yes, oh."
She moved closer, hinting with her body and Rock read her intent, putting his arm around her shoulder, pulling her so near their hips brushed as they walked.
"I believed you when you said you weren't trying to use me for my money."
"You did."
"I did."
"And that was supposed to tell me you loved me?" she asked, a little awed by his masculine obtuseness.
Or was she the obtuse one?
"Yes. So was the fact that I couldn't keep my hands off you."
"You're a highly sexual guy."
"Not that virile. I've never had a lover I wanted as often and as much as I want you."
"Sex is not love."
"The way we do it is."
She couldn't disagree. Didn't want to.
"And you protected me, every way you could."
"Like I do with all the people I love, yes."
"You wouldn't let me walk away."
"How could I? You'd take my damn heart with you."
"I love you, too, Rock."
He stopped, grabbed her and pulled her around for a kiss that about melted her socks off. "Say it again, hot stuff."
She smiled up at him, happier than she'd ever been. "I love you, Rock, my Superman."
"I love you, Deborah." He kissed her, sealing his words inside her with his lips until they were both panting, her heart racing in her chest. He kissed along her jaw. "I didn't want to love anyone else, but I can't protect my heart from you."
She could barely believe he was saying these things. That he was making himself as vulnerable as she knew herself to be.
"It's hard to have faith in others when the people you should be able to trust the most betray you. I didn't want to fall for you either. It gave you the power to hurt me."
"And I did that."
She grabbed his shirt, pulling him close. "People hurt each other, Rock. Without meaning to, because life is imperfect. We're going to hurt each other again, but if we love each other, if we trust each other, we're going to find a way through it. And we'll never hurt each other on purpose."
"You're the other half of my soul, hot stuff. Hurting you hurts me. I thought the pain would never go away when we fought."
"But it did. Because we looked for a way to the other side of it."
"You forgave me."
"You admitted you were wrong. That's huge. Do you think my father has admitted he's wrong, even once in his life?"
"No?"
"No. He hurts people all the time and he never says he's sorry. When he gets in trouble for hiring the fixit man who arranged with someone to try to incapacitate me through an accident, he's not going to apologize. He's going to make it all my fault."
"Him being a selfish asshole that hurts instead of protecting his daughters is not your fault."
"Thank you. I know that. I do, but having you say it to me. It matters."
"I don't want you quitting Hollywood on my account, Deborah." He kissed her again, like he couldn't help himself. "I don't."
"I'm not sure my dreams were ever in Hollywood. I love the stage; I think maybe someday I might even manage to start a small community theater here. I could see it being popular with the tourists."
"That couldn't be enough for you and your talent."
"Aren't I the best judge of what's enough for me? For my talent. I want joy, Rock, not fame. Not fortune. Joy."
"I've got enough fortune for the both of us."
She laughed. "Nice to know you see it that way, but I'm not going to be a kept woman."
"That's a pretty old-fashioned term for a modern woman, hot stuff. And when we get married, what's mine is yours. We belong to each other, body and soul and that's what really matters. Not money. Not business success."
"When we get married?"
He dropped to his knees, right there in the Alaskan summer evening, his blond hair glinting in the late sunlight, his sherry eyes shining with purpose and he dug something out of his pocket. It glittered, catching the light.
And Deborah wasn't sure she could breathe. "Is that?"
"A ring? Yes. The diamond is almost as flawless as your heart, beauty. But nothing could be that."
"Oh, man…you don't…that's…" Words would not come.
He lifted the ring toward her, the huge square cut diamond surrounded by a cluster of brown diamonds. "Will you marry me, Deborah? And fill my life with joy for as long as we both shall live?"
"Oh, Rock…" She fell to her knees in front of him, tears sliding wetly down her cheeks, her heart feeling like it wanted to burst out of her chest, it was so full of incandescent joy. "Yes, I'll marry you and we'll fill each other's lives with happiness, and everything else that comes with a true commitment that lasts a lifetime."
The kiss was incendiary after. He took her to a large air hangar about fifty yards from where they had stopped then made love to her on the seat in the back of the resting helicopter.
Afterward, she was snuggled in his lap, naked against him. "I love you, Rock."
"I adore you, my own."
Oh, she liked that. He was hers, too. And that worked. "We're signing a prenuptial agreement. I'm no gold digger."
"Whatever you say, hot stuff."
The prenup was unli
ke any business document Deborah had ever read. In it, they agreed to kiss each other every day, as often as they liked, to tell each other they loved each other at least every day, to be loving and present parents to their children, to be kind to one another's siblings, to protect one another and to share in all their worldly possessions without regard to who brought what to the marriage.
Her father ended up doing only a couple of months in jail and getting community service for his part in trying to hurt Deborah. The fixer gave up his cohort on the movie crew in exchange for a lesser sentence, but still went to prison for two years and the person who had sliced Rock's tires, deleted scenes shot from the hard drive, messed up the hotel reservations and engineered more small mishaps turned out to be the editorial intern.
He had been an easy sell for the fixer, believing a movie about a young man coming of age and coming out should never be made. His homophobia was going to cost him his freedom, for a long time, and his career in Hollywood forever.
Robert surprised everyone by supporting her sister's actions and coming forth with his own testimony about her father's involvement, among other things. The press had a field day. While Dr. Banes would not spend a lot of time in jail, his political aspirations were over.
Deborah's dreams were just beginning. Rock insisted on funding a small community theater right in Cailkirn when Deborah convinced him that was what she was honestly working toward for her own happiness. Marilyn and Carey were thrilled and had already committed to helping with the theater between school terms and their own projects.
Alicia and her family came to visit and returned to attend Deborah and Rock's wedding, as did practically the whole town of Cailkirn.
Rock had found the love of his life and Deborah had found her home and family in Cailkirn, Alaska.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE