Melt My Heart

by Anna Cove

"What the hell, Lo?"

  "Tell me the truth. Why did you lie to me like that?"

  "I already told you."

  "No, the truth. Or I'm done Cal. That's it between you and me. And I'll know if you are lying to me."

  Cal stilled, like a deer caught in the middle of the road. His shoulders dropped further. "I didn't want to lose you."

  "You wouldn't have lost me. We would still be friends and you would still have been my manager."

  "No, no." His calm shattered like a plate-glass window after impact. "I waited years for you, Lo. Years. You finally get a divorce from that loser you called a husband and now you're with some chick? No. I wasn't going to lose you again."

  Laura unbuttoned her blazer, trying to dispel some of the heat flushing her chest and cheeks. Dylan had been right, and Laura had argued against it. Dylan had been right all along, and Laura had made her feel like the crazy one. Dylan had been right, and her thoughts on Cal had been the only thing that stopped Laura saying "YES" to her marriage proposal.

  "What did you say to Dylan when you first met her?" she asked.

  "Nothing."

  "Cal—"

  "Nothing, I swear. I didn't say anything to her because I honestly didn't think of her as a threat."

  But Dylan had sensed it. She had spent so many years pushing down her feelings, and she had sensed this, and Laura had basically told her to ignore those feelings. After all that good work she'd been doing in therapy? Laura's anger boiled over. "Stop the car, please," she said.

  "What are you doing?" Cal asked.

  "I'm getting out."

  "Wait. Don't go. We can work through this."

  "Nope. I'm done." The car slowed to a stop. Cal tried to catch her hand, but she tore it away, sliding from the car. She held the door and bent toward him. "After all I've been through, I can't believe you'd craft such a lie. I needed to trust you."

  "Lo, come on. Don't be like that."

  She didn't leave right away. She needed to know the answer to one pressing question. One that had been bothering her for weeks. What did she have left to lose now? Cal had already destroyed her trust. "Was it you who leaked my location to the paparazzi? Who kept feeding them dirt on my life?"

  Cal's face blanked, giving Laura the answer she'd dreaded.

  She swallowed down a lump of pain the size of a softball. "We're done."

  Cal recovered. "What about the deal? What about—"

  She slammed the car door in his face and started running down the street in her high heels. She didn't care about the deal any longer. She didn't care about the city or the advertising executives or the network. She cared about Aaron and Dylan.

  This conclusion had taken her too long. She'd wasted too many days. But Laura now saw that no deal was worth selling who she was. No deal, nor any amount of fame, was worth Cal's lies. No deal, certainly, was worth the loss of the woman she loved.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  "ARE YOU SURE YOU'RE okay?" Skylar appeared at the top of the winding staircase, and she draped one hand gracefully over the railing. She so rarely came up to the book loft that Dylan knew her presence meant she was extra worried about her. Still, she didn't come all the way up, which meant that she couldn't be too worried.

  Dylan marked her place in the book she was reading—Love on the Wind, a particularly raunchy, fun romp—with a finger and set it in her lap. "Yeah, I'm surprisingly fine."

  "Do you want to talk about what happened in the city? You went down there and came back so quickly and since your face is buried in a book..." Sky leaned her whole body against the railing.

  "Why don't you like coming up here?"

  "Why are you changing the subject? That's very old-school Dylan of you."

  "You want to know what happened? Fine. I proposed and she didn't answer me."

  Skylar opened her mouth and shut it again. She cocked her head. "What do you mean she didn't answer you? Did she say no?"

  "No."

  "But she didn't say yes."

  "Correct."

  "And then what happened?"

  Leave it to Skylar to drill down into the details. Dylan had managed to not think about that precise moment for days. She had started spiraling in the car on the way back from the city but then the thoughts just stalled out. For days she had gone on with her life like before, except without Laura. She was in limbo, neither dealing with the problem or actively pushing it away. It was like she had pressed pause. "You know how she was spending a lot of time with her manager Cal?"

  "Yeah."

  "Well, I went to surprise her at her apartment and found them drinking wine together by candlelight."

  Skylar frowned, her expressive dark brows making little ski jumps toward the center of her forehead. "That doesn't make sense. It must have been a mistake."

  "That's what Laura said. She said nothing was happening."

  "And you believed her?"

  "Yes, I believed her. But I'm tired of having to believe her. I don't think she realizes what's going on. She's so caught up in her work right now, I don't know that I can make her see reality... or even me."

  It was the first time she'd voiced her fear. What if it never got better? What if it was just one thing after another with her? She'd promised herself and Laura she wouldn't run anymore, but how much could she take before it was just stupid to stay? When would the tipping point occur?

  "You're remarkably calm for having a proposal rejected."

  "I started to go to the bad place in my brain, but then I stopped. That's why I'm here. I don't know how long the pause will last but, just for now, for a day or two, I need to protect myself and take a break and get some perspective. My therapist says the best thing for uncertain times is to do nothing. So that's what I'm doing."

  "Hm. That's a good one. I may steal that."

  Dylan glanced at Skylar, searching her face for something. "What about you? Are you okay?"

  "Yeah." Skylar gave a quick shrug. "Why do you ask?"

  "You've just been weirdly quiet about all this."

  "You've found my flaw. I might be able to pair people together well, but I have very little advice to give about established relationships. It's a whole different field."

  How had Dylan been friends with Skylar for so long without discovering this? "I never would have thought about that. Kell's advice wasn't too bad, surprisingly."

  "Right? You wouldn't think so, but she's surprisingly wise when she wants to be." Skylar paused at the tinkling of her doorbell. "I better check to see who that is. I'll be back."

  Dylan reopened her book and jumped right into the scene she had been reading. The couple had just been through an awful fight and were getting to the best part... making up. They were so tender with each other after being bruised and hurt. They so obviously belonged together that it made a flush of warmth bloom in Dylan's chest. The flush moved south as the tender touches moved to kisses and licks and sucks and...

  The creak of the stair announced Skylar's reappearance.

  "Sky. I don't know why you refuse to read these. This is so hot. Listen. Her tongue moved in a languorous trail along the valley of..."

  Dylan looked up and her voice trailed off. Rather than Skylar's head breaching the loft's platform, it was Laura's. The whole of Dylan's body froze, down to her heart and her lungs, both of which seemed to have stopped working for a beat.

  "Go on," Laura said, trying to hide a smile. "I'm dying to know what happens next."

  "You're not supposed to be here. You're supposed to be in New York City. You had your pitch and work starts and—"

  "I know. May I come up so we can talk?"

  Dylan set her book facedown next to her and gathered her knees up to her chest, setting her chin on top. Laura was wearing a shirt dress, cinched at the waist. Dylan could see almost all the way up her skirt from her position in the beanbag chair. The flush from the chapter she had just been reading intensified. Calm down, Wilson. Keep your wits about you. She was not going to let her vagi
na think for her. She would never find clarity if they just slept together before working things out.

  Laura walked over and sat down next to Dylan cross-legged, jabbing her fist into the middle of her skirt so she wouldn't flash Dylan.

  Dylan was struck again, as she was every time she saw Laura after time apart. As she was every time she woke up next to her. Laura was just so beautiful. She was soft sand on the beach, warm and inviting. She was nature and art and everything that made sense in the world. It was hard to be angry with her when she saw her here, like this, with that apologetic look on her face.

  But Dylan also would not just forgive and forget at the drop of a hat. She needed reassurances first.

  Laura searched out her gaze. "You were right."

  "About?"

  Her straight shoulders hunched forward, and she threw her hand up in the air. "Cal. His motives. He made up the whole deal so that I would go down to New York because... well... because he thought that I would choose him."

  "And?"

  Laura's eyes widened. "And what? Do you even have to ask?"

  "You've known Cal forever. It wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility—"

  "Yes, it is out of the realm of possibility. Have you been listening to me? And I absolutely said no. No. No." Laura's eyes flashed with fierce anger. "I still can't believe he was so reckless. What a fucking idiot."

  Dylan couldn't imagine how betrayed she must have felt, to be lied to by her oldest friend, by someone she'd trusted above all others. And then there was the work, too. If Cal had lied to her about the project, that must be making things even worse. "I'm so sorry you didn't get the gig."

  "Oh no, I got the job."

  "What?"

  "I pitched it—though I didn't know it was that kind of pitch meeting—and they loved the idea."

  Dylan wanted to reach out and sling her arms around Laura, but she felt self-conscious. Where did they stand exactly? Still, she was happy for her, sincerely happy. "That's amazing, Laura."

  "But I don't know if I can do it now. Cal and I... we can't work together anymore. And I don't know if I can do this alone. Cal has always been there."

  "You can. You're Laura Fucking Munro."

  Laura looked up to the ceiling. She sniffed. A single tear broke from her eyes and rolled down her cheek.

  Whatever problems were between them didn't matter in that moment. Dylan couldn't just look at Laura while she cried. She crawled over on her knees and gathered her into her arms.

  Laura melted into her like warm butter.

  Her smell washed over Dylan, making her feel dizzy. Until this moment, she hadn't known whether she would smell that distinctive perfume again. What couple could recover from a failed proposal? But now, with the physical Laura in her arms, with her smell and her warmth and her supple body and her brilliant mind and her sweet touch, now Dylan held her and never wanted to let go.

  "I'm sorry," Laura said, trying to pull away.

  Dylan kissed her on the head. "Don't be sorry. You never need to be sorry for crying."

  "No." Laura pulled away and wiped at her eyes. "I'm sorry for the way I treated you. I'm sorry I didn't believe you. I'm sorry I..."

  Go on.

  Laura shook her head.

  Maybe she wasn't sorry for the proposal part. What if Dylan just pretended it hadn't happened? Could she live with that? The woman had just come out of a marriage. Maybe popping the question had been a bit hasty. She'd just been so desperate to keep her. So desperate for something to bind them to one another.

  In the time it took for Dylan's brain to go over this, Laura had pulled herself together and was sitting with her legs crossed and her hands in her lap. She stared at her hands.

  "Will you ever forgive me?" she asked.

  "Of course I will. I had before you'd even opened your mouth."

  Tears flooded Laura's eyes once again as she looked up. Her lips trembled. "You're a saint, do you know that?"

  "I had an inkling." Dylan smirked.

  Laura burst out with a little chuckle, shaking her head. She took Dylan's hand. "I love you."

  "I love you, too. I've loved you since the moment I saw you."

  Laura rolled her eyes. "You were way too cool for me when we first met."

  "No, seriously. I just didn't want to seem like a stalker."

  Laura pinned her lips shut. She dried her eyes again and shook out her hair. "That's enough of that," she said. "Why don't you read me some of that book?"

  "Which book?"

  "The one with the tongue in the valley..." A smirk appeared back on Laura's lips.

  There were still so many unanswered questions. Laura loved her, she'd said so, but what did that mean? Did it mean she wanted to marry her? And was she going to take the job? There was one thing Dylan needed her to know. Everything else didn't matter. Everything else they could just figure out.

  "I don't want you to give up your dreams for me, Laura, do you understand? If there's any part of you that is considering turning down the job because of me, I need you to be honest about that. And if so, we should end this before it gets more complicated."

  The smirk fell off Laura's lips. She took both of Dylan's hands in hers. "I promise you, Dylan, if anything, you are good for the job. You'd help me stay balanced. But if it means I have to stay in the city, I don't know if I can do it."

  "It is smelly down there."

  "And hot. And more importantly it doesn't have you."

  "But it can," Dylan said. "If that's what you need."

  Laura shook her head and Dylan's throat tightened. But Laura held fast to her hands. "You don't belong there. You belong here with the fresh mountain air and Skylar and the cabin. You've built a life here, and I can't ask you to give it all up for me."

  "But... I want to be with you."

  "And I want to be with you," Laura said quickly. "Ugh, why can't I find my words today. Let me start over. Whatever it takes, I want to be with you, and I want to be with you here. In Love Falls. If that means this project falls through, then fine. I know I can get another. I proved to myself today that I could do it, and that's all that really matters."

  Dylan couldn't quite get her head around what she was saying. "So, you're staying?"

  "Yes, Dylan, if... if you'll have me. If you meant what you asked earlier. If... you still... want to..."

  Laura didn't often trip over her words, and seeing her hesitate like that made Dylan want to fill in the blanks and kiss her and end the conversation there. But she stopped herself. She needed to hear the words.

  "So, you'll marry me?"

  "Yes, of course I will, Dylan. Of course I will."

  Dylan blinked.

  "Dylan?"

  "Yes?"

  "Did you hear me?"

  "Yes."

  "Do you..." she drifted off.

  Dylan let her words sink in, let it all sink in. Then she gently pushed Laura down on the floor of the book nook and covered her body with her own.

  There were no more words needed to say how much she loved her.

  Laura pulled away from Dylan's incoming kiss. "I think Sky's okay with Aaron downstairs for a few more minutes. Why don't we act out that book you were reading? Line..." Laura kissed her on the cheek. "By." Laura kissed her on the other cheek. "Line," she said, nipping at Dylan's lips.

  "It might take a while. The sex scenes in this book are long."

  "It's a good thing we have the rest of our lives then."

  Dylan sat back on her heels, reaching for the book, never taking her gaze from Laura's, never wanting to look away, as if she would disappear. She might one day, but for now, she was Dylan's. And a part of her would be Dylan's forever.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  ONE YEAR LATER.

  The sun streamed in through the floor-to-ceiling cabin windows, illuminating Dylan's stark-naked ass.

  Laura silently pushed aside the sheet and sat up, her own naked body perking in all sorts of places at the sight of the piece of art s
he got to call her fiancée. She knew every inch of Dylan now, better even than she knew her own body. She had heard the final stories relating to Dylan's tattoos and Dylan had even told her about the songbird tattoo she'd gotten in Katie's memory. They no longer had secrets from one another. They were connected on every level down to their souls.

  Laura rose from the bed and slipped over to Dylan. She kissed her neck and pressed her body along the length of Dylan's back. Dylan grabbed her arms and hugged them around her. Laura opened one of her hands and cupped Dylan's breast.

  Laura wanted her, again, though they had spent most of the night making love. She couldn't resist. She felt like she would never stop wanting her.

  Dylan squeezed Laura's wrists. "Do you know what time it is?" she asked, craning her neck as she turned her head.

  "I don't know. There's a glare on the clock. Nine maybe?"

  "When are we supposed to pick up Aaron?"

  Laura laid her head against Dylan's back, listening to her heartbeat. She didn't want to leave the bright light and love of this room. "I left it up in the air with Colleen. We could probably squeeze in another half hour or forty-five minutes."

  Dylan twisted around and looped her arms over Laura's shoulders. "I can't believe I got to spend the past twelve hours with you, uninterrupted. Congratulations, love. I'm so happy your film is finished. And I knew you could do it on your own. You just had to believe in yourself."

  "Thank you." Laura didn't think she could be much happier. She had gotten everything she ever wanted. The woman, the baby, the dream job. Her real dream job. Sure, there had been bumps along the way, but weren't there always bumps in the road? "You know what? I never would have come up with the idea or the confidence to go indie if I hadn't met you. A whole lot of luck was involved."

  "You are a very lucky woman. Especially last night. You were lucky... 5 or 6 times over?"

  Laura chuckled and squeezed Dylan. Then she looked up into her face. "By my count that means you're behind."

  "Good thing we don't keep score. It's my gift to you. Happy anniversary on our engagement, love."

  Laura shook her head. "Uh uh. No way. You're not getting away with it that easily. Plus, we're celebrating you, too. Let me show you how proud I am that you passed your EMT exam. Come here."