by Jo Goodman
There was no exchange of pleasantries, no inquiries about health and welfare. Sitting down with Jay had more in common with a business meeting than a visit. The first overture he made was to request that she provide bail, and the only surprise there was that he framed it as an appeal to her better nature rather than making a demand. He set his teeth together hard when she said no, but to his credit, he didn’t threaten or whine. She was pleased with his silence.
Her visitation time was brief. She shared some details about her statement to the police of which he’d been unaware, and because those details—or rather the lack of them—worked in his favor, it would have been self-defeating for him to argue. Still, throughout her explanation, she observed him looking for a crack that he could exploit. There wasn’t one.
Satisfied with the outcome, Ramsey stood, wished him well, and left. When he shouted after her, she didn’t look back.
“Where do you want this?” Sullivan asked.
Ramsey was hunkered in front of the fireplace prepared to add a log to the crackling flames. She glanced over her shoulder and saw Sullivan was looking for direction as he held up her glass of red wine. “Just a moment. I’m coming for it.” She placed the log in the fire, put the screen in place, and rose, dusting off her hands. “I’m getting pretty good at adding fuel without burning myself.”
“No argument here.” He released the wine glass to her care and toasted her with his beer bottle.
Ramsey frowned slightly as Sullivan chose the oversized armchair instead of the sofa and did not invite her to cozy up to him. She had been spending more nights at his home than hers and the arrangement was comfortable and mutually satisfying, or so she thought. There was something subtly different tonight, and she couldn’t put her finger on it, but she was sure he was working up to something serious. He was wearing his Dudliest expression, earnest yet unyielding, and he was still so handsome that it almost hurt to look at him.
Ramsey took up the corner of the sofa closest to Sullivan’s chair. In her mind, the proximity proved she could hear anything he meant to tell her. “All right,” she said when he stared at the bottle he was idly twisting in his hand. “Out with it. Clearly you have something on your mind.”
He looked over at her, nodded. “I do. I’ve had it for a while, but I needed some time to sit with it. I figured you did too.”
Ramsey continued to regard him expectantly.
Sullivan took a draw of his beer. “I know you made some kind of deal with Jay when you went to see him a couple weeks ago. I’m wondering why you haven’t mentioned it.”
Ramsey frowned slightly. “Well, that wasn’t anything I was imagining.” She saw he was about to ask what she had imagined and shook her head to stop him. “Not only am I not prepared to tell you about my obviously misguided thought, I don’t want to sidetrack this conversation. I told you that I was going to see Jay. There was no secret there.”
“I didn’t say there was. I didn’t try to stop you from going, did I?”
“No, but I could see that you didn’t like it. And you didn’t ask me about the visit afterward.”
“I asked you how he was doing. I guess I hoped you’d see that for what it was and tell me more.”
“What makes you think I made a deal?”
“I don’t know the specifics, but it wasn’t hard to figure out that something like that happened. Did you think I wouldn’t notice that there’s been no mention of the lottery and the fact that Jay tried to extort money from you has never come up?”
“There was no deal, Sullivan. You’re wrong about that. I know better than to bargain with the devil. I merely gave Jay some pertinent details regarding his charges and told him I could always change my mind.”
“Did you tell him you lied in your interview with Butz and on your written statement?”
Ramsey drew in a sharp breath and waited for several moments to pass before she spoke. “I didn’t tell him that because I didn’t lie. You know what? I’m setting my wine glass down because I’m afraid I might throw it at you and this red will stain that lovely pillow tucked beside you. And, no, I don’t care about your shirt.”
“It was a lie by omission, Ramsey.”
“So you say.” Her threat hadn’t rattled him at all. That was disappointing, but also admirable. She remembered that he’d faced Jay with the same solid wall of calm, and Jay had been pointing a gun at him, not a glass of red. A vertical crease appeared between her eyebrows as she understood what he was not saying. “You read my statement. I don’t think you’re allowed to do that. It was private.”
“Private? Are you serious? It’s part of the case record.”
“Yeah, but…” She didn’t even try to mount a defense. Her voice trailed off and she turned her face away from him to stare at the fire.
“I deserve a little credit for waiting as long as I did to read it. Look, Ramsey, only the chief and I know what you didn’t tell Butz and didn’t write down in your statement. I’m guessing that now Jay knows as well. The chief isn’t going to say anything. He understands why you did it. As a matter of fact, so do I.”
Ramsey’s eyes returned to Sullivan’s. “You do?”
“Sure. I know how important it is to you to keep your lottery win a secret. I’ve never disagreed with you about the effect that kind of money would have on relationships.”
“Ours?”
“Maybe. Probably.”
Ramsey didn’t disagree. Nodding faintly, she picked up her wine glass and drank.
“I’m not saying the effect would be harmful or even undesirable. Some things would be different, is all. Do you see, Ramsey? I appreciate why you never told Butz that Jay was trying to extort money from you. You’d have had to explain about the money, and you wanted to steer away from anything having to do with that. Your omission let Jay off the hook.”
“I didn’t do it for Jay. It was selfish. I knew that when I was sitting in the interview room, and I did it anyway. I did it for me.”
“And I have no problem with that.”
“Really?”
“Really. I’m not as Dudley-Do-Rightly as you seem to think.”
“Dudley-Do—oh, never mind. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you why it was so important to me to see Jay.”
“I’m guessing it wasn’t solely because you thought I’d try to talk you out of it. Did you believe you were protecting me?”
She smiled ruefully. “It sounds absurd when I hear you say it. It made sense to me at the time. I thought the less you knew about my conversation with Jay, the better it would be for you.”
Sullivan’s mouth took on a wry twist. “You realize I still know less than nothing.”
“Oh. Right. I wasn’t with Jay long. He asked me to post bail. I told him no. Then I got to the purpose of my visit. I explained that the reason he wasn’t facing an extortion charge was because I hadn’t told anyone what he’d attempted to do. I told him he shouldn’t rest easy, though, because I had proof that I could use at any time if he decided to talk about my lottery win. Mr. Finch will testify to my peculiar request to transfer half a million to an account in the Caymans that can easily be traced back to Jay. Mr. Finch and I still have the account numbers. There is also the fact that Finch put the transfer in his system but never hit send. A record of that exists. Jay has a lot more at stake than I do if he mentions the lottery. There are no guarantees, of course, but I think Jay will keep the information to himself for the foreseeable future.”
“And if he doesn’t?
“I can learn to live with that.”
Sullivan’s smoky eyes rested on her face. “I believe you.” He leaned forward, extended his bottle, and waited for her to tap it with her glass. Smiling, satisfied that the air was clear, he said, “All right. You can tell me. I’m ready.”
“Tell you? I thought I just did.”
He merely regarded her expectantly, one eyebrow raised slightly above the other, and knew instantly when she understood.
“You’re sure?
” she asked. “You really want to know?”
Sullivan nodded. “It’s only fair that I’m clear on what I’m abandoning when I sign the prenup.”
Ramsey opened her mouth to speak, snapped it shut, and then opened it again on an audible gasp. She set her wine glass down, not because she was tempted to throw it but because she needed both hands to clamp over her mouth and stifle what she feared might be a middle school tween’s squeal.
Sullivan’s deep and slightly wicked laughter was cut short when Ramsey jumped up from the sofa and launched herself onto his lap. He managed to get his beer out of the way before he chipped his teeth on the bottle. It was almost empty so he dropped it on the floor.
He grunted when she landed. “Easy there. At least until we’ve discussed children.”
Ramsey slipped her arms around him and pasted his face with kisses, avoiding his mouth until the last, and then she lingered there, sweet and deep. When she came up for air, she touched her forehead to his and whispered, “I love you. I do. I like saying it. I like knowing it. I like living with it.”
“You own my heart, Ramsey Masters.”
“Mm, and I shall take excellent care of it.”
“Good. Now get up.”
“Crushing you, am I? There goes the romance.” She leaned back, placed her hands on the wide arms of the chair, and began to lift. At the same time, Sullivan was shifting his weight so he could reach under him to dig something from a back pocket. He found it before she was on her feet and pulled her right back onto his lap.
“You were fine,” he said, “but I was afraid we were crushing this.”
Ramsey’s attention was all for the iconic Tiffany box that Sullivan held between his thumb and forefinger. She gave him a watery smile. “And the romance is back. It’s a regular roller coaster with you.” She took the box, opened it, and her vision blurred as she stared at the engagement ring. “It’s beautiful,” she said reverently. “Lovely.” She looked up at him. “Are you sure?”
“I am, but if you don’t like it, we can pick out another.”
“Not like it? Do you know a woman who wouldn’t want a two and a half carat Tiffany diamond in a platinum setting?”
“Perhaps a woman who could afford the Hope diamond?”
“Twenty-three million,” she said. “That’s what I won after taxes. It wouldn’t buy me a Hope diamond chip. Does that make you feel better?”
“Not sure. I thought I was marrying rich.”
“Well, there you go,” she said smartly. Ramsey removed the ring and set the box aside. She dangled the ring for him to take, splayed the fingers of her left hand, and didn’t breathe again until he slipped it on for her. The ring sat low on her finger, somehow making the diamond seem larger and her finger seem longer and more elegantly tapered. “It truly is quite stunning. Did you have help?”
He shook his head. “I wanted to do it on my own.”
“And very well done by you.” Ramsey tipped her hand left and right to admire the ring at different angles in the firelight. She glanced his way long enough to say, “I think you should take me to bed to seal the deal.”
“I thought the ring sealed the deal.”
“Do you really want to quibble?”
His answer was to half-lift, half-push her off his lap. She managed to get her feet under her as he hauled himself out of the chair. It was a foot race to the bedroom that had no clear winner. Laughter had them catching their breath as they stripped. He was out of his clothes before she was but picking them up off the floor cost him valuable seconds. She was under the covers first, but she thoughtfully held them up to invite him inside.
Ramsey yelped and rolled away as he fairly dove toward her like a swimmer off the racing block. He caught her around the waist and pulled her toward him, although to be fair, she didn’t actually resist. She turned on her back, held up her arms, and let him do mad, wonderful things to her while she did the same to him. At first they made love with amused abandon, laughing as they tickled and teased and tempted, and it was good while it lasted, but then there was a touch, a caress, the brush of skin on skin that caused a subtle shift in tempo and turned abandon into tenderness.
That was also good, better even than the first frenzied overture because now there were whispered exchanges that subtly raised the temperature. Heat uncoiled, flushed their flesh. Pleasure was sometimes its own purpose and sometimes an expression of something more. This was more.
Ramsey felt it in the way his mouth moved over her skin with such exquisite care that it made her want to weep. She knew how it felt to be coveted as someone’s possession. This was not that. She was adored. Sullivan adored her.
And she knew she wasn’t wrong about it because he told her so.
She slipped her fingers in his hair, touched her mouth to his ear, and adored him right back.
They lay sprawled and tangled and deliciously spent in the aftermath. It was several minutes before either of them moved, and it was Ramsey’s hand that inched toward Sullivan and interlaced her fingers with his. He acknowledged what he judged to be a Herculean effort with a squeeze. For the moment, it was enough.
Eventually Sullivan turned his head sideways and regarded the smooth line of Ramsey’s features in profile. Her thick sable lashes lay against her cheek. “You’re not sleeping.”
Her mouth lifted in a faint curve. “No.”
“Then you’re thinking.”
“Are you certain? It wasn’t so long ago that I was brain dead. You did that to me, you know.”
“It was mutual. I’m only now recovering the power of speech.” He watched her lips part on nearly soundless chuckle. “What are you thinking?”
Now Ramsey opened her eyes and turned her head toward him. “Long engagements,” she said. “I’m thinking that I’m in favor of a long engagement.”
“Huh. Define long.”
“I figure there’s the time I need to prepare for the physical agility and written exams, then there’s the probationary period, sixteen weeks at the academy, and then five months in the field working out the kinks. Let’s call it a year.”
“A year? Are you sure? Linda took twice that long just to plan her wedding.” The color of Sullivan’s widening eyes suddenly changed from smoke to steel as his brain caught up to what she’d said. He tugged his hand away from hers and sat up. “Wait. You’re going to do it?”
“Of course, I am. I said yes, remember?”
“You’re so amusing. You know I’m not talking about getting married. We sealed that deal.”
“Mm. We did. Spectacularly.”
“Ramsey.”
“All right. I’ve been thinking about what the chief said, and I’ve decided I want to do it.”
“Have you told him?”
“No. I wanted to tell you first.”
Sullivan leaned down and brushed his smile over her mouth. “You’re going to be good at it,” he said, hovering just above her. “Excellent.”
“You think so?”
“I do.”
Ramsey tapped his mouth with a fingertip. “Remember those words, Sullivan Day. They are exactly the ones I want to hear a year from now.”
“Courthouse okay? Civil ceremony?”
“Mm-hmm.”
Sullivan released a grateful sigh and collapsed on his back beside her. “Lord, I love you.”
Ramsey snuggled in, slipped one leg across his, and tucked the sheet and blankets around them. “We’re going to be good at it,” she said softly, closing her eyes. “We’re going to be excellent.”
And mostly they were.
About the Author
Jo Goodman was a licensed professional counselor for years, working with children and families in West Virginia’s Northern Panhandle. Always a fan of the happily ever after, Jo turned to writing romances early in her career as a child care worker when she realized the only life script she could control was the one she wrote herself. She has been inspired by the resiliency and courage of the children she’s met
and feels privileged to have been trusted with their stories, the ones that they alone have the right to tell.
Connect with Jo at www.jogoodman.com
and sign up for her email list.
Also by Jo Goodman
Stages of the Heart
A Touch of Forever
A Touch of Flame
A Touch of Frost
The Devil You Know
This Gun for Hire
In Want of a Wife
Boots Under Her Bed
True to The Law
The Last Renegade
A Place Called Home
Kissing Comfort
Marry Me
Never Love A Lawman
The Price of Desire
If His Kiss Is Wicked
One Forbidden Evening
A Season to be Sinful
Beyond a Wicked Kiss
All I Ever Needed
Everything I Ever Wanted;
A Basket of Magic
Let Me Be the One
* * *
Tidewater Promise
Tempting Torment
More Than You Wished
More Than You Know
Seaswept Abandon
Crystal Passion
With All My Heart
My Reckless Heart
My Steadfast Heart
Only in My Arms
The Baby Dream
Always in My Dreams
Forever in My Heart
Liberty Christmas
Wild Sweet Ecstasy/My Heart’s Desire
Rogue’s Mistress/Only My Love
Sweet Fire
Passion’s Sweet Revenge/His Heart’s Revenge
Midnight Princess/Her Defiant Heart
Scarlet Lies
Violet Fire
Velvet Night
Passion's Bride/ The Captain's Lady
