by Jo McNally
He kissed her, slow and gentle at first, a kiss full of his remorse and gratitude and love. Then she pressed up on her toes and kissed him back, sending the kiss into more adventurous territory. Their heads turned and they both moaned as they clung to each other. They’d almost lost this, but...here it was. All the love. He nibbled her lip and kissed her again, deep and hard. She knew life would bring them more challenges as they fit their worlds together, but as long as they had love like this, they’d be just fine.
Epilogue
Three weeks later...
Brittany was ready to start pushing and shoving if people didn’t get off this plane. Everyone seemed to have a huge overhead bag that refused to come out of the overhead bin, and they were taking their sweet time getting them down and moving forward. Didn’t they know she had someone very special waiting for her in Gallant Lake, who she was practically jumping out of her skin to see? Nate said Blake Randall was sending the resort’s limo to pick her up, and they’d be together in just a few hours.
She’d spent ten days with Ellie, talking and laughing and making plans. She’d spent so many years worrying about her baby sister that she hadn’t realized Ellie was a grown woman now, with her own plans, her own friends and her own life. She was doing just fine and, in many ways, had more wisdom than Brittany did. Ellie was a planner like her sister, but without the panic factor thrown in. She was thoughtful. Practical. And a pretty damn special person. After spending the first few days catching up on talking and sleeping, they’d tackled Brittany’s life over the next few days. She had no problem subletting her apartment in Tampa—that building had a waiting list of tenants. She contacted movers and set dates for everything to happen.
Then she’d flown to Tampa to pack up her clothes and label all her belongings. Some would be donated. Some of them the new tenant wanted to buy. And some she’d take with her. They were the ones she figured would be easiest to blend with Nate’s things at the house and least likely to be damaged by cat’s claws or stained by muddy paw prints.
She and Nate had talked every day. Often more than once. Sometimes for hours, especially at night, when they’d both be in bed and unable to sleep without hearing the other’s voice. The distance was hard, but it had helped put things in perspective. They’d talked through her decision to not tell the whole story to Nate, which he understood. They were a new relationship, and then she’d felt trapped, as if it was too late. That was why she’d been frantically trying to fix it.
That wouldn’t happen again. If something came up that one of them was uncomfortable with, they promised to talk it out, like they were doing on these late-night calls. Not to say there wouldn’t be arguments ahead, but at least they had some ground rules.
She finally got off the plane and practically ran up the ramp to the terminal and toward the baggage claim. But JFK was a big place, and she was winded by the time she passed security and entered the main terminal. She forgot all about that and came to a dead halt the minute she saw him standing there. It was Nate. He was at the airport, standing right in front of her, a big grin on his face. As always, he was in jeans and plaid, with a tan Carhartt jacket. He’d told her it was getting chilly at the lake these days. He was holding up a hand-lettered sign. She was already rushing his way when she saw what it said.
Mrs. Thomas?
She stopped so quickly at the words that another passenger ran right into her, almost knocking her over. And still, she couldn’t move. She read the sign again. And again. Then she looked up at his face. His dear, sweet, loving face. If she’d had any doubts about her decision to come back to Gallant Lake, they were gone now. She was home. He was her home.
She ran into his arms and kissed him so hard and so long that several passersby called out to them to get a room. She and Nate didn’t care. He swung her around, holding on as if he’d never let her go again. She was okay with that. She had no intention of leaving him. Both of their faces were damp with tears by the time he set her back on her feet. His smile seemed endless.
“New ground rule,” he said, wiping his cheeks without any hint of embarrassment. “We don’t ever spend this long apart again. Ever. Never. I don’t care if I have to fold myself up in one of your suitcases. I’m not letting you leave me again.”
She laughed, wiping her own face dry. “Agreed! Oh, Nate, it’s so good to be home again.”
He made a face, looking at the surging sea of humanity pressing around them, pushing toward the exits. Toward New York City.
“Not home yet, but soon. I couldn’t wait for that limo to get back to Gallant Lake with you, so I hitched a ride.”
“I’m not talking about a place, Nate Thomas. I’m talking about us being together. This...” She gestured between them, her hand brushing both their chests, connecting their hearts in the air. “This is home. You’re my home.”
His huge smile got wider yet. “Yeah? Good, ’cause I feel the same way, kitten.” He waved the sign next to her. “Did you happen to notice...?”
“Pretty hard to miss, although I was more interested in seeing your face than some sign.” She looked at it, then took it from him, reaching into her large leather bag. She pulled out her pen. A good Realtor always had pens on hand. Nate watched, forehead furrowed, as she made one slight adjustment. She crossed out the question mark, then handed it back to him. Now it simply read Mrs. Thomas. She arched one eyebrow. “Is that clear enough for you?”
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past few months—” he winked at her “—it’s that making assumptions based on circumstantial evidence can get a person into some really deep llama dung, so I’m going to need to hear the word, lady.”
“Of course it’s yes.” She kissed him. “It’s an absolute yes!”
He swung her around again. They both ignored the muttering voices around them, even the one that called them “yokels.” They didn’t care about anything other than each other. But they couldn’t leave that limo waiting all afternoon, so eventually they gathered all her luggage—Nate’s eyes went wide, but he didn’t say a word—and they loaded the car and headed home to Gallant Lake. They spent the ride wrapped up in each other. Nate told her about the antique bed he’d just had delivered, modified to hold queen-size bedding. She teased him about modifying an antique, but she was secretly impressed. That was something old Nate would never do. Maybe he’d needed to evolve into Nate 2.0 as badly as she’d needed to get to Brittany 3.0.
The limo dropped them at the hardware store, where Nate’s van was parked. He pushed the door open and called out to Hank. “What do we say to pretty Brittany, buddy?”
Hank picked up his cue immediately and called out two words over and over.
“Marry me! Marry me! Marry me!”
Brittany started to laugh. “You’re too late, pretty bird. I already said yes to your pal Nate.” When she turned, she was shocked to see Nate on one knee. She’d figured that sign was a suggestion for something that would happen someday down the road. But clearly she’d assumed wrong. Because Nate was holding up a velvet box. He flipped it open to reveal a lovely gold ring with a heart-shaped diamond, with smaller stones on either side.
She smiled at him. “You didn’t find that in a cobweb-filled old barn.”
“Nope. It is vintage, but it was never touched by spiders, I promise.” He took it out of the box. “Brittany Doyle, I know it’s fast. I know we’ve made mistakes. I know we’re complete opposites and we’ll probably make more mistakes through the years. But please...” His expression grew serious. “Please say you’ll marry me. Maybe not right away, but...”
“Yes! I already said yes, but now officially yes!” She tugged him to his feet and watched as he slid the ring on her finger. “I don’t care when. I just want forever.”
He pulled her in for a kiss. “I can definitely promise you that.”
As his lips touched hers, Hank finished setting the mood for them, at the top of his
lungs.
“Love you! Love you! Love you!”
* * *
Don’t miss the other Gallant Lake Stories:
A Man You Can Trust
It Started at Christmas...
Her Homecoming Wish
Available now from Harlequin Special Edition!
And if you’re looking for more opposites-attract romances, try these other great books:
Home for the Baby’s Sake by Christine Rimmer
The Last Man She Expected by Michelle Major
Her Sweet Temptation by Nina Crespo
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Keep reading for an excerpt from A Winning Season by Rochelle Alers.
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A Winning Season
by Rochelle Alers
Prologue
Zoey Allen stared at the framed watercolor on the wall in the conference room at McAvoy & McAvoy, Attorneys-At-Law. It had been six weeks since she’d stood at the graveside of her father and stepmother with her two younger brothers, and the shock of losing them still hadn’t worn off.
Life as she’d known it had drastically changed the month before she was scheduled to graduate high school; she’d been summoned to the principal’s office where the sheriff informed her that her parents had died of carbon monoxide poisoning from a faulty gas heater. Zoey and her brothers had been spared because they were in school at the time. Her plans to attend nursing school and her future were on hold, once she’d petitioned the court to allow her to become her brothers’ legal guardian so they would not go into foster care.
“Zoey, are you listening?” Preston asked.
Her gaze swung from the painting to the lawyer. “I’m sorry. I was thinking about something else.” Zoey knew she wasn’t being truthful. There were times when she deliberately forced herself to think of anything but her current situation. Shopping for groceries, cooking, putting up loads of laundry and seeing to the needs of Kyle and Harper threatened to overwhelm her, and there were times she’d second-guessed her decision to assume full responsibility of a six-and eight-year-old who night after night cried themselves to sleep because they missed their mother and father. There were nights when she also cried because she’d felt so helpless, but Zoey made certain to always put on a brave face for her brothers. They needed to see her strong and in control.
Preston handed her a folder. “The family court judge has signed off on your guardianship of Kyle and Harper. The title and deed to the house is now in your name, along with the title to the minivan.”
Zoey forced a smile. “Thank you for everything.”
The law firm had taken care of all of her legal concerns pro bono. Her father had drawn up a will after marrying Charmaine Jenkins. His second wife had become his beneficiary, and if she did not survive his children, then everything of worth would be divided equally between their children upon their maturity.
Preston gave her a long look. “Are you all right?”
“I’m just a little tired. Lately I haven’t been sleeping too well, but this too shall pass.”
Preston ran a hand over his neatly barbered dirty-blond hair. “I can’t imagine what you’ve been going through, but I’d like to give you some advice. Put your brothers in counseling to deal with losing their parents, and you should also do the same for yourself. There are a lot of women who become mothers at eighteen, but to infants and not six-and eight-year-olds. It’s not easy now and it’s not going to get any easier the older they become, so try to get them some help.”
“I promise I will.”
Zoey knew she had to get professional counseling for her brothers and for herself if only to help her cope with the tragedy and prove to the social worker that she was more than capable of raising her younger siblings. The woman who’d come to the house sought to convince her to put Harper and Kyle in foster care, but she was adamant when she told the social worker that her father, James Allen, had always wanted his children to grow up together.
Zoey did not remember her biological mother, who’d divorced her father and signed over full custody of her two-year-old daughter and then drove away from Wickham Falls, West Virginia, without a backward glance. For years it had been Zoey and her father, until he came home with a new wife when she was nine. Less than a year later she became a big sister to Kyle and two years later to Harper. Her brothers adored her as much as she adored them, and she’d sworn a vow nothing or no one would separate them.
She thanked Preston and left the office. It was the first time she realized that she would be the sole support emotionally and financially for her family. The court had determined she would be legal guardian for her brothers, and they were eligible for their deceased father’s survivor’s benefits. Fortunately, the house did not have a mortgage, so Zoey was responsible only for repairs and real estate taxes. The entire town had come together to help her cope with the tragedy that had left the younger Allen children orphans.
The rain that had been steadily falling for three days had tapered off as pinpoints of sunlight appeared through watery clouds. She smiled when seeing a rainbow in the distance, and for Zoey it was a sign that everything was going to be all right.
Copyright © 2020 by Rochelle Alers
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ISBN-13: 9781488070037
Changing His Plans
Copyright © 2020 by Jo McNally
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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