Tears pricked my eyes as I took it all in and realized this was the exact same spot where I’d first kissed him. More accurately, it was the same spot where he made me think he had drowned and I’d tried to save him. Memories flooded my mind: his sexy grin in Mr. Bonehead’s class, the argument during our first date at the drive-in, prom night...every single memory of being with him was seared into my very soul, and I vowed never to forget them or this night.
“This is so beautiful. How did you do all this?”
“Oh, I had a little help from some really good friends.”
“Hmm, I wonder who.” I nodded to the bluebonnets. “You know, it’s illegal to pick those in Texas. Cody’s gonna have to arrest you.”
“Well, that might be a problem, seeing that you have his handcuffs.” He tugged the cuffs, pulling me to him.
“Maybe I should give them back,” I whispered as he lowered his head. Smoldering eyes locked with mine, taking me in before ravishing my lips. Immediately, my legs felt like they’d gone up in flames.
“Okay, maybe not,” I said breathlessly after he pulled back.
“So what do you think?” He tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear.
I stood on my tiptoes and placed my linked arms around his neck, resting them on his shoulders. “I think we should skip dinner and head straight for dessert.”
He chuckled, placing a kiss on the tip of my nose before ducking out of my grasp. “Not about that, you sex crazed woman. I meant the surprise.”
“I love it.” I gazed out, watching as the orange sun touched the river. The bridge loomed in the distance behind it. The sky was painted in hues of pink and violet. “I’ve never been here during the day. It’s so pretty.” I inhaled and smelled something delicious. “Oh my God! Is that . . . ?” The handcuffs clinked as I lifted one of the silver domes. “Pizza!”
“Only the best for you. Now, I know better than to put anything between you and your junk food fetish.” He took my hands and unlocked the cuffs. “So we’ll just have to save these for later.” He winked.
“Oh my God, this is so good.” I sank my teeth into the hot, delicious, greasy cheese. Licking my fingers, I eyed the other silver cloche. “What’s under there?”
“A surprise for later.” He flicked a match and lit one of the candles.
“It’s later!” I lifted the dome to find a stack of pink confections. “Pink party cake! I haven’t had one of these in years.” I snatched the piece of square shaped cake sitting at the top of the heap.
“No! Wait, Mandi! Don’t eat it yet!” He said frantically as I bit into the cake, wondering what the big deal was. Then my teeth hit against a piece of metal.
“Ow! What the hell was that?”
“Spit!”
“What?”
“Don’t swallow. Spit!” He placed a hand under my mouth.
“Eww, are you insane?”
“Just do it.”
“Fine.” I spat a pink glob on his hand. “There. Happy?”
I reached for a napkin and wiped my mouth. “Why are you being so pushy? And what did you do to my cake. It tasted like—Holy macaroni!” I balked at the huge diamond ring in the middle of the puddle of pink goo, sitting on the palm of his hand.
“That’s not the . . . is it?”
“Well, that went off well.” He laughed as he looked down at the ring. I followed closely behind him as he went down to the edge of the riverbank dunking the ring in the water. “I returned the one I’d planned to give you because this is the one I’d wanted to give you all along.”
He stood up, holding up the ring. The last rays of the sun hit against the diamond, displaying a rainbow of colors.
“I can’t take this. It’s so big. It must’ve cost you a fortune. I don’t need something this fancy.”
“And that’s why I love you.” He slipped the ring onto the third finger of my left hand and gazed at it for a moment before kissing my hand. His eyes drifted up to mine, and the love in them took my breath away. “You’d be happy if I’d given you a Ring Pop.”
“Because I could lick it and admire it at the same time.” I laughed and then placed my hand on his cheek, caressing it. He was so good to me. “Seriously, Nic, I don’t need something like this when I already have your heart.
“That’s why I’m giving this to you. This ring has been passed down for generations. Mother gave this to me when I got out of the hospital. She knows it belongs to the woman who has my heart, and that’s where it’s going to stay.”
Tears pricked my eyes as I thought of the significance of Nic’s mother giving him the ring.
“I was trying to create this big romantic evening and have you find the ring. I wanted this to be a moment that we’d never forget. I didn’t think you were going to eat it.”
“Oh, I’ll never forget this moment. That’s for sure.” I smiled, rubbing my jaw.
He pulled me into his arms. “You know, this was the spot that I knew I was falling in love with you.”
“It was the same for me too.”
“The moment when you said you watched The Love Boat and your lips touched mine, I knew you were the one for me.”
I splayed my fingers across his muscular chest, admiring the ring. “Yeah, but what you did was really stupid.”
“Mandi, I’d do stupid for you any day.”
“That’s sooo romantic. Really, Nic, my heart can’t take it anymore. Stop all the wooing.” I threw back my head, laughing. My Nic was back. Somehow, after all this time and all the struggles and hardships we’d gone through, he was still here, loving me.
Then he pulled out a ruby rhinestone bobby pin from his pocket.
“You still have it?” I asked as he reached for a wildflower. He swept my hair up and secured the flower into my hair with the pin.
“It’s never left my pocket. You’re always with me.”
“Oh, Nic.”
“Shhh.” He kissed my lips gently. “I always knew that somehow, someway, you were going to be in my life. You saved me that night when I jumped off the bridge. I was drowning in a life that wasn’t real. I even hid from my real self. You demanded the real me. You love the real me.”
He ducked under the table and took out a guitar. Pulling me back to the edge of the river, he sat me down. He strummed the guitar, testing and tuning it as he spoke.
“As much as I hate to admit it, I learned two things from Julian.”
“Ugh! Are you serious?”
“Yes. He taught me that our love could survive anything.”
I leaned over the guitar and kissed Nic. “Okay, that’s one. What’s the other?”
“This.”
My hand flew to my mouth as he played the first notes to our song. The same Phil Collins song we’d danced to at our prom. Hazel eyes held mine. His face and voice were raw with emotion as he sang.
When he strummed the last note, we sat staring at each other in silence. It’d grown dark and the only light came from the full moon above and the flickering candles. Sounds of the bubbling water and crickets mixed with the beating of my heart. I wanted to take time and lock it away with me in my heart. I’d never loved him so much as I did in this moment.
“I love you, Nic.”
“Te amo, Mandi.” Placing the guitar aside, he reached out and took my face into his hands. “I’ll never get tired of telling you how much I love you. I promise that you’ll hear me tell you that every day. And be ready, because you’ll be hearing it for a long time.”
When I opened my mouth to tell him that I would do the same thing too, he placed a finger over my lips.
“Let me finish, mi amor. I want to grow old with you. I want to be the one who puts a smile on your face in the morning. I want to be your last thought when you close those pretty eyes of yours and drift off to sleep. And I definitely want to be the one by your side when we’re old and smelly and sitting out on the front porch and you’re waving your cane at everyone who passes by our house.” I laughed at the picture he painted of us. It wa
s perfect.
His face then turned serious and he swallowed thickly. “I want it all with you because,” his voice dropped to a whisper, “Eres el amor de mi vida.”
“You are the love of my life too.” I kissed him long and hard. This was the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with and words were not enough to express how much I loved him. So when we finally pulled back, I blurted, “Marry me!”
“I thought I already asked you to marry me.” He grinned, lips brushing against mine.
“You gave me a ring, but you didn’t ask.”
“Well how can I ask now if you already asked me?”
“Then let’s ask each other.”
“Okay, on three. One . . . two . . . will you marry me?”
“You cheated.” I pouted.
“Well, it’s not every day I get to ask the woman I love to be mine. Manuela Florentina Ruiz, will you be mine forever? Will you marry me?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
As he took me in him arms, I gave him my heart and soul, and I surrendered to him completely.
* * * * *
Thanks for reading Secrets & Surrender!
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Stillwater Dusk: Preview
Her love opened his heart. His love set her free.
Jack McAllister never thought he'd fall in love with a ballerina. She’s a wondrous dream who dances into his life, gently prying open his wounded heart. But with endless debts mounting and the threat of foreclosure on his family’s ranch, he lives a life the wealthy beauty could never understand.
Giselle Stratford is given every advantage an affluent family can provide, except unconditional love. Bound by the demands of perfection, she trains relentlessly under her mother’s critical eye, desperate for approval.
When Giselle finally breaks out on her own, she stumbles into a new life and straight into Jack’s arms. He’s strong in a way she desperately needs, and his tight-knit family fills all the cracks left in her heart by her own. But the world she's left behind has the power to tear them apart, and they’ll have to fight to hold on to their love.
Jack
present
I’d never thought my life would turn out this way, or that someone like Giselle would drift into my heart and kiss my broken soul. I most certainly never imagined I’d get to hold someone like her. She was a wondrous dream in pink ballet slippers. She’d danced into my life; sweeping away the nightmare I’d been living since the day I’d killed my parents.
The memory of that day floated to the front of my mind.
I shoved it back.
The agony of seeing how her gentle spirit had almost died behind the formidable walls of Stratford Mansion was painful enough.
I hurried across the massive circular driveway, clutching Giselle tighter against my chest and bracing for an alarm, a cry of panic from one of the dozen staff inside the mansion.
There was nothing, only the sound of my boots clicking against the pavement.
A breeze rushed over the night, sending cool air and the smell of rain. She shuddered and mumbled something I couldn’t make out, something about a dove. Did she have a pet? She’d never mentioned one before.
She shivered again. I hesitated, wondering if I should go back and get her things. We had a long way to go and the truck’s heater was out again.
I looked back at the sprawling mansion she called home then it hit me. This was it. There was no turning back. Would I be enough for her? All I could give her was a life in a small house shared with my brothers and grandfather, a life of hard work with barely enough to scrape by.
Blood streaked her sweater, taunting me—a reminder of how I’d failed the beautiful woman in my arms.
Your fault.
You failed.
You should’ve never let her leave Texas with that monster.
I wasn’t failing her again.
“Hold on, darlin’. We’re almost to the truck.”
She nodded and buried her head deeper into my chest.
I placed Giselle in the passenger seat and carefully closed the door, wishing I could make her more comfortable. Dashing to the driver’s side, I took off my jacket, folded it, and leaned over to tuck the makeshift pillow under her head, propping her gently against the door.
My fingers lingered in her light brown hair. I’d missed her so much, touching her, caressing her.
My eyes drifted to her slender neck and the angry red, finger-shaped marks.
My chest tightened. How could they do this to her? Only a stone heart would allow this to happen and embrace the monster who’d done it.
Long lashes slowly lifted until honey brown eyes locked with mine, and any doubts I’d had about getting her out of this living hell and taking her back to Texas vanished.
It was worth it. She was worth it, and she loved me. Despite everything, she loved me.
G-Daddy had been right about her. He’d said she was the light to my darkness, my perfect match. Why hadn’t I seen it until it was almost too late?
“Jack, you shouldn’t. Anton will come for you,” her weak voice rasped.
“Shh. Don’t worry about me. It’s gonna be all right. I—” An image of Anton’s battered body flashed through my mind.
My hands trembled slightly as I brushed back her hair.
“I took care of everything. You’re safe now.”
“Going to,” she whispered.
I choked back a sob at the teasing flicker in her eyes. She’d worn that expression since the first time she’d helped me with my English paper. It was like a game for us. Her pretty face had winced whenever I’d said, “ain’t,” and “gonna.” Delicate eyebrows would arch for a second before she’d correct me. She’d always looked so damn cute. My grammar had actually worsened when I was around her. She caught on real quick and smacked me playfully for leading her on. We’d always ended up laughing in hysterics with one of us spraying soda out of our noses.
After everything she’d gone through, all she could think about was making me smile. She amazed me.
I kissed her forehead and fastened us in. My fingers paused over the ignition as I caught sight of the mansion. Moonlight flooded over the menacing structure, giving it an eerie glow.
It was hard to imagine her growing up here. This wasn’t a home. It was stone walls crushing the spirit that had made her special. Her home was in Stillwater with my brothers, G-Daddy, and…
Me.
A calm rushed over me as I turned over the ignition. “I’m never letting anyone hurt you again. Not Anton. Not your parents. No one. I’m taking you home.”
“Home,” she whispered.
As I pointed the truck south, rain splattered onto the windshield. Giselle breathed slow and steady. She was fast asleep. We drove past the wrecked iron fence I’d crashed through with my brother’s truck. He was going to kill me, even though what I’d done inside the mansion was worse. My stomach went cold at the thought of what he’d say once he saw the damage to the truck.
I shook it off.
Don’t matter. It’s worth it.
She’s worth it.
I pressed my foot firmly against the pedal, taking the truck as fast as I dared on the slick road. I let out a sigh of relief the moment the mansion disappeared in the distance.
It’s over. We made it.
The rhythmic sound of the wipers slid back and forth, lulling me into a semi-dream state. Memories of that day so long ago filtered into my mind again. I gripped the steering wheel, bracing for the wave of pain to wash over me the way it always did.
It was the last day our family had been together. Their faces flashed in my mind: Luke and Noah playfully wrestling over the last watermelon and G-Daddy showing Aimee the
latest dance moves he’d learned at the senior center. Each memory stabbed my chest, a reminder of what we’d all lost.
Then Mom and Dad.
My breath caught at the sight of them. It was as if I were standing next to them as they swayed to their favorite country song. Mom gazed lovingly at Dad. He caressed her cheek. The pain of seeing them again crushed me.
The rain came down in sheets, pounding against the truck. Giselle let out a soft moan as she shifted beside me. I place my hand over hers, stroking her silky skin. G-Daddy’s voice echoed in my mind.
A real man ain’t afraid of showing his love. It’s the McAllister way.
He’d caught me gagging over Mom and Dad dancing when he’d said that. My sorry, punk-ass thirteen-year-old self hadn’t gotten it at the time. I’d been more worried about sneaking a peak at Tanya Sue and hoping her bikini top would fall off. It’d taken losing almost everyone I’d loved to understand what he’d meant.
Like faded photos in a dusty album, I let my mind flip through the memories of my family’s last time together on that hot August day five years ago.
* * * * *
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