The silence seemed to drag on while everybody waited for the little drama to play out.
“Five thousand, going once…going twice…”
Lange made a little gesture of defeat to Riley, that smirk still on his features.
“Sold, to the new police chief for five thousand dollars. Chief, do you want to come up and collect your item?”
As he made his way to the dais, he heard the swell of whispers, the speculation about why the unattached chief of police would spend five grand on a pretty piece of jewelry.
“That’s going to look smashing with your badge,” his sister Angie teased as he passed her.
He ignored her and Alex’s narrow-eyed look of suspicion. Out of the corner of his gaze, he caught his mother’s bright, delighted smile, but he didn’t return it, focused only on moving forward to reach out for his prize.
He supposed while he was up there, he might as well pick up the necklace, too.
AS RILEY SEEMED TO MOVE toward her in slow motion, Claire couldn’t manage to grab hold of her wildly whirling thoughts.
Five thousand dollars for her necklace! It was outrageous. She had been hoping for a tenth of that and would have been over the moon if it had sold for a thousand. Five! What was Riley doing?
She couldn’t hear anything over the pounding of her pulse in her ears as Riley continued moving toward her, his green eyes full of an emotion she couldn’t name. He looked delicious in an elegant tux that seemed out of character but absolutely right on him.
She had tried not to stare at him all evening—when he’d been dancing with his mother, when he’d stopped to tease Angie, when he had flirted outrageously with a couple of the older ladies who came to the senior citizen beading group. She couldn’t help it if he happened to spend entirely too much time in her line of vision. Purely unintentional, she had told herself.
Now she couldn’t seem to look away.
“Hi,” he murmured when he was only a few feet away. The auction was continuing on without them. They could have been selling the deed to her house for all she knew or cared right then.
She cleared her throat and worked the fastenings connecting the necklace to the form. “You paid entirely too much for this.”
“I disagree. It’s for a good cause.”
Claire was entirely too aware that several people around them—primarily his family and her mother—were just as oblivious to the auction still going on, focusing instead on their little drama.
“Um, I have a box for it so you can take it home.”
“I’ll just take it now. No box necessary. Thank you.”
He held out a hand and she didn’t know what else to do. She handed it to him and couldn’t help thinking how incongruous it looked, all those pretty, glittery stones in his masculine fingers.
“Turn around,” he ordered.
She stared. “Excuse me?”
“Turn around so I can put the necklace on you.”
They were drawing even more attention, Claire thought as she stood frozen. Harry Lange, of all people, was giving them a very amused look, as close to smiling as she’d ever seen him. Strange. Ruth was glaring, no surprise there. Jeff and Holly were both looking baffled, while Katherine and Mary Ella beamed at each other.
“I don’t understand,” she finally said.
“What’s to understand? I bought it for you.”
“You…what?”
“It’s yours. It rightfully belongs to you. You named it the Heart of Hope, didn’t you?” he said, his voice low. “I figure it’s only proper, then, that it should belong to the person who is actually the Heart of Hope’s Crossing.”
She stared at him, her heart pounding at the heat in his eyes and the glittery emotion there.
She knew she was blushing—even more so when he moved behind her and removed the necklace she was wearing, a simple strand of pearls that had seemed to fit her dress better than any of her other pieces. More people had turned in their direction, she saw. Even the auctioneer seemed to sense he had lost the attention of his bidders and he was waiting for the moment to pass before continuing.
Riley fastened the necklace she had made around her neck and she felt the weight of it, cool and smooth.
“There,” he murmured. “Perfect. Absolutely perfect.”
He wasn’t talking about the necklace. Her gaze searched his and she saw a fierce tenderness in his eyes.
He leaned in and kissed her cheek, right there in front of everyone in town.
“You’re perfect,” he murmured in her ear, so no one else could hear. “And now you’ve got both of my hearts.”
Claire’s breath left her in a whoosh. She wanted desperately to trust this was real, but how could she? Love wasn’t about grand, romantic gestures. It was hard work, it was struggle, it was compromise. It was cleaning up fallen branches after a storm and fixing broken bicycles and taking care of each other.
Much to her relief, the auctioneer made a funny comment and managed to grab attention back to the item currently on the block, the painting Sarah Colville had donated.
“Do you have to finish things up here or can we go somewhere and talk for a minute?” he asked.
Claire looked around at her well-organized committee, who had handled everything so far with competent flair. She could make an excuse, tell him she had too much to do. Some part of her urged her to do just that. He had already hurt her by walking away. What would be different this time?
But then she thought of her misery the past two weeks, the gray pall that seemed to hang over everything, the regret eating at her insides for what they might have had together.
Riley had risked his life in that accident to save her and her children. What kind of coward would she be if she refused to take any sort of risk in return?
“Okay,” she finally answered.
Riley’s brilliant smile sent hundreds of glittery butterflies fluttering in her stomach.
He took her hand and headed for the door. Claire wobbled along on her cast and the single strappy heel she wore on the other foot, struggling to keep up with him. After a few steps, he must have realized she was having trouble. He stopped, took a careful look at the crowd where a few people still furtively watched them, then he scooped her up, cast and all, her evening dress fluttering over his arm.
She heard a few gasps and titters behind them, but in that moment, Claire didn’t care, not with the bubbling laugh pulsing through her.
He was out the door and through the lobby in the time it would have taken her to lodge a protest—not that he would have listened anyway—and then they passed through the wide, carved doors into a cool mountain evening, sparkling with stars.
“That was quite a romantic gesture, Chief McKnight. I’m sure you set more than a few hearts aflutter.”
He grinned, looking dark and dangerous and gorgeous, and Claire fell hard for him all over again. “What can I say? I’m a romantic guy.”
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
He carried her just a few more feet until they reached a bench angled toward the canyon and the distant gleam of Hope’s Crossing.
Even though she could hear the distant sounds of the auction, of a few vehicles coming and going from the hotel, they were completely alone here. She shivered a little and Riley instantly removed his tuxedo jacket and slipped it over her.
“Claire,” he murmured. Just that, her name, and then he slid his hands to the lapels of his own jacket, drew her closer and kissed her. She caught her breath and returned the kiss, clutching her hands on his shirt front and probably hopelessly wrinkling it. Oh, heaven. Right here, in his arms. Tears burned her eyes at the sweet ache of it, the slow, easy tenderness of his mouth on hers.
She wanted so desperately to trust him, to trust this, but that little flag of caution waved tentatively for attention and she finally slid away and released her grip on his shirt.
Striving for calm and sanity, she swallowed and drew in a shaky breath. “
I’m sorry, Riley. You’re going to have to catch me up here. Last time we talked, you were telling me all the reasons you weren’t good for me.”
“All still very true.”
“Yet here we are.”
He was silent for a long moment, then he reached for her hand. “I’ve been informed by more than one person tonight that I’m a first-class idiot.”
“Don’t believe everything you hear,” she whispered.
“In this case, they’re right.” He squeezed her fingers. “I’m a cop, Claire. I’ve never turned away from rough situations. I volunteered for every one of my undercover assignments, even though I knew what I would be facing. I’ve been in the middle of hostage standoffs, I’ve had perps try to run me over, I told you I got shot once when a drug deal went bad.”
“You dived into the icy waters of Silver Strike Reservoir for us.”
He dismissed that with a shrug. “I’d be lying if I said I’d never been nervous in any of those moments. I know what fear is. Or at least I thought I did.” He paused. “In all those years on the job, nothing prepared me for this.”
“This?”
He gazed into her eyes and she held her breath, her chest achy and tight at the emotion there. “Coming home and falling in love.”
She stared at him, that tentative joy flailing, trying desperately to fight its way free inside her. “Riley—”
“I love you, Claire. I’ve been fighting it with everything I’ve got since I came back to Hope’s Crossing, coming up with a hundred reasons why it was crazy to think anything could come of it. All those things made perfect sense. They still do.”
She clamped down hard on that joy and braced herself so she could be ready when he pushed her away again. Instead, he drew her fingers to his mouth and kissed the bead-callused tip of her index finger.
“Here’s the thing, though. No matter how hard I run, I somehow end up right here. Tonight I realized that none of those reasons amounts to anything compared to the regret I know will eat me alive if I run for good. I love you, Claire. You’re everything I’ve ever dreamed about, all I’ve ever wanted. I want a life with you, here in Hope’s Crossing.”
She pressed a hand to her mouth. She’d never run into a hostage standoff or been shot by a criminal, but she knew plenty about fear. Fear was hearing her father had been murdered by a jealous husband. It was watching her mother slip away into a haze of drugs and alcohol. It was standing by helplessly while her children’s secure home life crumbled along with her marriage.
It was wondering if she had the guts to seize this gift he offered.
She drew in another shaky breath. “Your mother once told me that fear and courage are like thunder and lightning. They start out at the same time, it’s just that the fear always hits first. If we wait long enough, the courage we need will be along soon.”
“My mother is a wise woman. She’s one of the ones who told me I was an idiot if I walked away from the best thing that ever happened to me.”
Just like that, any remaining doubt shot into the air and disappeared like glowing embers from a campfire. This was right. She loved this man, this strong, kind, wonderful man who made her feel beautiful and alive.
Cherished.
Just as he had the night of that terrible accident that had changed everything, when he had saved her children and stayed with her, murmuring quiet words of comfort, she suddenly knew Riley McKnight would do everything in his power to take care of her.
Finally she released the happiness her fear had been containing and allowed the joy to burst through her, bright and vibrant. She eased forward and kissed him. “I love you, Riley,” she murmured against his mouth.
He let out a sound—of relief or happiness, she didn’t know—and then he kissed her fiercely, his arms strong and warm around her. “Thank you for buying my necklace,” she said after a long moment. “Making it these last few weeks has been a sort of therapy for me, in a lot of different ways. It would have been hard to see it go.”
“I’ve got big plans for that necklace,” he murmured.
“Do you?”
“Don’t forget, I’ve got twenty years of Claire fantasies to turn into reality. In the not-very-distant future, I intend to live out a fairly recent one where you’re in my bed wearing nothing but that.”
His words sent a delicious, heady heat pulsing through her. “I think that could probably be arranged. Have I mentioned I’ve been beading a long time? I have lots and lots of necklaces.”
He made a sexy sound in his throat. “You’re killing me here, Claire.”
They laughed together, but her smile faded at the tenderness in his eyes when he kissed her again.
“You didn’t want to see the other necklace go to Holly, did you?” he asked. “I wish I’d been in time to bid for that one.”
She stared at him. “I didn’t think anyone noticed. I thought I was being so casual and okay about it.”
“No one else could probably tell it bothered you.”
Did he know her so well, then? she wondered. It was a rather overwhelming thought.
“It’s a family heirloom my mom decided to auction for the benefit,” she said. “Not really worth much monetarily, but priceless, history-wise, to our family. Jeff knows that. He’ll guard it well. Holly might wear it from time to time, but he’ll take care of it and keep it safe for Macy. That’s all I would have wanted.”
He shook his head, his eyes warm. “You’re an amazing woman, Claire.”
“I’m not. I’ve wasted entirely too much of my life trying to make sure everything is just right. That every one gets along. I didn’t want to be my mother, so needy all the time, so instead I told myself I didn’t need anyone. I could handle everything just fine and wore myself out trying to take care of everyone else. I’m afraid of how much I need you, Riley.”
“I won’t hurt you,” he promised. “I swear it.”
“I know,” she answered, rather smugly. “Your sisters and your mother are my best friends. The way I see it, if you screw this up, you’ve got a lot more to worry about than I do.”
He gave a mock groan, although she saw the amusement in his eyes. “I’ll just have to be sure not to screw it up, won’t I?”
She found it impossible to believe she could go from bleak heartache to this blooming happiness in such a short time. “I should probably get back inside. The auction will be ending soon and I need to make sure someone’s taking care of the cleanup and taking down the chairs and arranging for the…”
His kiss made her completely lose her train of thought, but she didn’t care. He was right. She didn’t have to take care of the world by herself anymore. Someone else in Hope’s Crossing could step up.
This was exactly where she needed to be, in the arms of the man she loved.
ISBN: 978-1-4592-0533-8
BLACKBERRY SUMMER
Copyright © 2011 by RaeAnne Thayne
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