by Ivy Layne
He lifted his chin in the direction of the formal living room.
Sitting and waiting for Charlie wasn't what I was going for, but at least I was in the house. I took a seat on the couch and stretched my legs out in front of me, prepared to wait.
A few minutes later, the housekeeper brought me a tray with steaming biscuits, a pot of jam, and a small silver carafe of coffee. She delivered the food and left without speaking. I wondered if I should worry about poison.
I figured if Charlie wanted revenge, she'd probably poison me herself. The coffee smelled too good to ignore. I'd finished half the pot and polished off the biscuits before the door swung open again.
Charlie stepped through, her hair pinned back from her face, wearing the clothes I'd brought for her, a scoop-neck fitted T-shirt the same blue as her eyes and her favorite pair of jeans.
She closed the door behind her and stuffed her hands into her back pockets, her eyes uncertain.
"Hey," she said.
"We didn't get to finish talking last night."
"I know. I'm sorry. Aiden was freaked and—"
I shook my head. "No, it's better this way. Too much happened last night between Hayward and everything I had to say. It's better to talk about this stuff with a clear head."
"I don't think I've ever had a clear head when it comes to you," she said. "I had a thing for you before we even met. I used to stand in my window and watch you mow the lawn."
I grinned. "I know."
I'd teased her about watching me mow the lawn before, but Charlie's cheeks still turned red and she dropped her eyes to her feet.
"I used to watch you too," I admitted. "I used to wonder what a woman like you was doing messing around with that disaster of a house. Then I got to know you and I realized that woman, with her pearls and her suits—she's not you, Charlie. Not all of you. There's so much more to who you are. You have courage, and imagination, and strength. I saw that, but you scared the hell out of me so I made excuses and ran away."
"You're not the only one who's scared, Lucas," she said softly. "Sometimes, I think I'm scared all the time. But I've learned that life is too short to be afraid. I've spent too many years doing what I thought I should to make other people happy. None of that worked. I tried to be perfect and I ended up making myself miserable. Now I just want to be Charlie."
"I love Charlie," I said, coming to my feet and crossing the room to her. "I love you. Whoever you want to be, I love you."
She took a step forward and threw herself into my arms. "I love you too, Lucas."
I dipped her back and kissed her, unable to wait a second longer to taste her again. It had been a week and it felt like a lifetime. Her arms wrapped around me, and I lifted her, carrying her back to the couch and sitting, pulling her into my lap.
Opposite me, the door cracked open and an unfamiliar face popped in. A set of sharp, ice blue eyes identical to Jacob's peered at us, capped by a head of white hair. As abruptly as she'd interrupted, the stranger withdrew, but not before a grin spread across her wrinkled face.
The door shut with a click.
Through the thick wood, I heard her shout, "Charlie's good, but I don't think she's coming to breakfast."
Charlie leaned into me and erupted with giggles.
"Aunt Amelia?" I asked.
She nodded. I cupped her face in my hands and kissed one cheek, then the other.
"We have time for this later," I said. "But I want to show you something now. Will you come with me?"
"Let me just tell Aiden I'm leaving."
I followed her out to the hallway and snagged her backpack from where she'd left it at the base of the stairs. Good to know she hadn't planned on staying.
She darted into the dining room ahead of me, told Aiden she was okay and she was leaving, then met me in the hall before I could go in. Slapping her palms on my chest, she pushed, backing me up.
"Don't go in there, trust me. If you go in there, Aunt Amelia will invite you to breakfast, Aiden will insist you stay, and we'll be here for another hour."
Seeing the wisdom in Charlie's words, I took her hand and led her out of the house.
We were back in the Highlands twenty minutes later. When I drove past our street, Charlie looked at me, her eyebrows raised. I turned half a mile down from where I usually did and wound through the back of the neighborhood, coming to a stop in front of a mid-century modern house that had seen better days.
That style of architecture wasn't unknown in the neighborhood, and some of them had been rehabbed into works of art, but they required a careful hand or no amount of time and money could keep them from looking outdated.
This was the house Charlie had been stalking on her tablet. I'd looked into it and it had potential. It was a foreclosure, which meant a slow buying process but potentially a great purchase price.
The bank had already done an inspection. It had major issues, one of which was the foundation, but at the right price, we could turn a tidy profit.
I got out of the car and rounded the front to open her door. She stepped out, looking from the house to me and back again.
"What do you think?" I asked.
"What do you mean? I've had my eye on this one, but it's a little out of my price range right now."
"What if we went in on it together?" I asked. "Fifty-fifty. I'm taking a job with Sinclair Security, so my schedule won't be as flexible as it is right now, but I can still do my half."
"You want to buy a house with me?" Charlie asked.
She usually wasn't so slow on the uptake. I pulled her close, tilting her face up to mine. Nothing in my life had ever felt as right as Charlie Winters in my arms. Her gorgeous pink mouth beckoned and I kissed her, at home for the first time since I'd walked out a week before.
Hoping she'd understand, I said, "I want to do everything with you, but we can start with this house."
EPILOGUE
CHARLIE
I couldn't believe our first flip house was finally done. It took five months and more money than we'd planned to spend, but it was a masterpiece. I almost didn't want to sell it.
Lucas and I had fallen in love in this house.
I'd thought we'd fallen in love at my house, while we were pretending we were fuck buddies and he'd helped me strip paint. And we had.
That was where we took those first, hesitant steps toward each other, where we'd realized what we had was so much more than just sex.
But here, in this mess of a rehab we'd bought together, this was where we really fell in love. Not that first flush of fire and heart.
The day to day kind of love.
The kind that lasts.
This house was where I discovered that we were both demons for a schedule, were obsessed with spreadsheets, and went a little crazy when materials were delayed. Where I'd learned that he could function on almost no sleep, but he discovered the same turned me into a cranky monster.
We'd figured out so many things in the past five months. Lucas was neat. Me, not so much. He didn't mind my being messy, as long as I put away our tools and didn't leave food sitting in the sink. I could handle that. My mess was mostly of the clothes on the floor variety.
I found out that he hated doing laundry and had about eight thousand pairs of cargo pants and an equal number of black t-shirts so he could avoid running out and didn't have to go shopping. Needless to say, I took over washing our clothes.
Lucas still had his place next door, but he'd pretty much moved in with me over the past few months. At first, he'd moved me in with him while my contractors finished the upstairs and the floors at my place. The work was scheduled to take two months but ended up taking three.
That was the only delay we didn't mind. By the time the schedule got pushed back, we'd closed on the mid-century modern and had our hands full.
Lucas was working at Sinclair Security, leading a team of IT specialists who also handled field work. I wasn't exactly sure what that meant. Lucas said I didn't need to know the details
, but that it was mostly not-dangerous. I was focused on 'not-dangerous' and ignoring 'mostly'. He loved it, and that was all I cared about.
He worked on the flip house with me after hours, leading to a lot of late nights, picnic dinners on a tarp, and sometimes, spontaneous nakedness. I was taking real estate classes during the day along with managing the renovation, and I was thinking about studying for my contractor's license, though I'd heard the test was a bitch. Maybe not this year, but it was on my list.
Everything had come together so easily. Even moving into my house. Once the upstairs was finished and the floors were done, there wasn't much left other than some details on the outside.
I loved Lucas's place. It was gorgeous and comfortable and it reminded me of him. But my house had been my dream since the first moment I'd seen it. I wanted to live there and nowhere else. But only if Lucas was with me.
As with everything, once we'd finally untangled our fears from our hearts, Lucas made it easy for me. We'd been examining the final touches in the master suite, the blue-grey walls and crisp white trim, when he said, "Do you want new furniture? Or should we just move my stuff in?"
I thought about it, stunned by his offer. He'd renovated his own home from the studs out and I knew he was attached to it. We hadn't talked about what we'd do when mine was finished.
Life had been so good, I hadn't wanted to bring up anything that might cause tension. I should have known Lucas wouldn't let that happen.
"Are you sure?" I asked. He'd pulled me into his arms and kissed me.
When he was done and my knees were weak, he'd said, "I'm sure. You just have to decide about the furniture."
That part was easy. I loved his bed. The dark walnut would look gorgeous against the cool tones of the paint and the white trim.
"Let's move your stuff over," I said. "Your bedroom set will fit in here and we can put the TV and couches in the living room for now."
So we had. Lucas must have wanted to be in my house as much as I did because he had movers scheduled for the next day. Before I knew it, we were really and truly living together.
Quietly, without making a big deal about it, he suggested he put his house on the market. I'd agreed. It sold within a month, and a month after that, we had a sweet family living next door.
Life was just about perfect.
I had Lucas. I was putting together a career I loved. The only cloud in the sky was Gage. He was still MIA, and Lucas's guy hadn't had any good news since he'd first confirmed Gage was alive.
A truck pulled into the driveway beside mine. Lucas, off work early, here to go over the final details on the house before it hit the market. I didn't try to stop the giddy grin that spread across my face at the sight of him.
He unfolded his tall frame from his truck and headed up the driveway, stopping for only a second to send my truck a smug, appraising look as he walked past it.
Did I mention that he bought me a new truck?
I argued for about a minute when he brought it home. It was smaller than his but nicer, with leather, navigation, an upgraded sound system—all the good stuff. He'd driven it home one day and handed me the keys with a long look that ordered me not to say a word.
I tried to tell him to take it back. Lucas was having none of it. He interrupted me with a kiss—Lucas's preferred method of getting me to shut up—and when I was dizzy from his mouth on mine, he said, "Princess, just take the keys and let it go. I hate that thing you're driving. I know you think it's good enough for you. But I don't. Every time I look at it, I want to push it over a cliff."
I'd sighed and taken the keys. I might have argued—I really didn't mind the old truck—but I knew it reminded Lucas of that miserable week we'd been broken up. Every time he saw it, he turned away.
I'd shoved the keys to my new truck in my pocket and said teasingly, "Okay, but if you think you can solve all of your problems by throwing money at them . . ."
Lucas had growled, "Brat," and dragged me to my new truck, where he proceeded to show me how comfortable the rear bench seat was. Needless to say, we both had very good memories of the day Lucas gave me that truck.
Sophie's car had broken down a few weeks before, and I'd very happily lent her my old truck, glad to have an excuse to get it away from Lucas and help Sophie out at the same time.
I watched him as he made his way up the steep driveway, my eyes eating up his long stride. I never got tired of looking at Lucas Jackson. He hadn't changed in the slightest since going to work for Sinclair Security.
He still dressed like a commando, in his worn cargoes and tight black t-shirts, unless he had work in the field that required a suit, or my secret favorite, a tux. There was still nothing in the universe as hot as Lucas in a tuxedo.
My eyes fixed on the flex of his thighs as he walked. I almost missed the box he held in his arms. He climbed the steps to the front door and set the box on the stoop beside him.
"What's that?" I asked.
Lucas dipped his head for a kiss.
I forgot about the box.
You'd think that with all the sex we had, I'd be bored by now.
Not a chance.
I'd come so close to losing him. That would never happen again, but I knew better than anyone that the good things in life were meant to be savored. And Lucas's kisses were the best.
I fell into him, sliding my arms around his back and tugging up his shirt to press my palms to the warm, silky skin beneath. Lucas shuffled me backward, turning me until my back hit the side of the house.
Against my neck, he said, "I've been in fucking meetings all day, and all I could think about was this."
He tugged at the neck of my blouse, revealing the navy lace bra I'd put on that morning. I'd gone straight from real estate class to meeting the broker who would list the house, so for once, I was dressed up as opposed to wearing the beat-up jeans and shirts I sacrificed to renovation work.
Though the matching lace bra and thong under my suit weren't for business. They were for Lucas.
Deftly, he unfastened the first two buttons and slipped his hand inside my shirt to cup my breast. I vaguely recalled that we were on the front stoop of the house. With Lucas's height and broad frame, he could easily shield me from prying eyes, but not if he stripped me naked.
With obvious reluctance, he withdrew his hand and said, "Let's go inside. I want another walkthrough. What did the broker say?"
I followed him down the hall, into the open space that held the kitchen, great room, and dining room. We'd done an amazing job with the place, in my not-so-humble opinion. Once the foundation had been repaired, almost all of the interior detailing had to go. It had been a lot of work. A ton.
Now, it was a jewel, the ideal example of mid-century modern design, with floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows, bamboo floors, soaring ceilings, and a modern aesthetic. Buyers were going to love it and we'd make a killing.
"She was in line with our estimates on price. We should have the first open house next weekend," I said, watching as he set the mysterious box on the sleek stainless steel of the kitchen island.
"Sounds good. Any news on the offer?"
We'd put in an offer the week before on an arts and crafts bungalow that was part of an estate. I thought we'd end up getting it, but the broker had to talk to all of the heirs to the property, which was taking longer than we'd expected.
"Not yet." My curiosity getting the best of me, I pulled the box toward me and opened it. Looking inside, I asked, "Is this what I think it is?"
A bottle of Macallan scotch sat in the box, nestled in a pile of work rags. Pulling it out, I studied the label. I knew this bottle.
Macallan 25 Year Sar Obair.
Only one hundred and sixty-eight bottles had been produced. Aiden had been crowing about snagging the bottle at auction for a thousand dollars. He'd refused to let any of us taste a single drop. And now Lucas had it.
"How?" I asked.
"We're celebrating," he said.
"With Aide
n's whiskey?"
"Forget the whiskey for a second." Lucas lifted me to sit on the island, sliding my skirt up my thighs so he could stand between my legs, bringing us almost eye to eye. His green eyes roamed over my face, resting on my lips, my hair, my chin, before finally meeting my own.
"What's up?" I whispered. He was being weird. Almost like he was nervous, but Lucas didn't get nervous. He was the most confident man I knew. Nothing scared him.
In answer, he kissed me, pressing his lips to mine and leaving them there, our breath mingling for a long moment before he nipped my lower lip and broke the kiss.
"Before we open the whiskey, I wanted to give you this," he said, pulling a blue velvet box out of his pocket.
My heart stuttered in my chest. My breath froze.
Was that what I thought it was?
Speechless, I looked into Lucas's eyes and saw his heart exposed, overflowing with love, tinged with nerves.
"Lucas?" I managed to ask, afraid to hope too much.
He flipped open the box to reveal a ring.
The ring.
The most gorgeous ring I'd ever seen.
A classic emerald-cut diamond with a halo of pavé diamonds and matching pavé diamonds on the band. Vibrant blue sapphires ran around the sides of the raised mount. From the top, the sapphires gave just a hint of blue, bringing life to the ice of all of those diamonds.
It was gorgeous and sparkly and just on the elegant side of too much. Exactly the ring I would have chosen for myself.
In explanation, Lucas said, "There isn't a gemstone the color of your eyes, so I had to settle for sapphires. Maggie said you liked sapphires."
He'd taken Maggie with him to buy me a ring? I opened my mouth to tell him it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen, but no sound came out.
I looked from the ring to Lucas, unable to speak.
"You changed my life, Charlie Winters," he said. "I never thought I could love anyone the way I love you. Every morning, I wake up next to you and think I must be dreaming. There will never be another woman for me. There's only you. For the rest of my life, there's only you. Will you marry me?"
