Mia practically pulled me down the hall and out the back door. Outside, she took off down a winding gravel path at a pretty good clip.
I laughed, trying to keep up. “Is there a fire? My heels are sinking into the gravel.”
“Oh, sorry. No, it’s just chilly. I want to get you all tucked into your cottage.” But she slowed down a little, pulling her phone from her pocket and checking the screen.
I breathed in the cool night air, scented with wet earth and the coming of spring. Tilting my head back, I looked up at the sky. “Too cloudy for stars,” I said with a sigh. “No wish for me.”
Mia glanced at me. “What would you wish for?”
I smiled ruefully, dropping my gaze to my boots crunching on the gravel. “Tonight, I think I’d have wished for some sign that I’m not crazy—something to show me that the kind of love I’m looking for is actually possible. Not just a dream.”
Mia put her arm around my shoulders and gave me a squeeze.
We passed a couple guest cottages before she guided me off the main path down a narrower one that led right to the door of an adorable little one-story stone structure that mimicked the look of the winery and their house, right down to the steeply pitched roofline and slate blue shutters. At the front door, she pulled out her phone again. “Well, I don’t have any stars to offer you, but it is eleven-eleven.” She showed me the screen. “You could still make a wish.”
I sighed, feeling a little embarrassed I still believed in that stuff. “Nah, it’s silly. My wishes never come true.”
“You never know,” she said. “Better do it, just in case.”
Sighing, I closed my eyes and made the wish, altering it a little. If you’re out there, love of my life, come find me.
When I opened them, Mia was frantically patting the pockets of her sweater. “Oh my God, you’re not going to believe this. I forgot the key.”
“No worries,” I said. “I do it all the time, and Nate always has to rescue me. I’ll walk back with you.”
“No sense in both of us going. Your boots have heels, I’m in flats. Be right back.” Without another word, she took off up the gravel path, leaving me alone in the dark.
It wasn’t even twenty seconds later, I heard footsteps again—but they weren’t hers. These were heavier, slower. I squinted at the figure coming toward me, someone taller and bigger and broader than Mia. Before I even had time to get nervous, I heard his voice.
“Heard you were locked out.”
“Nate?” I blinked as he got closer, but he didn’t disappear. He wore a suit and tie like he’d just come from work, and my heart was pounding at the sight of him. “What are you doing here?”
“Well, it was the craziest thing. I looked at the clock and noticed it was eleven-eleven, so I made a wish.”
I could hardly breathe. “What did you wish for?”
He was right in front of me now. “I wished for another chance to tell the most beautiful girl in the world that I love her, that I’m sorry, and that even though I don’t deserve her, I hope she’ll believe me when I tell her she’s the only one for me, and I never should have let her go.”
Chills shimmied up my spine. “So here’s your chance. Tell me.”
He rested his forehead on mine and lowered his voice. “Only you, Emme. And always you.”
I wanted to believe him, but I was scared. Placing my hands on his chest, I pressed back. “What’s changed, Nate? How can I trust that you won’t break my heart again?”
He slipped his hands around my waist and drew me flush against him, solid and secure. “What’s changed is that I realized how wrong I was to think I could control my feelings for you. I thought it made me a stronger man, a better man, if I never loved anyone, because I saw love as a weakness. Something to be feared. I always thought I’d be happier alone, but I wasn’t. Part of the reason I told myself never to touch you was because deep inside, I wanted it too much. It scared me.”
“I wanted you, too,” I confessed, “but more than that, I wanted to be special to you. I didn’t want to be like those girls leaving your apartment Sunday mornings.”
He grimaced, his eyes closing briefly. “You were never going to be that. I was struggling with what I felt for you when Paisley came along. You were there for me the whole time, every step of the way. I’d have been so lost without you.”
“You had it in you to be a good dad, I knew you did. You just needed confidence.”
“I needed you. I’m so much better because of you. I get it now, Emme, what you said about alpha males acting the way they do because they have someone they want to protect. For too long, all I cared about protecting was myself. Now, all I care about is you and Paisley, and there is nothing I wouldn’t do for you. Nothing. And I’m not afraid to show it.”
“Or accept it?” I challenged him. “I love big, Nate. I can’t help it. And I don’t want to hold back.”
“I want it all, everything you have to give.” He squeezed me. “Tell me it’s not too late.”
“It’s not too—”
He crushed his mouth to mine, lifting me right off the ground. His body bowed back, and mine curved along his. “I’m going to make you happy, Emme. I promise. For as long as you’ll let me.”
Maybe I shouldn’t have believed it, but I did.
He set me on my feet and pulled a key from his pocket. “Here’s the key to your cottage. If you want to spend the night with me, I’ll stay. If you ask me to go, I’ll go.”
“The only thing I’m going to ask you is how you got this key in the first place.” I took it from him, and opened the cottage door. “But that conversation can wait.”
He grinned. “I’m so glad to hear you say that.”
With the door barely closed behind us, we came together, clinging and clutching, desperate to make up for lost time and prove to one another we’d meant what we said. I could feel in Nate’s kiss, in his touch, in his body that he loved me without reservation, that he’d broken free of whatever chains had been holding him back. He’d always been a powerful, aggressive lover, but there was something different this time. He was more passionate, more uninhibited, more unguarded than he’d ever been before—especially with words.
Over and over again, he told me he loved me.
Whispered it against my lips as we tore the clothes from each other’s bodies. Murmured it between kisses across my breasts, down my stomach, along every limb. Spoke the words as he carried me to the far end of the cottage where the king-size bed awaited. I realized he must have gone in ahead of time, because dozens of lit candles were scattered around the room, flickering softly in the dark.
He laid me on the bed and covered my body with his, and I opened everything to him—my arms, my lips, my legs, my heart. I, too, held nothing back. I rolled with all my might, forcing him onto his back so I could rain kisses over his face and chest, run my hands along the hard lines of his body, look him in the eye as I lowered myself upon him, his cock gliding slowly inside me.
“I wished for you,” I told him when he was buried to the hilt. “For this, for us.”
“I did too.” He sat up so we were chest to chest, mouth to mouth, arms wrapped around each other. “The very first night when you told me to make a wish, I wished that the next man you fell in love with would love you back the way you deserved. And he does.” We began to move together, our bodies a perfect fit, our rhythm in perfect synch. “I swear to God, he does.”
Eventually, he took over, tipping me onto my back and driving into me harder and faster and deeper—so deep I gasped for air and cried out in shock and arched up desperately beneath him, my body craving both the pleasure and pain he wrought.
But mostly, I craved that elongated moment of shared bliss, the final seconds of the dizzying ascent, the agonizing hover on the edge of the peak, the feverish breath as we took each other over, the exquisite spiral of the pulsing free fall, our bodies entwined, inseparable, one.
“Tell me again,” I whispered breathl
essly as our hearts refused to calm down, even after his body and mine were sapped and his chest was heavy on mine.
He picked his head up and looked down at me. Brushed the hair from my face. “I love you. Only you. Always you.”
I smiled. “Told you wishes come true.”
“I can’t believe it,” I said, shaking my head. “So it was Stella who convinced you?” We were lying in bed late Friday morning, Nate on his back, me propped on an elbow on his chest. We’d gotten very little sleep, but I felt energized and refreshed. Alive.
“Kind of. I mean, I knew I was miserable without you and that I’d fucked things up, but if I hadn’t seen her at the grocery store near that house I told you about, I don’t know that we’d be where we are right now.” He tucked my hair behind my ear. “You were right about her. She gets underneath the surface fast.”
“She does,” I agreed. I made a mental note to call her and say thanks, and also to stop being so annoyed by her therapist ways. “And she gave you Mia’s number?”
He nodded. “Yeah. She told me you’d left for the winery, and basically said, ‘If you want her, prove it.’”
I beamed. “I love Stella. Stella is amazing.”
“She is.”
“And what did Mia say?”
“Well, at first I could tell she wasn’t too keen on me. But after I explained myself, she was up for helping me try to win you back.”
I laughed. “I keep thinking about her checking the clock all night as we sat there drinking.”
“Oh yeah.” His eyes widened. “We were totally nervous about it. The timing was tight. I didn’t even get here until almost ten-thirty.”
Something clicked. “So it was Lucas who gave you the key when he went out to make a phone call.” I made little air quotes and rolled my eyes. “What a sneak!”
Nate grinned. “Yep. I texted him when I pulled up at the winery. Then I walked over to the house.”
“I still can’t believe it. Those two knew the whole time!” But I was so happy. I felt like this was a completely fresh start.
Nate glanced at the bedside clock. “I hate to say this, but I have to go soon. I need to pick up Paisley at three.”
“I’ll go too,” I told him, sitting up.
He looked distressed. “What? No, Em, you just got here. You should stay the weekend and relax. Visit with your cousin. Talk about the job. Which you can still take if you want. I mean that. We will make this work, no matter what.”
“I’ll think about it,” I said honestly. “I really was looking forward to it, but I love where I am now, too. Your firm doesn’t have a Traverse City office, does it?”
He shrugged. “No, but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t find another job up here. People get divorced everywhere. Every day.”
I groaned as I hopped off the bed. “Naaaaaate.”
He reached out and grabbed my arm, pulling me back into bed and hauling me across his lap. “Hey.”
“What?”
“We’re different.”
I raised one brow. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.” He kissed me and touched his forehead to mine. “Only you. Always you.”
Somehow, I knew it was the truth.
Three Months Later
NATE
* * *
Normally, I have a superior poker face. I don’t often have to use it outside of work, especially since Emme and I have been together, but every now and again, it comes in handy. Like when I want to surprise her.
Like tonight.
“I’m going to go pick up the food, okay babe?” I grabbed my keys off my new kitchen counter and went over to the couch where she was sitting with a freshly bathed Paisley on her lap. It was my first weekend in the new house—the Dutch Colonial I’d loved on sight—and Emme and I were going to celebrate our favorite way. Some takeout, some cocktails, some Bond.
“Okay.” She stood up, moving my daughter to one hip. Seeing them together always made me want to fall to me knees and thank God things had turned out the way they did. “Should I feed her?”
“Sure. Sorry everything is still such a mess in the kitchen. I swear I’m going to get it all put away this weekend.”
“I’ll help you. Maybe we can even get some boxes unpacked tonight.”
“Maybe.” There would be no fucking unpacking of boxes tonight, but she didn’t know that. “Be right back.” I went out the side door and got into my car, glad she couldn’t see the giant smile on my face.
I was also glad she was so trusting. Ever since I’d bought the house, I’d been saying things to her like, I’ve got everything I want now or My life feels so complete now that I have the house or I hope nothing ever changes with us. She believed me every time, and she always smiled and said she was glad, but I could see the question in her eyes… Does this mean you still don’t want to get married? Like, ever?
She never asked it, though. And I never brought up the subject, either, even though I’d been thinking about it every day since I brought her to the house and we walked around in it together. The gut feeling I got seeing her move through the empty rooms with a smile on her face was almost eerie—I knew in my heart we would live there together. We would make it our home. We would be a family.
And not only did I want it all, I wanted it all sooner rather than later.
So all that crap about feeling complete was all just part of the setup—I wanted her to be totally shocked tonight.
Stopped at a red light on my way to the restaurant, I glanced beside me at the passenger seat, where a little white bag rested. Inside were two fortune cookies.
And one ring box.
EMME
* * *
“Seriously, Paisley. What’s he thinking? Why can’t I tell?” I looked down at her face as she drank her bottle. “Do you think he’s still totally against marriage, or do I have a chance?”
I had taken to talking to Paisley about it, since my sisters were tired of hearing me worry that Nate might never change his mind if I wasn’t going to ask him about it, and I had promised myself I would not bring it up to Nate for at least six months. I didn’t want to pressure him. We were doing so well, and he was so open about his feelings now. By being patient, I was trying to prove to everyone and to myself that I could be patient and trust in the universe.
“See, I’ve thought a lot about this, Pais,” I went on, sitting her up to burp her. “We had geography on our side all the time—the apartments right across from each other. And timing, too. He happened to be getting home from work at the exact moment I locked myself out. That’s how we met, you know.”
She burped.
“Good girl.” I laid her back again so she could finish the bottle and kept babbling. “And how about his running into my sister at the grocery store the night we got back together? What if he’d gone to a different store? What if Stella hadn’t decided to pick up pork chops for dinner? What if her last patient hadn’t canceled and she’d gotten out of work an hour later? All that is luck, isn’t it? So maybe the universe really is on our side. Maybe Maren is right and everything happens the way it’s supposed to and I just need to wait and trust.” I sighed. “I really love him. So that’s what I’ll do.”
Nate came in about thirty minutes later. “Let me put the food in the oven to keep it warm, then I’ll get her to bed and make us some celebratory cocktails.”
“Okay.” I stood up with Paisley in my arms. “Want me to unpack something? A kitchen box?”
“Nope. Just relax.” He came from the kitchen into the family room and took his daughter from me, giving her a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll be right down.”
My stomach flipped over the way it always did when I saw him display affection for his daughter. Earlier, I’d watched him give her a bath in a real bathtub all on his own—I hadn’t even lifted a finger. All I could think of was the night she first arrived and he fainted.
Someday, I was going to get him to admit that.
“Night, peanut,” I called to the
chubby little dumpling he held against his chest.
While he was upstairs with her, I opened my laptop and returned some emails. I also called Coco and left her a message—I’d decided to turn down the job offer up north, but she was actually considering it. Apparently, Nick was interested in some restaurant properties in that area, so the move made sense for them. She and I were going to have lunch tomorrow and discuss my buying her out. It made me nervous, thinking about running a business all on my own, but excited, too.
When Nate came downstairs, I put my laptop and phone away. He switched on the monitor on his way to the kitchen. “Up for a martini?”
“Absolutely,” I said. “Want help in there?”
“Since when do I need help making cocktails?” he called. Next, I heard ice clinking into the metal shaker.
The family room and kitchen were open to each other, part of a new addition off the back of the old house. I loved Nate’s house. From the moment I saw it, I knew it was the right one for him. Beautiful old street, great neighborhood, kids riding bikes up and down the block, plenty of room in the house for him and Paisley, and even room to grow if he decided he wanted a bigger family.
I really hoped he did.
“Are you hungry?” he asked, shaking up the vodka and the ice.
“Yes.” I took off my heels and wiggled my toes. “I skipped lunch today.”
“Good, because I have a little treat for you before dinner.” A moment later, he brought me a drink and a little plate with two fortune cookies on it. He set both on the table.
I rolled my eyes. “Are you going to tease me about taking these things seriously again?”
“Not at all. I think you should take it very seriously.”
“No, you don’t. You just want to laugh at me.” I looked at them—one was half dipped in dark chocolate, the other was half-dipped in white. “Are these from The Peterboro?”
“Nope. I got them made especially for you. Did you know it’s our anniversary today?”
A funny little shiver moved through me. I looked at him, but his expression gave nothing away. “It is?”
Only You Page 25
