Nothing Personal (The Kincaids)

by James, Rosalind

  Her heart swelled a little more at that, and she squeezed his hand. “You’re so tired too. I’ll go, and let your dad and Alyssa come back and sit with you.”

  “Wait,” he said. “Something I have to say.”

  “Alec. It can wait.”

  “No,” he said. “It can’t. Because there’s one thing I’ve always known, and I need to tell you what it is.”

  “All right. What is it?” She smoothed his dark hair back with a gentle hand.

  “I’ve always known I was the smartest person in the room.”

  “Oh.” That wasn’t what she had expected. Not at all. But he was still so beat up, and so doped up, too. There’d be plenty of time to talk later.

  He wasn’t done, though. “And now I know I’m not, but it doesn’t matter. Know why?”

  “No, why?” she asked, and her heart had begun to pound.

  “Because,” he said, “I’m smart enough to love the smartest person in the room.”

  She started to lean over him, was brought up short by a sharp protest from her ribs, and contented herself with stroking her fingers over the single unmarked patch of skin near his ear.

  “Well, that’s good,” she said with a smile, letting all the tenderness show. No doubts, no fears. Not anymore, and never again. “Know why?”

  “No, why?” He smiled back at her, even though she could tell that hurt too.

  She looked into his one undamaged dark blue eye, the only familiar feature in his wreck of a face, and surrendered the last remnants of a heart that had long since been his.

  “Because,” she told him, “she’s smart enough to love you right back.”

  Epilogue

  It was six weeks later, and his cast was off, his ribs were mostly healed, and they were in Idaho. After a stop in Chico for Gabe and Mira’s wedding, of course, because Alec was the best man.

  Standing up with his brother, seeing the look in his eyes as Mira walked down the aisle on her father’s arm, had moved Alec in a way he would have been astonished by just a year earlier, when he’d seen the two of them meet for the first time. He watched Gabe take Mira’s hand and, as always, felt what his twin was feeling. But it was so much more this time, because he recognized the emotion, and he welcomed it.

  It was a bit of Old Home Week all the way around, because so many of the America Alive cast members were there to celebrate with them. When the bride and groom stepped out for their first waltz to Hank and Zara singing one of their earliest hits, Alec didn’t think there was a dry eye in the house.

  “Good Night, Irene” might have been a bit of an incongruity, the song that had typically meant the end of an evening, not the beginning of a life together. But it was right, Gabe reminded Alec and a few of the others afterwards, because it had been their very first dance together.

  “And,” he said, Mira’s hand in his, “the night I knew for sure that I was going to marry her.”

  “Then?” she protested, her eyes shining with laughter and love. “You’d barely kissed me.”

  “You don’t have to touch the stove,” Gabe said with a sly glance at his brother, “to know that it’s hot.”

  Alec looked for Rae, because he needed to dance with her, as best he could with all his tender parts. She was with his mother and sister, and Joe too, and he smiled to see it. Joe took a while to get there, but when he was in, he was all in. No more distance. There were still going to be three partners, but one of them was going to be Rae.

  “This is a fine day.”

  He turned to look into the wise eyes of Stanley Douglas. Standing, of course, with Alec’s father. They’d taken to each other immediately, because they were two of a kind. Same size, same build. Same way of seeing right through the barriers to what lay beneath.

  “It is,” Alec agreed. “They’re good together.”

  “Yes, they are,” Stanley said. “And they aren’t the only ones.” He nodded in Rae’s direction, exchanged a speaking look with Dave. “Looks to me like the player’s met his match.”

  “I’d try to deny it,” Alec said, “but I’m afraid it’s a lost cause. My playing days are over. Get your trading cards now, I guess, because they’re about to become collectibles.”

  The rumble of Stanley’s laugh filled their corner of the big hall. “This time, son, I think you’ve got it right.”

  That had been a good time all the way around, especially after getting the news that Brandon had given up his buyer. Which wasn’t the Chinese at all, but a competitor who, Ron had assured Alec, was going to find his life made infinitely less comfortable.

  “Let’s just say,” Ron said, “that he’s not going to be able to afford any more transactions like that, once the SEC gets through with him.” And Alec reminded himself once again never to cross Ron. Power moved in mysterious ways, and so did Ron.

  He’d have been a lot more worried about Brandon, even though Desiree had been right about the animal forensics lab, if it hadn’t been for that other mistake.

  “The lesson we take from this,” he had told his family around the dinner table, its leaves expanded to fit its rapidly growing numbers, “is that stealing’s one thing, and you might even get away with murder. But never, ever try to cheat the IRS.”

  “What he got for the code,” Joe guessed.

  “Not just that. Turns out he’s been sheltering income for years, as soon as he started making any. They were already checking into him, and that criminal investigation, and a little work in the background by Ron Jacobs too, took it all up a notch. Seems Brandon started out at the screaming edge of that line, and eventually crossed right over it to the tune of quite a few millions that, I’m told, are likely to translate into some fairly good jail time.”

  “Well, the IRS got Al Capone in the end, when nobody else could,” Desiree said. “So I guess Brandon was small potatoes.”

  Alec’s return to work had gone slowly, for all that. The pain was one thing, but the lingering effects of the concussion had made him forgetful, slowed his thought processes. He’d been forced to take a big, if temporary, step back, let Desiree and Joe handle things. Which they’d done, of course, including hiring Michael again. The apology had helped with that, and the raise had helped more.

  So that was all good, and Alec was eager to get back into it, especially now that the new software was in the midst of its testing phase, and the beta users were every bit as excited as he’d thought they would be. The buzz had begun in earnest, and it was only going to get bigger and better, because he already had ideas about the second generation. But he was going to be implementing those ideas with some differences, he’d already decided. It was fine to have life be all about work when there wasn’t anything in the world you’d rather do, but he wasn’t there anymore, and neither was Rae.

  And now they were in Idaho, taking another week after the wedding for themselves. Two days to drive from Chico to Boise, staying in motels and eating in diners with antlers on the wall, then they’d started up the twists and turns of Highway 95 through the mountains and the forests, beside wide rivers and tumbling creeks, into the rolling hills and farms of the Palouse. They’d taken turns driving, because he was still sore, and she was still scared. The accident had stirred up too many old memories.

  “You don’t have to do this,” he’d told her at the very beginning, when her own ribs had healed enough for her to get behind the wheel. “At least not right now. We can hire somebody to drive me until I can manage it again. And to drive you too. Or just stay out of a car altogether until you’re ready.”

  “I’m not going to be crippled by that fear. I need to be able to ride in a car, and I need to be able to drive a car, too. And I’m going to.” Her knuckles showed white against the wheel of her little clown car, which he’d squeezed into with a few grimaces, but she’d felt more comfortable in it for her first time than in his new Mercedes.

  “You’re allowed to have some fears,” he said. “You don’t have to overcome everything.”

  “
Yes,” she said. “I do. I need to learn to sit in the back seat, too. But if you’ll sit with me while I do it all, that’ll help. Just . . . be there.”

  “Always,” he promised. And he was, and it helped. She was shaking and white that entire first time, but she did it, and she was doing this too. Driving, and sitting beside him while he drove. It got easier every day, and on the way home, she’d already told him, she was going to try the back seat.

  But right now, it was the highway and the back roads out of Moscow, past the site of the show, and on to the campground in the cedars.

  “Are you sure?” she’d asked doubtfully in the University Inn that morning. “Camping? I know you brought all the stuff, but are you sure you’re strong enough? Do you even know how?”

  He had to laugh at that. “If there’s one thing I know how to do by now, it’s camp. You saw the show. And besides, you know, I was a Boy Scout. In fact,” he said with a little embarrassment, “I’m an Eagle Scout. I have merit badges.”

  That made her laugh. She looked at him grinning back at her, and laughed some more. “I’m going to have to get your mom to show me a picture,” she decided. “How come I never read that in an interview?”

  “Secrets,” he said, “deep and dark. And, alas, secret no longer. I can build a fire. I can pitch a tent. I can tie knots. And I want to do it. I needed to come back here where this whole thing started, because I feel like it’s been a . . .” He made a circular motion with his hand.

  “A journey,” she guessed.

  “Yeah. A journey. And it feels like the journey should end with camping.”

  So they camped. He pitched the tent, and he built the fire, and he cooked her a Boy Scout special. A hamburger patty, sliced potatoes and carrots and mushrooms and onions, seasoned with salt and pepper and wrapped in layers of foil, laid on the grill over the fire to cook, eaten off paper plates.

  But they did have wine, because he wasn’t that much of a Boy Scout. And later, they climbed into the sleeping bags they’d zipped together, and made the kind of love they’d nicknamed “porcupine sex,” because, like porcupines, they did it very, very carefully.

  “I need you to hurry up and heal.” She was curled against him, her hand on his chest, kissing his shoulder. “Because I need to be on the bottom again.”

  He smiled at that, turned his head and kissed her cheek. “Well, I’ve got my ribs on the special Advanced Mending Plan, because believe me, I need you to be on the bottom too. Don’t worry. I’ll be doing you on the conference table again before you know it.”

  “Mmm. Will it be as much fun, though, now that everyone knows about us? Now that we don’t have to be so discreet about it?”

  “Well,” he considered, “I guess we could let people watch, if you need the thrill.” Which made her laugh and hit him, gently, of course, and he laughed too, and held her, and they fell asleep in their sleeping bag, only the netting between them and the clear, star-dotted North Idaho sky.

  She slept all the way past seven, and by the time she was dressed and had joined him at the picnic table for the mug of coffee he handed her, he’d already done a morning’s work.

  “Sit.” He waved his spatula at one of the folding chairs by the fire, which he already had going against the morning chill, though he was using the stove this time around. “And prepare for Meal Two out of Two that I know how to cook.”

  “What is it? Eggs?”

  “Nope. Rainbow trout.” He flipped the crispy fillets onto a plate, added one of the cinnamon rolls they’d bought the day before, and handed the plate to her. “Breakfast, courtesy of yours truly, bona fide outdoorsman. Took the bones out for you and everything.”

  She seemed to notice the fly rod leaning against the picnic table for the first time. “Did you catch these?”

  “I’m not sure your amazement is very flattering. I may not have many skills, but I do know how to write code, and chop wood, and build a fence, and fish for trout. I even know how to cook them.”

  “And run a company,” she pointed out.

  “And run a company,” he agreed with a smile. “And love you. There you go. My skill set.”

  “Well, if it’s going to be as limited as that,” she said, and there was color in her cheeks now, “it’s a good thing you do all those things so well.”

  She looked down, took a sip of coffee, set her mug down on the ground and took a stab at the trout with her fork. Her eyes widened as she took a bite. “Wow. It’s really good.”

  “Fresh does make a difference. And that fish was swimming an hour ago.”

  “I’m impressed. You must be trying to soften me up or something.”

  “Could be.” He sat on the bench, leaned back against the wooden table, and looked at her. Sitting in her folding canvas chair and eating the fish he’d caught for her, her auburn curls in wild disarray, not a speck of makeup on her honey-colored skin, one of his flannel shirts pulled over her T-shirt against the morning chill. And he’d never seen anyone who looked better to him.

  “I wanted to do this differently,” he said.

  “No,” she protested. “It’s good.”

  “I mean, this. I wanted to wait until we were home again. I wanted to take you on a helicopter ride over the Napa Valley, and have music and champagne, and have the ring bought. I wanted to give you the romance, and the memory. I had a whole plan. But then, you’ve been messing with my plans since the day I lost my place in line to pick up your Tic-Tacs.”

  She didn’t seem to have heard that. She was staring at him, her fork in the air, the fish forgotten.

  “But I need to do it now,” he said. “So I’m going to. Desiree, I love you. And I know I’m not a hero, although I wish I could be that for you, because you deserve a hero. I’m sure you could look around and find a better man, someone who’s always done right, someone with steel in his soul to match yours. But I promise you this. Nobody is ever going to admire you more than I do. Nobody is ever going to be there for you the way I will. And nobody is ever going to love you more. At those things, I’m the best, and I always will be.”

  “Oh. Alec.” She’d set her fork down, and her nose was getting red, and her curls were a mess, and he loved her so much his heart hurt with it.

  “There’s nobody better,” she told him. “There’s no better man. You risked your life for me, and if that’s not a hero, I don’t know what is. You’re the man I want. It’s you. It was always you.”

  “Then I need to ask you.” He was choking up too, but it didn’t matter, not anymore. “I need to ask you to marry me, and work with me, and have my babies, and help me make someplace beautiful to come home to, someplace with you in it. Because I need to give you a good life. And I need you with me, because if I don’t have you, my own life won’t be any good at all.”

  She was smiling back at him, and her heart and soul were in that smile, offered to him along with all her strength and all her courage, and he knew that he’d be spending the rest of his life trying to make hers better. Trying to make it beautiful.

  “Well, then,” she said, and he could see her trying for her usual brisk tone, but it wasn’t working too well, because her voice was trembling.

  “If you need to ask me,” she managed to say, “I guess you’d better go ahead and do it. Because I love you too. And I need—I need so much. I need so much to say yes.”

  Links

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  Find out what’s new at the ROSALIND JAMES WEBSITE.

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  Want to tell me what you liked, or what I got wrong? I’d love to hear! You can email me at Rosalind@rosalindjames.com

  Also by Rosalind James:

  THE KINCAIDS series:

  Book One (Mira and Gabe’s story): WELCOME TO PARADISE

  Book Two (Desir
ee and Alec’s story): NOTHING PERSONAL

  The ESCAPE TO NEW ZEALAND series:

  Book One (Hannah and Drew’s story): JUST THIS ONCE

  Book Two (Kate and Koti’s story): JUST GOOD FRIENDS

  Book Three (Jenna and Finn’s story): JUST FOR NOW

  Book Four (Emma and Nic’s story): JUST FOR FUN

  Book Five (Ally and Nate/Kristen and Liam’s stories): JUST MY LUCK

  Acknowledgments

  Many people assisted in the research for this book. However, any errors or omissions are my own. My sincere thanks to (in alphabetical order):

  Computer security and software applications: Carol Chappell, Systems Analyst, California Judicial Council; Dave Gilbert; Steve Pryor, Verity Systems; David Smith; Kevin Smith.

  Fashion: Erika Iiams, Department of Family and Consumer Sciences, University of Idaho

  Legal issues: The Hon. Barbara Buchanan

  Mercedes-Benz mechanical issues and safety: Kris Klein, Mercedes-Benz of Oakland; John Wansick, Fairmount Auto Service

  San Francisco real estate: Jeffrey Marples, Managing Broker, Spinnaker Real Estate Group

  As always, my heartfelt thanks to my awesome critique group: Barbara Buchanan, Carol Chappell, Anne Forell, and Bob Pryor.

  And, of course, to my husband, Rick Nolting, for reading what I write, and for not being embarrassed about being married to a romance novelist.

  Cover design by Robin Ludwig Design Inc., http://www.gobookcoverdesign.com/