by Kim Law
The smile he’d been trying to force dropped, and he let his arms hang at his sides. “Please, Jilly. You’ve got to hear me out.”
A lump settled in her throat. “I don’t have to do anything.”
She glanced around at everyone watching them. What a jerk thing to do.
“I was wrong,” Cal told her. “I was an idiot. And I don’t deserve to be forgiven.”
She said nothing.
“Come on, Jill.”
“Come on, what? Forgive you?” She bent and snatched the paper off the ground. “Because you . . . what? Handed me your damned company?”
He nodded, the move jerky and almost desperate.
“I didn’t want your company, Cal!” She shook the paper in the air. “Why would you do that?”
“It’s called a grand gesture,” he yelled back. “When you mess up as bad as I did, you have to make a grand gesture to get the woman back.”
“Who told you that?”
All eyes turned to Heather.
“What was I supposed to do?” Heather squeaked out. “He threatened to knock my door down if I didn’t let him in.”
Jill stared at her foster sister. “You have issues.”
Heather smiled then, and the ridiculous dimples that had probably gotten her far too much in her lifetime finally began to ease the pain in Jill’s heart.
“You’re too romantic, Heather.”
“I know. But he loves you, Jilly.”
“Well, he has yet to tell me that.”
Again, all eyes pivoted. This time to Cal. And that time, when he looked at her, he no longer seemed like a man fearful that his grand gesture was five seconds from being rebuked. He stood taller, and he nodded with confidence, and Jill saw in his eyes what she knew was in her heart.
“I love you, Jilly-Bean. And I’ll give you everything if you’ll just give me one more chance. All of me. All that I have.”
“I don’t want all you have. I just want you. I want us.”
“I want that, too, baby.”
She stared at him, wanting to call him over, but did they really have to do this in front of cameras? And then she remembered that Pete stood behind her, and she turned to the other man.
“I know what your first assignment is, Pete.”
“Yeah?” Pete stood at attention. “What can I do for you, boss?”
She nodded toward the other yard. “Get rid of them. All of them.” She looked at Cal. “Except for the idiot.”
“Consider it done.”
Pete jumped into action and, surprisingly, managed to herd everyone but the idiot out of hearing range, and as he did, Cal inched her way. She stood her ground, making him come to her, and when he finally reached her side, she lifted her brows in question.
“Come on, Jill. Are you seriously going to continue arguing with me about this? Haven’t we done enough arguing for one lifetime?”
“Maybe I want two lifetimes.”
A light lit behind his eyes. “I could consider that.” He took a step closer, and dipped his head to meet her eyes. “How’s the anger? Calming down yet?”
“You’re not seriously trying to finagle sex with me right now?”
He angled his head. “Is that an option?”
She blew out a breath, and looked over his shoulder. It was hard to hold on to outrage with the man she loved when he stood before her, begging for her forgiveness.
“Maybe,” she finally muttered, and he broke into a grin.
“Maybe?”
“Stop it.”
He reached for her hands. “I can’t stop it, Jilly. I love you. I want a life with you.”
“Did you really give your company to me?”
He nodded, and she shook her head.
“You can’t do that, Cal. You’ve worked too hard to build it. Plus, I have my own company.”
He inched a half foot closer. “And now you have my company and a third of your company. We’re going to combine them, and you’re going to continue building it.”
“But . . .” What was wrong with the man? And then something else occurred to her. “What about Rodney?” It had been Rodney’s business to begin with. He’d started it. “You can’t just give your company away without talking to your uncle first.”
Cal slid his thumb over her knuckles, and his eyes turned serious. “Rodney is fine with it. I promise you. And I did talk to him. I got to call him the other day, and he’s on board with the change one hundred percent. He’s happy about it, actually. And he’s already coming up with ideas for how he can be on the new show.”
Jill chuckled at Cal’s words, because he sounded exactly like his uncle. “And what about the show?” she asked softly. “They want two cohosts. Remember?”
She didn’t see how this could even work.
“We’re going to give them two hosts,” he told her. “I’ll still be a main part of the show, just in a slightly different format. You’re going to run the company, and I’m going to build custom pieces whenever you need them.”
“Your shop?” she murmured, recalling what Pete had said about Cal being in his shop. She hadn’t even thought about the workshop on his farm.
“Yes. And Heather and Trenton will be a part of things, too,” Cal added before she could ask. “They’re negotiating their contracts now. We’re going to incorporate the ranch into the show, as well. If you’re on board with that. I’m going to have cows and horses.”
She stared at him, unable to speak. He was going to have cows and horses?
“If you’ll have me, that is.” He smiled at her then, and squeezed her hands in his. “What do you say, Jilly? Will you have me? Think you can ever forgive my faults enough to marry me?”
“Marry you?” Everything was happening so fast.
“They’d prefer a married couple for the show,” he explained. And then he grinned at her visible outrage over the thought of that being the reason he’d asked her to marry him. “But I told them that our marriage had to be a part of it,” he assured her. “I brought it up first. They didn’t tell me.”
“It’s a darned good thing.”
“I know. I have learned a thing or two over the years.” He closed the remaining distance, and tilted her face up to his. “Tell me, baby. Tell me you love me. That you’ll do this with me. And that you’ll never ever leave me, no matter how many stupid things I do in the future.”
“I don’t get a stupid limit?”
He shook his head. “I’ve proven I can keep doing the same dumb things over and over, so no. You take the good with the bad.” He touched his lips to hers so lightly that she shouldn’t have even been able to feel it, but though she’d closed her eyes as he’d leaned in, she knew.
Her heart knew.
“Say yes,” he pleaded, and she opened her eyes and finally smiled at the man she loved. This was all she’d ever wanted.
“Yes.”
Acknowledgments
The funny thing about this new series is that it came about because of a bad experience with a contractor. A male contractor. Who had a team of males working for him. Who showed up to work at ten in the morning, took two-hour lunches, and left at three thirty in the afternoon. And during the hours that they actually were there? They stood around a lot. Doing nothing.
These people just about drove me crazy!
So, as I sat in our new house one day last year (about five weeks after our backyard-fence installation was supposed to have been completed) and I watched this team of male workers spend yet another day screwing around more than putting in legit work . . . I turned to Terri Osburn (a great author friend, who was visiting at the time—and whom this book is dedicated to!), and I said to her, “I’m going to write a series about an all-female construction crew someday. And those ladies are going to know how to get a job done!”
Thus . . . the Deep in the Heart series was born. And I have to say, I’m completely in love with these ladies. They’re tough, they take crap from no one, and though things might not alw
ays turn out the way they’d hoped . . . they know how to get a job done! So, thank you to that male contractor and to all those inept male workers. You inspired me!
(And for the record, The fence did turn out looking great. But still . . .)
About the Author
Photo © 2012 Amelia Moore
As a child, award-winning author Kim Law cultivated a love for chocolate, anything purple, and creative writing. She penned her debut work, The Gigantic Talking Raisin, in sixth grade and got hooked on the delights of creating stories. Before settling into the writing life, however, she earned a degree in mathematics and worked for years as a computer programmer. Now she’s living out her lifelong dream of writing romance novels. She’s won the Romance Writers of America Golden Heart Award, been a finalist for the prestigious RITA Award, and served in various positions for her local RWA chapter. A native of Kentucky, Kim lives with her husband and an assortment of animals in Middle Tennessee.
