“You do, do you,” she said, her tone level and dangerous, and she was sitting back, folding her arms. “And that’s required? I’m not up to standard yet?”
“Mmm . . . close,” he said, looking her over critically. “Just need a few more . . . touches.”
“You are the most—” she started. She stopped, took a deep breath, and visibly calmed herself. “I’m reminding myself really hard right now,” she told him, “that you don’t call the person you love names. Because I’ve got so many words I want to use on you. Keep talking, though, and I might not be able to hold back.”
“Let’s see,” he said. “I’m thinking obnoxious. Arrogant. Presumptuous. How’m I doing?”
“Keep going,” she said, but she was starting to smile. “You’re getting warm.”
“All right, then,” he said. “Let’s narrow it down. How about if you just wore some jewelry? Kind of . . . brightened up a little?”
“I don’t like lots of jewelry, though,” she said. “It gets in my way. Earrings, that’s about it. You like jewelry so much, you wear it.”
“Hmm. I might just be doing that,” he said, and she looked even more startled. “One piece, then. How about that? I’m negotiating here, princess. I’m compromising. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to want in a life partner? Isn’t that one of the rules?”
“In a . . .” She was sitting up straighter, and her arms had fallen to her sides.
“Yeah.” He knew he was stalling, and he knew why. Because now that it was time, he was nervous. Hell, he was more than nervous. He was terrified.
Cowboy up.
He reached in his pocket, pulled out the box. “One piece,” he told her, opening it, turning it around so she could see it. “Please. If you’d wear this for me . . .” He swallowed. “It would mean a lot. It would mean just about everything.”
“Cal.” She was staring at it, then up at his face. “That’s . . .”
“Yep,” he said. “That is. I’m asking you to marry me in a diner. I’d have done it more fancy, but you know the Breakfast Spot’s the best restaurant in Paradise, and even I couldn’t really do it over bacon and eggs.”
He was rambling. Time to cut to the chase. “So, Zoe Santangelo,” he said, “I’m asking you to change that pretty name of yours. I’m telling you that I love you so much. I wish I could tell you how much, but I can’t figure out any good enough words to explain it. So I’m just asking you to marry me and live with me and love me back. I’m asking you to have my babies and help me raise them out there on the farm. I’m asking you to make some kids with me who’ll slide down the banisters and swing on a rope in the hayloft and be farm kids and hicks and jocks. The girls, too, because I hate to tell you this, but girls can be jocks. And, because they’re your kids,” he said, looking into her eyes, trying to tell her everything, to show her everything that his stupid tongue couldn’t say, “they’ll probably be brains as well. They could even be geeks. But that’s okay, because I love geeks.”
“How many kids are in this plan of yours?” she asked, and she was trembling a little, but still trying so hard to be businesslike. “Sounds like six. I’m twenty-nine.”
“I told you,” he said, “I’m good with compromising. I’m ready to negotiate here. I’m all right with two. But I’m holding out for two. You’ve got to give her an annoying brother to tease her and provoke her and stand up for her if anybody tries to mess with her. Our daughter’s going to need a brother.”
“Then,” she said, and those were definitely tears shining in her eyes now, “I guess we’d better give her one. But I’m not changing my name. At least professionally,” she amended. “Research, you know. Consulting.”
“Done,” he said promptly.
“What is this?” she asked with a shaky little laugh. “A business deal?”
“Nope,” he told her, and, finally, he reached for her hand, pulled the ring from the box. He lifted his eyebrows at her, got a smile, and slid that ring right onto her finger. The diamond winked in the shaft of summer sunlight that fell across the red-checked vinyl tablecloth, George Strait sang about loving somebody forever, and Cal knew that as always, old George had gotten it just exactly right.
“This isn’t a business deal,” he told her, his ring safely on her finger, right where it belonged. Right where it was going to stay. “This is the real deal.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As always, many people aided in the research for this book. Any errors or omissions, however, are my own. My sincere thanks go out to, in alphabetical order: Lisa Avila, Barbara Buchanan, Rick Dalessio, Bernie Druffel, Jake Druffel, Mary Guidry, Erika Iiams, James Nolting, Sam Nolting, and Wayne Stinnett, for their help with trucks, guns, farm life, campus life, military life, bad guys, good guys, fighting, driving in the Idaho winter, and hitting the ditch.
Thanks to my awesome critique group: Lisa Avila, Barbara Buchanan, Carol Chappell, Mary Guidry, Kathy Harward, and Bob Pryor, for telling me what I needed to hear even when I didn’t want to hear it.
Thanks, also, to my editors at Montlake Romance. To Maria Gomez for reaching out and taking a chance on me, and to Charlotte Herscher for guiding me toward the best book I could write.
And as ever, thanks to my husband, Rick Nolting, for keeping me fed, keeping me sane, reading the book first, and telling me to stop working and get some sleep.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rosalind James, a publishing industry veteran and former marketing executive, is the author of more than a dozen contemporary romance and romantic suspense novels, set both in the United States and New Zealand. Originally from North Idaho, she now lives in Berkeley, California, with a husband, a Labrador retriever named Charlie (yes, she named a character after her dog, but she swears she didn’t realize it until later), and three extremely spoiled, non-egg-laying bantam chickens.
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