by Nicole Helm
Carter took a deep breath. Though the little sparkle of hope was starting in his chest, he tried not to believe it. She was probably here to try to convince him they should have a secret relationship, and that everything would be fine. She never let anything go, so why would he believe things had changed? She’d come here to badger him until he gave in.
Well, she was damn well going to be disappointed.
“She talked about Gallagher’s and how proud she was that she’d built it. She talked about being disappointed in her children, and how I had all the markings of someone who could take over and make Gallagher’s something great.”
“She’s no doubt right on the money. You can go now.”
“I told her to shove it.”
Carter barked out a surprised laugh. Leave it to Dinah to surprise him even now. “You did not tell your grandmother to shove it.”
She smiled. He didn’t want to be charmed and tricked into smiling right back, but he could hardly help it.
“Okay, I didn’t tell her to shove it. But I did tell her I wouldn’t stop seeing you.”
“I think last night was a pretty good indicator—”
“That we love each other. And I do love Gallagher’s and it matters to me a lot. I’ll never want to cut ties with it, but between you and Kayla stepping away from me because of it, I realized it doesn’t matter as much as people. It matters. It matters a lot, but it’s not you and it’s not Kayla. It’s not friendship and it’s not love. I don’t want to be eighty-something and not feel satisfied about the relationships I have. Buildings can’t love you back, and the business can’t give you a heart.”
Carter felt frozen. He couldn’t breathe. She was saying all the right things. Exactly what he needed to hear, and he was afraid to trust it. Maybe it was a hallucination.
Dinah blew out a long breath and then stepped closer. Everything about her was dead serious. She wasn’t manically trying to bulldoze him. She wasn’t gripping onto this one idea, certain it would work.
She was calm and earnest. She was hopeful, but it wasn’t the same as sure.
“Loving you is more important to me than being director of operations. I don’t think I have to walk away from Gallagher’s, but I do have to change my plans. Which, as you may have guessed, isn’t easy for me to do. My whole life I have followed this one dream, this one goal, and it’s . . . it’s hard to let go.”
“You don’t have to.” He didn’t want her to. He didn’t want to be the thing—
“I do. I do because I realized I want you more than I want it. I want Gallagher’s, but I’m not going to be my grandmother. I don’t want to be Uncle Craig or my father. I don’t want to get to a certain place in my life and realize that because I followed this one thing, I screwed up everything else. I’d rather have everything else and realize I screwed up Gallagher’s.”
She still stood inches away from him, looking so imploring and beautiful. He wanted to cross the distance and fall at her feet, but . . . How could he be sure? How could he give in to this?
How can you not?
“That’s a pretty big decision. Are you sure?”
“Positive, actually. I’ve done the screw-up-everything-else part already. Nothing Gallagher’s can give me takes away that hurt or that pain, but when Gallagher’s was making me feel like crap, you and Kayla both gave me something that made me feel better. I choose what makes me feel better. I choose the people who give me love. I love you and I want you over anything else. I know if we’re together we can find a way to do the things we both love. Maybe not the way we planned, but some way.”
Carter didn’t know what to do with his hands, and he certainly didn’t know what to say. He was half convinced he was dreaming. “Are you sure?” he repeated.
“What would I have to do to prove it to you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t . . . I’m not sure I know what to do with something good happening or someone choosing me.”
“Well, you’re going to have to figure it out,” she said, stepping toward him. She placed her palm on his chest and it was only then he saw she was shaking a little bit. It was only then he realized she must be worried. But she met his gaze with a certainty and serenity he recognized; with that strength of purpose she always seemed to have, which he admired so much he wanted to emulate it.
“Because I choose you, Carter. I choose love, and you know when I make a choice I don’t waver. So I need you to do the same.”
He covered her hand with his and wrapped his fingers around it. Warm and strong, a force to be reckoned with that was for sure, and everything he wanted. Even if it hurt, having it was like . . . breathing. Necessary. “I love you, Dinah.”
“I love you too.”
He knew he had to say more. Words were important and powerful and she deserved them. But it was hard to well up the courage to look at her and let out the feelings that had always brought him loss.
Maybe more than that, he was afraid of the power the words would give her, when she already seemed to have so much over him, but he also knew how important this moment was. It would be part of the foundation they built the rest of their lives on. So he said what he was most scared to say.
“I was just working this morning and coming to the conclusion that I would give all this up for you if I had to. That as much as I love it, and as much as it’s a part of me, I’d rather have the people I love than the things I love. If I had to choose, I would always choose you.”
A tear dropped onto her cheek and she brushed it away with her free hand. “I choose you, too. I do.”
Carter had learned not to be certain. He’d learned to work with his head down, without hoping for the best or knowing that the best was around the corner. He’d learned not to think about the future and just focus on his present.
But with Dinah in front of him, choosing him, loving him, he knew he had to do something he hadn’t done in a very long time.
He had to believe. In her. In them. In the future.
“I know we’ll make it work. I’m sure of it.”
A few more tears spilled over her cheeks and she leaned into him. He wrapped his arm around her, holding her tight and close. Because she had given him that. The ability to believe again. The ability of certainty in her love. She had given him so many of the things he’d lost.
“Move in with me.”
She jerked away and looked up at him with wide eyes. “What?”
“Move in with me. We’ll start building that future.”
“That’s awfully sudden,” she said in a hushed tone, but her hand was still in his, her body still so close, her eyes searching for something on his face.
He laughed. “You start from the beginning, and it’s hardly sudden.”
“But you didn’t know me. I was just email.”
“It was the truth. I think it was your heart as much as I know it was mine.”
She looked at him in wonder and then she smiled. Wide and beautiful. “Yeah. I think you’re right. I think you’re right. Move in with you, huh?”
“Just think, you’ll be this close to Gallagher’s. Plus you can help me weed.”
“I can watch you weed from the porch.”
He laughed. “Good enough. That’ll be more than good enough.” He bent his mouth to hers. “Is that a yes?”
She swallowed, and there were more tears welling there, but he was certain—sure—they were happy tears.
“That’s a yes.”
So, he kissed her with all the hope and certainty and belief she’d given him.
And now . . .
Read on for a preview of
NEED YOU NOW
A Mile High Romance
by
Nicole Helm
Only the most resilient of souls could breathe new life into an all-
but-forgotten town nestled in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains—
but what they get in return might be worth the heartache it takes to
make it happen . . .
Gracely, Colorado, was once a booming mining town. No one
knows that better than Brandon Evans. His father’s company kept
the town thriving for years—until Brandon threatened to expose his
illegal practices and drove him away. Everyone blames Brandon
and his brother for turning Gracely into a ghost town—but the tenacious
residents cling to a long-held legend about the land’s healing
powers. And Brandon has a plan to spin that legend into reality . . .
Lilly Preston took a leap of faith and moved to Gracely a year ago
to save her nephew from an abusive situation. She would do anything
for him, even sacrifice her glamorous job. Reluctantly, the former
PR hot shot takes a job at the ruggedly handsome Evans
brothers’ Mile High Adventures, a company offering restorative
Rocky Mountain vacations.
Brandon thinks PR is pointless, and Lilly knows less than nothing
about the outdoors. Which is exactly why they need each other—in
ways neither ever imagined . . .
Available in June 2017 wherever books and ebooks are sold.
Chapter 1
Brandon Evans stood on the deck outside his office and stared at the world below him, a kaleidoscope of browns and greens and grays, all the way down the mountain until the rooftops of Gracely, Colorado, dotted the view.
Across the valley, up the other side of the jagged stone mountain, the deserted Evans Mining Corporation buildings stood like ghosts—haunting him and his family. A glaring reminder of the destruction he’d wrought while trying to do the right thing.
He wished it were a cloudy day so he couldn’t see the damn things, but he’d built the headquarters of his company where it was so he could remind himself what he was fighting for. What was right.
“Are you over there being broody?”
Brandon looked down at his mug of coffee balanced on the porch railing, not bothering to glance at his brother. He was brooding. He was being outvoted, and he didn’t like it. He took a sip of coffee, now cool from the chilled spring air.
He leveled a gaze at his brother, Will, and their business partner, Sam. This was his best I’m a leader look, and it usually worked.
Why the hell wasn’t it working today?
“Hiring a PR consultant goes against everything we’re trying to do.” Of course, he’d already explained that and he’d still been outvoted.
“We need help. The town isn’t going to learn to forgive us. We can do all the good in the world, but without someone actually making inroads—we’re not getting anywhere. We can’t even find a receptionist from Gracely. No one will acknowledge we exist.”
“We have Skeet.”
“Skeet is not a receptionist. He’s a-a-help me out here, Sam?”
“His name is Skeet,” Sam replied, as if that explained everything.
The grizzled old man who answered the phones for their outdoor adventure excursion company and refused to use a computer was a bit of a problem, but he worked cheap and he was a local. Brandon had been adamant about hiring only locals.
Of course, Skeet was a local that everyone shunned, and he seemed to speak only in grunts, but they’d yet to lose an interested customer.
That they knew of, as Will liked to point out.
Brandon set the cold coffee down on the railing of the deck. He needed to do something with his hands. He couldn’t sit still—he was too frustrated that they were standing around arguing instead of Sam and Will jumping to do his bidding.
Why had he thought to make them all equal partners?
“She’s local. Great experience with a firm in Denver. She can be just what we need to turn the tide.” Will ticked off the points they’d already been over, patient as ever.
“She’s recently local—not a native—and she can’t change our last name.”
“Well, even if we had lifelong townies working at Mile High that wouldn’t happen.”
“Can we cut the bullshit?” Sam interrupted. “You were outvoted, Brandon. She’s hired. Now I’ve got to go.”
“You don’t have a group to guide until two.”
Sam was already inside the cabin that acted as their office, the words probably never reaching him. Apparently his time-around-other-humans allotment was up for the morning. Not that shocking. The fact that they’d lured him from his hermit mountain cabin before a guided hike was unusual.
Brandon turned his stare to his brother. They were twins. Born five minutes apart, but the five minutes had always felt like years. He was a typical older brother, and any time Sam sided with Will, Brandon couldn’t help but get his nose a little out of joint.
He was the responsible, business-minded one, not the in-for-a-good-time playboy. They should listen to him regardless, he thought. Brandon had spearheaded Mile High Adventures. It was his baby, his penance, his hope of offering Gracely some healing in the wake of his father’s mess. The fact that Will and Sam sometimes disagreed with him about the best way to do that filled him with a dark energy, and he needed to do something physical to burn it off.
“Go chop some wood. Build a birdhouse. Climb a mountain for all I care. She’ll be here at ten. Be back by then,” Will ordered.
“You know I’d just as soon throat punch you as do what you tell me to do.”
Will grinned. “Oh, brother, if I kept my mouth shut every time you wanted to throat punch me, I’d never speak.”
“Uh-huh.”
Will’s expression went grave, which was always a bad sign. They both dealt with weighty things and emotion differently—Brandon acted like a dick and Will acted like nothing mattered. If Will was acting like something was important . . .
Well, shit.
“Don’t think we don’t take it seriously,” Will said, far too quietly for Brandon’s comfort. “Trust, every once in a while, that we know as much or more than you.”
“My ass,” Brandon grumbled, feeling at least a little ashamed.
“She’ll be here at ten. I have that spring break group at ten thirty, and you, lucky man, don’t have anything on your plate today. Which means you get to be in charge of paper—”
“Don’t say it.”
“—work and orientation!” Will concluded all too jovially.
“I could probably throw you off the mountain and no one would ask any questions.”
“Ah, but then who would take the bachelorette parties since you and Sam refuse?” Will clapped him on the shoulder. “You’ll like her. She’s got that business-tunnel-vision thing down that you do so well.”
Brandon took a page out of Skeet’s book and merely grunted, which Will—thank god—took as a cue to leave.
Regardless of whether or not he’d like this Lilly Preston, Brandon didn’t see the usefulness in hiring a PR consultant. What was that going to accomplish when the town already hated them?
If even Will’s personality couldn’t win people over, they were toast in that department. The only thing that was going to sway people’s minds was an economically booming town. Mile High had a long way to go to make Gracely boom. And they needed the town’s help.
Hiring someone who had only cursory knowledge of Gracely lore, who couldn’t possibly understand what they were trying to do, wasn’t the answer. Worse, it reeked of something his father would have done when he was trying to hide all the shady business practices he’d instituted at Evans Mining.
Brandon glanced back over at the empty buildings. If he wanted to, he could will away the memories, the images in his mind. The pristine hallways, the steady buzz of phones and conversation. How much he’d wanted that to be his one day.
But then he’d told his father he knew what was going on, and if Dad didn’t change, Brandon would have no choice but to go to the authorities.
The fallout had been the Evans Mining headquarters leaving Gracely after more than a century of being the heart of the town, his fat
her’s subsequent heart attack and death, Mom shutting them out, and everything about his life as the golden child and heir apparent to the corporation imploding before his very eyes.
A lot of consequences for the one tiny domino he’d flicked when his conscience couldn’t take the possible outcomes of his father’s shady business practices.
So much work to do to make it right. He forced his gaze away from those buildings to the mountains all around him. He took a deep breath of the thin air scented with heavy pine. He rubbed his palms over the rough wood of the deck railing.
It was his center—these mountains, this place. He believed he could bring this town back to life not just because he owed it to the residents who’d treated him like a king growing up, but because there was something . . . elemental about these mountains, this sky, the river tributaries, and the animals that lived within it all.
Untouched, ethereal, and while he didn’t exactly believe in the magic and ghostly legends of Gracely’s healing power, he did believe in these mountains and this air. He was going to give his all to fix the damage he’d caused, and he was going to give his all to making Mile High Adventures everything it could be.
So, he’d put up with this unwanted PR woman for the few weeks it would take to prove that Will and Sam were wrong. Once they admitted he was right, they could move on to the next thing, and the next thing, until they got exactly what they wanted.
* * *
Lilly took a deep, cleansing breath of the mountain air. The altitude was much higher up here than in the little valley Gracely was nestled into, but even aside from that, the office of Mile High Adventures was breathtaking.
It was like something out of a brochure—which should make her job easier. A cabin nestled into the side of a mountain; all dark logs and green trimmed roof, with a snow-peaked top of a mountain settled right behind to complete the look of cozy mountain getaway. The porches were almost as big as the cabin itself. She’d suggest some colorful deck chairs, a few fire pits to complete the look, but it took no imagination at all to picture groups of people and mugs of hot chocolate and colorful plaid blankets.
