A Camden Family Wedding

by Victoria Pade

  So she stepped back into the apartment with Charlie and let Dane and Ralph in, closing the door behind them.

  “You can put him down,” she said with a nod at Ralph as she set Charlie on the floor and went to the kitchen to get the dogs a bowl of water and some treats.

  “What’s going on?” she asked then, trying to sound matter-of-fact. Trying to conceal that she’d just had the worst day she could ever remember having, and was now desperately worried that he was going to suggest what David had suggested when she’d broken up with him—that while she was looking for a husband the two of them could become friends with benefits. Turning down that idea with David had been easy. She wasn’t sure she could turn anything down with Dane....

  “What’s going on,” he parroted, sitting on the arm of her sofa, “is something big.”

  “Did the shelter burn down after I left?” she asked because the first thing she couldn’t figure out was why the dogs were with him.

  He laughed even as his brow beetled in confusion of his own. “No, the shelter didn’t burn down.”

  “I just don’t understand why you’re here, let alone how you got Charlie and Ralph....”

  Dane’s perplexity disappeared and only a smile remained. “I know you aren’t a big sports enthusiast but even so, you must know how sometimes—let’s say in a big football game—one team can be winning because the other team isn’t doing anything right, and the end just seems like a given. And then something happens—an unbelievable pass or intercept or something—and all of a sudden everything turns around. Completely around—”

  “Sure, I’ve heard of that.” Which still didn’t explain the dogs...

  “Well, that happened to me today,” Dane said.

  Concern for him overruled her own anxieties. “Were you in an accident or something? Is your family okay—the wedding wasn’t too much for your grandmother or her groom, was it?”

  He laughed again. “Wow, you’re really going to the dark side, aren’t you? The animal shelter burning down, me being in an accident, GiGi or Jonah dropping from too much wedding excitement....”

  Dark and dismal—that was how she’d felt all day, so Vonni thought that it followed that she’d be expecting the worst of this visit. But she couldn’t say that so she said, “I’m just trying to understand....”

  “What happened to me today was that you left this morning.”

  “And that was an unbelievable pass or an intercept or something?”

  “It was. Because it turned things around for me and made me realize that you are the game changer for me.”

  Vonni had kept her distance, remaining standing just outside of her kitchen. But she wasn’t sure she was hearing correctly, and there were still too many warring emotions inside of her making her dizzy. She thought she’d better sit down. So she went to the easy chair across from the sofa.

  “Before you, Vonni,” Dane went on, “I thought I knew what I wanted. I thought I had it all figured out, all under control. I honestly didn’t want any more of family life. And to tell you the truth, every Sunday dinner at GiGi’s brought it home to me—I’d be there with everybody, doing the family thing all over again—enjoying it—but still, when it was over, I liked getting back to my nice quiet house, doing whatever I pleased, answering to no one but myself. It seemed like the perfect balance—all the family and company I wanted when I was with everybody else, peace and quiet when I left. But today...” He shook his head.

  “Today something happened that’s never happened before. It was like some piece of me was missing without you there. I might as well have gone without pants on or something. And that got me to thinking about how other things aren’t the same with you, either—”

  He talked about not feeling the way he had in the past about having someone else in his house, in his bed, and how that had led him to think about doing so many other things with her.

  “Here’s the dumbest-sounding thing I’m ever going to say to you,” he said then. “All the things I thought I never wanted to do again, I just didn’t want to do without you. Even though I didn’t know you. Because now that I do know you, it changes the game. It changes everything.”

  He got up from the arm of the chair and crossed to her, hunkering down on his heels in front of her and taking her hands in his. “When I do things with you, when I think of having things with you—like kids—it’s like nothing I ever felt before. And the reason is—and this seems pretty strange to say at my age—while I’ve cared about other women and even been in deep with a few of them, I’ve never loved anyone else. But I do love you.”

  He called Charlie over to them and Ralph came along.

  “Sorry, Big R, but this time I only need your buddy,” he told the scruffy black-and-brown mutt as he picked up the schnauzer.

  “Big R?” Vonni said.

  “He thinks he’s huge,” Dane said with a laugh before he set Charlie in her lap and confused her yet again.

  Then he pointed out something she hadn’t noticed before. A gold ring set with garnets that Charlie’s collar was hooked through.

  “So this is what I did,” he said then. “I weighed what was more likely to convince you—diamonds or dogs—and I decided to go with dogs. So the ring is only a space holder that I borrowed from my grandmother until I can get one of your own, and I went to the shelter and told them I needed dogs—Charlie for you and Ralph for me so you’ll see that I am willing to make commitments to you in every way you want.”

  “And they just let you take my dog?”

  “They made me leave my driver’s license in case I was lying and trying to steal old One-Eyed Charlie out from under you, but here I am with these two to let you know that whatever you want, I want, too. That I’m all-in, Vonni. And that if you and Charlie will have me and Ralph, I’d like it if you’d marry me....”

  “You’re the guy who was never—ever—getting married,” Vonni said dimly because too much had come at her at once and her head was spinning.

  “I was that guy. I’m not anymore—”

  “In just one day?” Vonni said, her skepticism sounding in her voice.

  “It didn’t even take that long for me to realize that now I’m just a guy who met the one person he wants to be with for the rest of his life and is willing to do whatever it takes to get that.”

  “Dogs, marriage, kids—those are lifetime commitments, Dane,” she said quietly. “They aren’t just...concessions you make. I want those things, but I want them with someone who wants them, too. For real, not just because he feels forced into it or even because there’s some novelty to it for the moment. I won’t always be new to you, and going to school programs and soccer games with me will eventually just be going to school programs and soccer games. If you’ve had your fill of family life, won’t you reach that saturation point again and just want out?”

  “No, I won’t. Because I thought family life would be family life no matter what, and that I was done with it. What I didn’t know was that when you find that one person you want to actually have a life with, a family of your own with, it all feels different. It all feels as if it’s the first time it’s ever happened to anyone. The thought of marrying and compromising and living with someone who isn’t you still doesn’t appeal to me. But I can’t stand the thought of going back to my own house tonight without you. The thought of having kids, if you aren’t their mother, isn’t what I want. But I do want kids with you—”

  Vonni shook her head slowly, still doubting this. Still doubting him.

  But Dane didn’t waver. He took the ring off Charlie’s collar, let Charlie jump down from Vonni’s lap and rested his elbows on her knees.

  “You want a house and a dog and marriage and kids,” he said then. “You’ve always known that and have been looking for someone who will want it, too. I didn’t want that stuff until I met you. Now I
only want it with you. We didn’t come to it from the same angle, Vonni, but we both came to it—”

  Then something else seemed to strike him and he veered back a little and sobered a lot.

  “Unless... Wow. Am I doing what you said you’ve done before? Am I just figuring that because I want you, you must want me, too? And you don’t....”

  That made Vonni laugh. Wryly, but laugh just the same. And for some reason she didn’t understand it also made her eyes fill with tears again today.

  “I do want you. But—”

  “Should I have gone with the diamonds and not the dogs?” he half joked.

  “I’m just afraid that when the bloom wears off—”

  “It isn’t a bloom, Vonni. I love you. Deep down. With all my heart. Believe me when I tell you that it isn’t some passing thing that will wear off. It’s not an infatuation. I know when I’ve found the one person on this planet who I was meant to be with, who I was meant to do these things with. I want you to be my wife. I want to go through the rest of my life with you by my side. I want you to know that you’re right—it is possible for two people to find each other, make a life together, build on it and live happily ever after because that’s what we do to prove it.”

  Vonni had to think about all of that.

  She was not only suddenly being offered everything she’d ever wanted, but by a man she wanted more than any man she’d ever known.

  It seemed too good to be true, and that terrified her.

  In the past she’d let herself believe that the man she was with would come around to wanting marriage and family. She’d banked on him changing his mind.

  And now that one was right here in front of her, swearing to her that he had, she didn’t know if she could trust it....

  She’d already learned well that she didn’t have the power to change a man’s mind. That regardless of what she wanted or what she did or how long she waited, she couldn’t make it happen.

  But she’d left Dane this morning. She hadn’t tried to convince him of anything. She hadn’t tried to prove anything or open his eyes to anything.

  And he’d come to all these conclusions himself. This was his idea. His plan. His proposal.

  Complete with dogs....

  She’d refused to let herself hope for more from him this morning. But had she turned so jaded that she couldn’t believe that he could come to see how good they were together, all that they could have together, on his own?

  Or was she fooling herself again by allowing herself to believe things she shouldn’t just because she wanted to?

  She raised a hand to his cheek, laying the backs of her fingers to it. Trying so hard to know...

  And as she looked at that handsome face, into the oh-so-blue eyes of this man whom she suddenly admitted to herself she loved beyond anything she’d ever thought possible, it occurred to her that this was Dane. That what had developed between them had come naturally, without pretense or plan or plot or smokescreens on either of their parts. She’d been herself with him. And he’d been himself.

  And out of that had come this connection without any attempt to make a connection.

  It struck her then that maybe that made what they had more real at its root.

  And that maybe, without any subterfuge to muddle it, that was why it had been able to grow and blossom so quickly.

  Why she could trust it.

  And trust this straightforward man she didn’t feel complete without.

  This person who listened to her and cared what she thought. This person who looked out for her and made her feel valued and respected and appreciated.

  This person who—when her eyes met his in a crowded room—made her feel like she was the most important, most special woman there.

  And little by little she began to think that maybe—finally—she really had found someone who felt about her what she felt about him.

  Someone who could recognize what they could have together the way she did.

  Someone who could want what she wanted when he saw it through her.

  Even if it meant a very big change for him....

  “You’re sure....” she heard herself whisper.

  “I’m so sure that I’m going to tell you to have that lawyer who hates all Camdens hammer out a prenuptial agreement when he hammers out the business contract, too—”

  “The marriage proposal doesn’t cancel out the job offer?”

  He laughed. “It’s a family business, and I may not mix business and pleasure, but making you family is the way around that. And I’m so sure I want you to be my family that I’m not leaving here tonight without you—and not just because Mrs. Dunwilly won’t let you keep the dogs here. It’s because I just plain can’t leave here without you. I’m so sure that I’m going to call your Realtor tomorrow and have him put my condo on the market because I know that when you called my place fancy you were being nice to avoid saying that you hate it—”

  Vonni laughed at the fact that he knew her so well that he’d seen through that, too. It also made the tears fall.

  Tears he brushed away with gentle hands.

  “I’m so sure,” he went on, “that I’m going to cover any money lost by pulling out of that offer you made on that little cracker box of a house because we’ll need a much bigger one. I’m so sure,” he said, his voice getting very quiet and deep, “that you can tell me how and when and where you want to get married and no matter what, I’ll make it happen. Because I’m sure that I love you, Vonni, and that I don’t want to go another hour without you.”

  “I love you, too,” Vonni finally confessed, turning her hand over to cup her palm to his chiseled cheek.

  “Does that mean that you’ll marry me?”

  “It does,” she said.

  The ring he slipped on her finger then was a cocktail ring but it didn’t matter to Vonni. Nothing mattered to her as Dane got to his feet, pulled her to hers and kissed her then, cradling her face between both of his big hands, cherishing her.

  And as Vonni gave herself over to that kiss, to that man, to the future she’d just agreed to have with him, she silently apologized to the spirit of her grandfather, hoping he would feel that the wrong done to him years ago could just be water under the bridge.

  The bridge that had brought her Dane.

  And the fulfillment—finally—of everything she’d always wanted.

  * * * * *

  Be sure not to miss other books in

  USA TODAY bestselling author

  Victoria Pade’s series,

  THE CAMDENS OF COLORADO:

  CORNER-OFFICE COURTSHIP

  A BABY IN THE BARGAIN

  IT’S A BOY!

  Available from Harlequin Special Edition!

  Keep reading for an excerpt from ONE NIGHT WITH THE BOSS by Teresa Southwick.

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  Chapter One

  Olivia Lawson would rather walk naked in a hailstorm than say what she had to say to her boss.

  Again.

  She hesitated outside his office—which also happened to be in hi
s house, because it was a really big house. Brady O’Keefe owned and headed an internet conglomerate and, except for her, all of his one hundred plus employees worked remotely from leased office spaces in L.A., Chicago, New York and Austin. He managed everything effortlessly from his six-thousand-square-foot command center in a very exclusive, very upscale housing development in Blackwater Lake, Montana.

  Her parents still lived in the house where she’d grown up, several doors down from the O’Keefes. She’d known Brady since they were kids and had worked as his administrative assistant for the last five years. Delivering the news that the professional relationship was about to end wouldn’t be easy. She knew that because she’d tried to do it twice before.

  As much as she loved her job, and dare she say it, cared for her boss, she had to make a break. She saw Brady not as her boss, but as a man. A handsome, charming, intelligent man. The problem was, he hadn’t noticed her as a woman. As far as Brady was concerned she could be a piece of office furniture. She was as necessary as a computer, desk or stapler. The reality had finally hit her that this wasn’t going to change and unless she wanted to end up a spinster with too many cats, she had to leave.

  His door was open, so she knocked on the frame of the doorway separating their offices and heard the usual grunt that meant she should come in. He was at the familiar spot behind his L-shaped desk, staring at the computer screen. His back was to her and, as always, he didn’t look up.

  “Brady, I need to talk to you.” His focus was extraordinary and normally she was awed by it. Not today. “There’s a fire in the kitchen and I called nine-one-one.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  In the spirit of today, this was the first day of the rest of her life; today was the day she was going to tell him that everything was going to change. But she couldn’t do that until he was listening. Time to get creative.