by Nicole Helm
He handed off the first bundle as smoothly as if he’d had experience with twins himself. When he made an attempt to hand the second baby to Brandon, Lilly—despite her exhaustion—was having none of it.
“If you do not give me one of my babies, you will be barred from this hospital room, Will Evans.”
“Mommy’s such a meanie,” he whispered to the boy, Aiden Skeet—good Lord, Lilly must have really lost her mind—Evans. The girl, Grace Phoebe Evans, was dutifully handed off to Brandon.
The parents stared, rapt, at their little charges, only a few weeks early and in perfect health. Lilly really was Wonder Woman.
“We’ll be back tomorrow. Text whatever you need me to bring,” Will offered, taking Tori’s hand in his.
“Don’t you have excursions tomorrow?” Lilly demanded.
“Cancelled. Not many are too keen on hiking in the subzero temperatures. Looks like you planned the perfect time to have babies, Lil.”
The nurse cleared her throat, and Will rolled his eyes, clearly reluctant to leave, but Tori squeezed his hand and led him out if only so the nurse would be kind to them tomorrow when Will would inevitably test her patience, no matter how charmingly.
“Can you believe how small they are?” Will said wonderingly.
“ No.”
“When do you suppose you’ll stop being a coward and hold one?” he asked as they walked out of the hospital.
Something fluttered in her stomach. Though she didn’t think he was hinting at something, how could she not . . . go there?
She’d watched him hold two little bundles of life like the precious gifts they were and . . . Well, she’d made a few decisions. Decisions she’d been putting off out of fear for the last six months.
She’d given herself some slack. Learning to love—Will and even herself—was hard work, and the future was a scary, intimidating thing. One challenge at a time, and all that.
They climbed into Will’s Jeep, driving out of the hospital in Benson and back toward Gracely and home.
Her home. Except . . . No matter how often Tori had said no to Will’s suggestions of moving in together, her home had become something like theirs. And no matter that she kept rejecting him, she liked it. Him there so often, his things infiltrating their things.
She’d thought she could only trust that in the present, but . . . Well.
“All right,” she said, giving a sigh that she hoped sounded exasperated. Even now she was sometimes afraid to give something the weight it deserved. “If you really think moving in together is a good idea, I guess you can move in.”
She snuck a glance out of the corner of her eye as he turned onto the corner of Hope and Aspen. Nothing on his face had changed, just that same amazed, peaceful smile he’d had on his face ever since Brandon had introduced him to his niece and nephew.
And it had been that, and seeing him cradle two little newborns, that had unwound a knot in Tori’s chest she hadn’t realized was still there. She’d been living day to day, trying to trust the moment, trust love.
She’d succeeded, and she’d been happy, but she hadn’t been too keen on trusting the future. Not planning for it, not imagining it or what she’d want for it.
When he still didn’t say anything, just pulled his Jeep behind her car on the little concrete pad next to her house, she frowned a little. “Did you hear me?” she demanded. Maybe he was in some baby fog.
He nodded. “Yup.”
“And?” she demanded.
He grinned. “I already did,” he offered with a shrug.
“What?”
He didn’t explain, just hopped out of the Jeep and started walking to the house. She stared openmouthed after him. He’d been bugging her for almost two months to move in together, and she’d hemmed and hawed and held him off.
How could he have already moved in?
She scrambled after him. He opened the door with the key she’d given him as something of a consolation prize one time he’d asked about the whole moving-in thing.
Maybe that’s what he meant, that they had all but been living together and agreeing didn’t really make much of a difference since they rarely spent a night apart.
She frowned, stepping inside as Sarge rushed to greet them. Will patted the dog absently and sauntered into the living room, big and beautiful and so damn perfect that little flutter of fear settled itself.
But he stood by the mantel over the fireplace and grinned at her and it soothed, because he would smile at her. Hold babies like precious cargo. Climb rocks and fling himself down rivers, and he loved her.
No doubts.
“See?” he offered, pointing to the mantel.
She frowned, realizing there was something on it—and as she wasn’t much of a decorator it was usually empty.
She stepped closer. It was a rock. Why would . . . Oh. Oh. The rock she’d held on to that day at the lake, when she’d decided to make love with him and leave.
The day he’d convinced her to stay.
“You were supposed to give that back,” she said, reaching out to touch the smooth, colorful stone.
“Leave it to you to pay attention to the rock-rock and not the metaphorical rock.”
She frowned at him and he pointed to another item she hadn’t noticed. A velvet box. She blinked at it.
“Well, are you going to open it?”
“I . . .” She swallowed. It could only be one thing, and she thought she was ready to give him the answer he’d want in this one thing he hadn’t asked her yet, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t surprised.
Will plucked the box off the mantel, and in his eyes she saw a million things. Certainty and uncertainty, hope and fear, humor and nerves. Love, most of all, love.
“Tori,” he said, a corner of his mouth quirking as he did the most unimaginable thing she could have predicted, got down on one knee.
She didn’t know what to do, so she could only stand, gaping at him like a fish as he opened the lid of the box. A slim, sparkling band was nestled inside, simple and perfect.
“I love you. Wholeheartedly. Unreservedly. Be my wife. Be my family. Make children with me. I know you’re scared of planning for the future, but—”
She sank to her knees, covering his hands with hers, realizing there was a tiny tremor there. Always surprising her with ways he was brave even when he was scared or nervous.
“I’m not scared anymore,” she said, and it was a truth unlike any other. She wasn’t scared anymore. She’d learned, she’d grown on a foundation Will had built for her. Now it was time to grow together, not just build. “I want you. A family with you. A future with you. I want to make a promise with you. A life.”
He grinned that charming grin, but emotion laced his words. “Well, then, that settles it.” He pulled the ring out of the box, slipped it onto her finger.
She stared at it for a second, surprised at the weight of it, but it was hardly just a ring. It was love, a promise, a future.
“I’m glad you came back,” he said when she looked up at him again.
“I came home,” she whispered. Then she flung herself at him, and he laughed as they toppled backward, her sprawling across him. Intrigued by the commotion, Sarge came over with a yip, then licked both their faces.
Her little family. Her wonderful future with a man who’d taught her love, and a town that had given her a chance to heal.
Tori Appleby was quite officially the luckiest, and she wouldn’t let anyone argue with her on that simple fact.
Don’t miss any of Nicole Helm’s
Mile High romances:
Brandon’s story in Need You Now
or Sam’s story in Mess with Me.
Now on sale in bookstores and online!
Read on for a preview of Need You Now . . .
Brandon Evans stood on the porch of 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 into view
.
Across the valley, up the other side of jagged stone, the deserted Evans Mining Company buildings stood, like ghosts—haunting him and his name. 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 in view simply 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. They were outvoting him 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 grow 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 their phones for their outdoor adventure excursion company and refused to use a computer was a bit of a problem, but he worked for 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 only speak in grunts, but they’d yet to lose an interested customer.
That they knew of, Will liked to point out.
Brandon set the offensive 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 the bridge we need to turn the tide.” Will ticked off the points they’d already been over, patient as ever.
“She’s recently local—not native—and she can’t change our last name.”
“Well, even lifer townies working every second at Mile High can’t do that.”
“Can we cut the circuitous bullshit?” Sam interrupted with a mutter. “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 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’d been George Bailey born-older, 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, not Will. Brandon had spearheaded Mile High. It was his baby, his penance, his hope of offering Gracely some healing in the wake of his father’s mess of an impact. 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’d need 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 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, we know as well or better than you.”
“My ass,” Brandon grumbled, feeling at least a little shamed.
“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 party guides 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 Christ—took as a cue to leave.
Regardless of whether he’d like this Lilly Preston, Brandon didn’t see the usefulness or point 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 that. And they needed Gracely’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 over a century of being the heart of the town, his father’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 one tiny little domino he’d flicked when his conscience couldn’t take the possible outcomes of his father’s shady practices.
So much work to do to make it right. He forced his gaze away from those buildings into 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 porch railing.
It was the 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 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 would make her job rather easy. 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.
The sign next to the door that read MILE HIGH ADVENTURES was carved into a wood plank that matched the logs of the cabin.
If it weren’t for the men who ran this company, she’d be crying with relief and excitement. She needed a job that would allow her to stay in Gracely, and this one would pay enough that she could still support her sister and nephew even with Cora’s dwindling waitress hours and low tips.
Cora and Micah were doing so well, finally moving on from the abusive nightmare that had been Stephen. Lilly couldn’t uproot them, and she couldn’t leave them. They needed her, but her Denver-based PR company had refused to let her continue to work remotely when they’d merged with another company and kept only those willing to relocate to Denver.
So, here she was, about to agree to work for the kind of men she couldn’t stand. Rich, entitled, charming. The kind of men who’d hurt her mother, her sister, her nephew.
Lilly forced her feet forward. This was work, not romance, so it didn’t matter. She’d do her job, take their money, do her best to improve the light in which their business was seen in Gracely, and not let any of these rich and powerful men touch her.
Shoulders back, she walked up the stairs of the porch. There was a sign on the door, hung from a nail and string. It read Come On In! in flowing script. She imagined if she flipped the sign there’d be some kind of WE’RE CLOSED phrase on the back.
