by Julia London
“Remind me not to come to you for preshow pep talks,” he said, and kissed her lips. “Are you going to let me stay? Tell me now before I lose my mind, Mia. Don’t let me kiss you if you won’t let me stay—”
“I want you to stay,” she said. “God, Brennan—I care that you’re here, and you said you loved me, and I love you, and you’re here.”
He groaned, pressed his forehead to hers. “I’ve missed you so damn much.”
“I’ve missed you, too. Brennan, listen,” she said, and grabbed his face between her hands. “I can’t do something like this halfway. I can’t go into something thinking it’s going to end.”
“Do you think I can?” he asked. “I have spent my entire life avoiding this very thing because of my fear of what would happen if I allowed myself to love someone. Really love someone. But I found out I don’t get to decide that—my heart wants you, and it’s a risk I’ll gladly take. Even if it kills me.”
This was surreal. Mia’s heart slammed against her chest and left her almost breathless. She couldn’t believe that this man, this beautiful, soulful, talented man, was saying these things to her. It was almost too good to be true. She held his face between her hands, studying it, feeling the image of him imprint on her. “I love you,” she said again. This was the first time she’d said the words aloud to anyone who wasn’t family. “I love you, Brennan Yates. So much. So very much.”
The relief in his expression and the happiness that sparked in his eyes shook her to her core. No one had ever looked at her like that. He did love her. She could see it and she could feel it and all she wanted to do was make sure he felt the same thing from her.
“Those boy toys aren’t having drinks here, are they?” he asked as he pulled his shirt over his head. “Because I’m not through telling you things.” He tossed her down on the bed, then jumped on top of her, straddling her, grinning down at her. “Like how much I enjoy the way you kiss,” he said, and kissed her. His hand slid down her body, to her leg. “And I like the way you feel,” he said, and slipped his hand in between her legs. “And I really love the way you f—”
“You’re talking too much,” she said, and silenced him with a kiss.
Some day, she thought, as Brennan’s hands moved on her body, and her clothes flew across the room, she would paint this moment in vivid colors and with lots of light, the shadowy shapes of two lovers on a bed. But first, she was going to float around on a little cloud of happiness and let the man she loved ravage her.
And tomorrow, she was going to make them matching pajamas.
Epilogue
One year later
Tuesday’s End went on tour the following summer, debuting an album that had been proclaimed “The Album of the Decade” by Rolling Stone. It was a new departure, reviews said. A welcome change, others said. The film accompanying the music would be released in the fall, just in time for Oscar season. There was speculation in the music world that Everett Alden would be nominated for his work on the album in the category of Best Original Song for “Come Closer.”
The Ross house renovations were finally completed, but not before a fallout between Wallace and Nancy Yates. Wallace had different ideas for how to improve that awful interior, which, after a lot of shouting and threatening to hire Diva Interiors, Nancy came around to seeing.
Wallace had taken over for Mia when she decided to rent a little storefront in Black Springs and make clothes for summer people. She and Emily had discovered that summer people were willing to pay a whole lot more for her dresses than the year-rounders in East Beach.
Mia loved what she did. She loved dressing women in colors and shapes that made them happy, and she wondered why she’d never thought of this before. The painting door had closed for her, other than for her own edification, and the world of fashion had opened up to her.
Brennan was there for the opening, as proud as he could be of his fiancée. He even wore a pair of pants she’d made him . . . although he confided to Chance that he couldn’t wait to get them off, as they were a little too far out there, even for him. “Give them to me, man,” Chance said. “They’re sick.”
The shop was sparsely decorated, but there was an eclectic collection of art on the wall: The Eckland lanterns painting hung in a place of prominence. The red door from the art festival was near the cash register. And a chunk of brick mortared together, painted blue, with shadowy houses and a dog and pine trees was fastened to the wall near the dress racks.
Brennan had kept it all this time.
There was one more piece of art on the wall in Mia’s apartment—she still rented it from Dalton because she loved it—and that was the drawing of Brennan in bed she’d made at the resort in Stratford Corners. That was for her and her alone, and in those long stretches of time when she didn’t see him, it was the drawing she turned to for comfort.
At the grand opening, all of Mia’s family came to toast her. “Does this mean you’re giving up painting?” Derek asked. “Because this looks like it could actually pay something.”
“Derek, that is none of your business,” Mia’s mother said.
“But aren’t you going with Brennan?” Emily asked as Elijah tried to reach the clothes hanging on the rack and Ethan pushed a truck around the floor.
“Eventually,” Mia said, and smiled up at her rock star. He put his arm around her and kissed the top of her head. “We’re still working things out. But we’re cool for now.”
They were cool. They had not yet made any immediate plans for a wedding because they were still too happy to explore what they had. It would come when the time was right, but for now, what they had was perfect—Mia was happier than she’d ever been in her life. Brennan said she was the thing that completed his life, the thing that had been missing all along. He truly seemed to mean that—even when he was away, not a day went by that he didn’t call her. He sang love songs to her, told her how much he needed her. He asked for her opinion and he asked about her design work, how she came up with ideas, how she constructed things.
The truth was that Mia needed him more than she would ever have believed was possible. Brennan had become her rock, always there for her, even when he was on the other side of the world.
After the opening, she and Brennan returned to her little apartment. They made monster salads and drank wine and talked about the recent earthquake in China. Brennan wanted to gather his friends and do a charity event to aid the victims.
“I really admire that about you,” Mia said. “Always willing to help others.”
“Oh yeah?” he asked. “Are you still going to say that when it keeps me from East Beach for a couple of months?” He kissed her bare shoulder.
“You know what? There is something I want to show you.”
“Not now,” he begged.
“Yes, now.” She grabbed his hand and tugged him along with her. She led him down to the beach, then headed for the north end. Sunlight was waning and the shadows on the beach looked foreboding.
“Where the hell are we going?” he asked.
Mia didn’t answer, she just pulled him along, made him follow her up the path from the parking lot of the boat slip toward Lookout Point. But halfway there, she stopped. She dropped his hand, then crawled out over a rock and lay down on her belly.
“No way,” Brennan said. He crawled out and lay down beside her. In the warm, pink light of the end of the day, they gazed down at a nest of eggs. Mia reached for Brennan’s hand and squeezed it. “You know what’s cool about those owls? They mate for life. And they always come back to the same place.”
Brennan turned his head to look at her. “I mate for life, too,” he said somberly. “And I will always come back. No matter how far I fly, I will always come back here. To you. Because you know what, Mia? What we have is really all there is in this life. The rest of the world can go to hell as long as I have you.”
He made it sound so simple, as if there was nothing more than loving someone to cause two people to alter their very
different lives and make them intersect. Regularly. Always. But she believed him, truly and deeply. “That’s what I love about you, you know that?” she said.
He smiled. “I know. I’m a catch.”
Mia giggled and pushed herself up to her feet. “So you keep saying.”
“When I forget it, I only have to look at this,” he said, and standing up, reached for his wallet. He withdrew a folded piece of paper and opened it, showing it to Mia.
She burst into laughter. It was the drawing she’d sketched of Brennan as a knuckle-dragging ape.
“It’s not that funny,” he said, but he was laughing when he swept her up in his arms and kissed her with the energy of a thousand lights held up in a darkened arena.
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About the Author
Photo © 2010 Carrie D’anna
Julia London is the New York Times, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly bestselling author of more than thirty romantic fiction novels. Her historical romance titles include the popular Secrets of Hadley Green series and the Cabot Sisters series. She has also penned several contemporary women’s fiction novels with strong romantic elements, including the Cedar Springs series and the Homecoming Ranch trilogy. She has won the RT Bookclub Award for Best Historical Romance and has been a six-time finalist for the prestigious RITA Award for excellence in romantic fiction. She lives in Austin, Texas.
