Georgianna smiled as if she saw the humor in her own claim but she didn’t belabor the point. Instead she took both of Nati’s hands in hers and squeezed hard.
“I don’t think it would come to that between the two of you anyway,” she said confidently. “But I know one thing for sure—you both need to not let anything or anyone from the outside cloud your judgment. You’re making a mistake if you turn your back on Cade and your feelings for him because of past mistakes.”
As if on cue, the front door opened and the sound of Cade’s voice froze Nati.
“Okay, GiGi, I’m here. What is it that you need lifted that couldn’t wait until tomorrow?”
Nati felt as if she were moving in slow motion when she turned her head just in time to see Cade come up short. He gawked at the scene in the living room for a moment.
Then his eyes honed in on his grandmother.
“What did you do?” he demanded.
Georgianna released Nati’s hands and stood, raising a stubborn chin to the grandson who towered over her. “I hope I got you a second chance,” she announced.
Then, clearly undaunted, she aimed her attention at Jonah and said, “How about a cup of coffee in the kitchen, Jonah?”
Nati’s grandfather patted Nati’s knee again then got up to follow his old girlfriend, saying to Cade as he passed by him, “Your grandmother’s made of steel—I always did like that about her. But there’s a little of that in Nati, too. Getting through it is all up to you...”
And then there Nati was, still sitting on the sofa, alone in that big formal living room with Cade.
He was wearing old, faded, torn jeans and a sweatshirt—and yet he couldn’t have looked better to her if he’d been in a tux.
He did look a little tired and stressed, though. Just like Nati.
“So... Do you want to fill me in?” he said, coming a few more steps into the living room.
Nati opted to stand, too, unsure what his response to her being there was. “I went to dinner with my grandfather. Afterward he said he had a surprise—and boy, did he! This is where I ended up.”
“I’m sorry,” Cade said, sounding genuinely apologetic. “Sometimes my grandmother...” He was obviously not happy with Georgianna. Aiming louder words in the direction of the kitchen he said, “When we were kids she always said we had to fight our own battles, apparently now she has no problem sticking her nose in where it doesn’t belong.”
“It’s okay. She had a lot to say,” Nati said.
“What exactly?”
Nati told him, rehashing it in her mind as she did, considering what the elder Camden had said, and if it had merit.
She realized along the way that it might. The message Cade had given her on Sunday night, the message her grandfather and Holly had repeated all week, and what Georgianna Camden had said just now all had a similar theme: judge Cade for the man he was. Nothing else should weigh on her decision.
Nati had had all week to think about her feelings for him. About why she was so devastated over losing him...
“I do think you’re different from Doug. And maybe because your grandmother has the same roots my family has, you were raised with different values,” Nati ventured.
“Have a little faith, Nati, that’s all I’m asking,” he said, repeating what he’d said on Sunday night.
But faith wasn’t all she had to hang on to, she realized as she stood there.
During this last week she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Cade. She’d recalled certain moments that had given her clues to who he really was.
She’d recalled when he’d first met her grandfather and how respectful he’d been. It was nothing like the disdain and condescension that Doug and the Pirfoys had displayed when they’d been anywhere near her family.
She’d recalled the way Cade had behaved with Holly, with the other shop owners, even with the waitstaff in restaurants—again he’d shown only respect, friendliness, patience—never the kind of dismissal or superiority that she’d seen from the Pirfoys.
Cade’s charm wasn’t selective, the way Doug’s had been. Cade was just Cade—he was the same person with her, with her grandfather, with Holly, with everyone.
Cade was a person who didn’t turn up his nose at eating pizza out of the box and drinking out of paper cups in her workroom. He was a person who pitched in when she’d needed help getting ready for the Scarecrow Festival. Doug would never have done that.
But the one very big difference between Cade and her ex was the responsibility that Cade showed. He actually worked in his family’s business rather than merely cashing in on it. He honored his responsibilities to his family—here he was on a Friday night, answering a bogus summons from his grandmother for help. Nati hadn’t seen any indications that he shirked his responsibilities. Rather than using the wealth at his disposal to escape from them the way Doug had, Cade met them head-on.
All these qualities were admirable and impressive. They’d won her over when they’d first met.
But that still didn’t change how daunting it would be if things between them didn’t work out, if she had to come up against all the firepower Camden money could buy...
“This still scares me...” she admitted with a glance at their surroundings.
“I know,” he said soothingly. “And if GiGi had just cooled her jets a while longer and let me take care of things, I was coming to you with a plan. I’ve hired the four best divorce attorneys in the state to work together to write an ironclad prenuptial agreement for you. The platinum-standard of prenuptial agreements.”
“For me, not for you?”
“Believe me, they think I’m crazy. But yeah, for you. You’ll be able to beat me right over the head with it if you want to—”
“That is crazy—if I’m a gold digger—”
“I know you aren’t. I told you, I have faith in you. And I love you—you didn’t give me the chance to say that Sunday night, but it’s true. I love you and I want you and I can’t let what’s standing in my way stop me. So I’ll give you the big gun, then you don’t have to worry about going up against me.”
“You’re really not afraid I’d just take the money and run?”
“I’m really not,” he said calmly. “Because I think that we couldn’t have ended up where we did if you didn’t feel the same way about me that I feel about you. I think you have those feelings even against your better judgment. Even over and above your fears and worries and concerns.”
He took a step nearer, smiling that slightly devilish smile that always got to her. “I saw all the hesitation in you. I had to engineer my way around it all. You didn’t want to like me, but you did. You just couldn’t help yourself because I’m so damn—”
“Arrogant and conceited?” she supplied to give him a hard time.
“I was going to say adorable.”
Nati had to laugh at the sarcasm in that.
He took another step closer, nodding over his shoulder in the direction their grandparents had gone. “It looks like there aren’t any hard feelings for us to worry about on that other count. You said yourself that I’m different from your ex. And as of next week I’ll have a prenup for you that will ensure that you never have to worry. Am I still coming up against a no?”
He was standing close enough now that they were nearly touching. Close enough for her to have to lift her chin high to look at him. Close enough to feel the heat of him. Close enough for every inch of her body to be crying out for his.
“You were only supposed to be the practice-guy,” Nati said. “Some refresher-dating experience.”
“Now, if you want it, you can have more than that...” he said, his voice a little raw, sounding for the first time the way he looked—ragged around the edges.
“I just want you...” she whispered as hot tears dampe
ned her eyes for no reason except that he looked so good and she really did want him so much it hurt.
She saw some moisture collect in his eyes, too, just before he wrapped her in his arms and pulled her tightly to him.
“I love you so damn much...” he said, his emotion-laden words coming straight from the heart she could hear beating in his chest.
“I love you, too,” she whispered against him.
He dropped a kiss to the top of her head but that wasn’t enough for Nati. She raised her face to him and he wasted no time bringing his mouth to hers with an intensity that sealed them together and locked out everything else for a long while.
Together they were combustible. Not even the tenderness of the moment could keep things contained indefinitely. But this was certainly not the time or place for them to be getting stirred up...
Cade ended the kiss as if he were coming up for air. “So? Will you marry me?” he asked then.
“I will,” Nati answered.
“And you’ll spend the rest of your life with me? Because after this prenup I can’t afford for you not to...”
She laughed. “Okay,” she conceded.
“And there can be kids and grandkids and great-grandkids?”
“I hope so,” she answered more softly, unable to think of the baby she’d lost.
“I’ll make sure of it,” Cade said, squeezing her a little before he kissed her again with so much passion she somehow knew they were going to have plenty of luck making babies.
He cut their kiss off a second time, though he seemed barely able to, and said, “We’re gonna have to answer to those two conspirators in the kitchen. Then do you think your grandfather can get home on his own? Because I’m feeling the need to keep you captive from now until at least Sunday dinner.”
“I’m pretty sure he can make it back by himself. Plus I don’t know what’s going on with them, but apparently there was a very long phone call that made them both feel like teenagers again—tonight might go on for a while for them, too.”
“I’m not sticking around to chaperone,” Cade declared.
“I don’t think it’ll go that far,” Nati said confidently. Then she remembered the gleam in her grandfather’s eyes when he’d looked at GiGi...
But she didn’t tell Cade about that. Instead she said, “I’m sure we can just say good-night and go.”
“In a minute, though,” Cade said, holding her tight again. “I need just another minute.”
Nati held him tight, too, her cheek securely to his chest.
It was as if Cade needed the imprint of her body against his to believe this was real, that it was going to last, that it wouldn’t all go up in smoke any minute.
But as Nati stood there in his arms, her palms splayed across that broad, powerful back, she knew she didn’t need any convincing that this was real.
Or right.
Or exactly where she was truly destined to be.
And suddenly the thought of the elaborate prenuptial agreement he was having written for her made her smile.
Because at that moment she knew to the very depths of her soul that this would last.
That in this man’s arms was where she would begin and end the rest of her days.
And that there was nowhere else she would rather be.
No one else she would rather be with.
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt of Real Vintage Maverick by Marie Ferrarella!
We hope you enjoyed this Harlequin Special Edition story.
You know there’s always a new chapter to be written. Harlequin Special Edition stories show that whether it’s an old flame rekindled or a brand-new romance, love knows no timeline.
Visit Harlequin.com to find your next great read.
We like you—why not like us on Facebook: Facebook.com/HarlequinBooks
Follow us on Twitter: Twitter.com/HarlequinBooks
Read our blog for all the latest news on our authors and books: HarlequinBlog.com
Subscribe to our newsletter for special offers, new releases, and more!
Harlequin.com/newsletters
Chapter One
It happened too quickly for him to even think about it.
One minute, in a moment of exasperated desperation—because he hadn’t yet bought a gift for Caroline’s birthday—Cody found himself walking into the refurbished antique store that had, up until a few months ago, been called The Tattered Saddle.
The next minute, he was hurrying across the room and managed—just in time—to catch the young woman who was tumbling off a ladder.
Before he knew it, his arms were filled with the soft curves of the same young woman.
She smelled of lavender and vanilla, nudging forth a sliver of a memory he couldn’t quite catch hold of.
That was the way Cody remembered it when he later looked back on the way his life had taken a dramatic turn toward the better that fateful morning.
When he’d initially walked by the store’s show window, Cody had automatically looked in. The shop appeared to be in a state of semi-chaos, but it still looked a great deal more promising than when that crazy old coot Jasper Fowler ran it.
Cody vaguely recalled hearing that the man hadn’t really been interested in making any sort of a go of the shop. The whole place had actually just been a front for a money-laundering enterprise. At any rate, the antique shop had been shut down and boarded up in January, relegated to collecting even more dust than it had displayed when its doors had been open to the public.
What had caught his eye was the notice Under new ownership in the window and the store’s name—The Tattered Saddle—had been crossed out. But at the moment, there was no new name to take its place. He had wondered if that was an oversight or a ploy to draw curious customers into the shop.
Well, if it was under new ownership, maybe that meant that there was new old merchandise to choose from. And that, in turn, might enable him to find something for his sister here. As he recalled, Caroline was into old things. Things that other people thought of as junk and wanted to discard, his sister saw potential and promise in.
At least it was worth a shot, Cody told himself. He had tried the doorknob and found that it gave under his hand. Turning it, he had walked in.
Glancing around, his eyes were instantly drawn to the tall, willowy figure on the other side of the room. She was wearing a long, denim-colored skirt and her shirt was more or less the same color. The young woman was precariously perched on the top step of a ladder that appeared to be none too steady.
What actually caught his attention was not that she looked like an accident waiting to happen as she stretched her taut frame out, trying to reach something that was on a higher shelf, but that with her long, straight brown hair hanging loose about her back and shoulders, for just an instant, she reminded him of Renee.
A feeling of déjà vu seized him and for a moment, his breath caught in his throat.
Balancing herself on tiptoes, Catherine Clifton, the former Tattered Saddle’s determined new owner, automatically turned around when she heard the little bell over the front door ring. She hadn’t anticipated any customers coming in until the store’s grand reopening. That wasn’t for a couple more days at the very least. Most likely a couple of weeks. And only if she could come up with a new name for the place.
“We’re not open for business yet,” Catherine called out.
The next thing out of her mouth was an involuntary shriek because she’d lost her footing on the ladder and both she and the ladder were heading for a collision with the wooden floor.
The ladder landed with a clatter.
Catherine, fortunately, did not.
She was saved from what could have been a very bruising fate by the
very person she’d just politely banished from the premises.
Landing in the cowboy’s strong, capable arms knocked the air out of her and, along with it, anything else she might have said at that moment.
Which was just as well because she would have hated coming across like some blithering idiot. But right now, not a single coherent thought completed itself in her head. It was filled with just scattered words and a myriad of sensations.
Hot sensations.
Everything had faded into the background and Catherine was instantly and acutely aware of the man whose arms she’d landed in. The broad-shouldered, green-eyed, sandy-haired cowboy held her as if she weighed no more than a small child. The muscles on his bare arms didn’t even appear to be straining.
A tingling sensation danced through Catherine’s entire body, which was stubbornly heating up despite all of her attempts to bank the sensation—and her reaction to the man—down.
Her valiant efforts to the contrary, for just a moment, it felt as if time had stood still, freezing this moment as it simultaneously bathed her in a heretofore never experienced, all but debilitating, feeling of desire. For two cents proper, using the excuse that this rugged-looking cowboy had saved her, she would have kissed him. With feeling.
Catherine could absolutely visualize herself kissing him.
The fact that he was a complete stranger was neither here nor there as far as she was concerned. Desire, she discovered at that moment, didn’t have to make sense. It could thrive very well without even so much as a lick of sense to it.
And for no particular reason at all, it occurred to her that this man looked like the real deal. A cowboy. A real vintage cowboy.
Was he? Or had she managed to bump her head without knowing it and was just hallucinating?
Corner-Office Courtship Page 18
