“What happened with California?” he asked.
I closed my eyes and blew out a breath. “I didn’t go.”
“Why? It’s what you wanted.”
“Well, I changed my mind,” I said. “It didn’t feel right. I just—” I shook my head, wanting him to understand without me explaining it.
Kind of like wanting him to know I loved him without me saying it. Jesus.
“You were right,” he said.
I crossed my arms protectively. “About what?”
“About leaving before you could,” he said.
I nodded. “Okay. I knew that.”
“I didn’t.” He got up and held onto the railing. “I never saw it that way. But that’s exactly what I did. What we both did.”
I frowned. “I didn’t go anywhere.”
“Yeah, you did,” he said, walking down the steps. “You and I both are terrified of being victims. Mine’s trust. Yours is love. You will walk this whole earth alone if it keeps you from doing what your mother did, and I refuse to let another person walk out on me like my brother did. Like Tara did. I’m always looking twenty steps ahead, and you just avoid completely.”
I blinked and held my arms crossed tighter, lifting my chin.
“Well, there you go,” I said. “Baggage met baggage. We sunk. Game, set, match.” My voice caught on the end, and I swallowed hard to stem it.
“I was wrong, Lanie,” he said, his voice low, his eyes piercing me.
Oh fuck.
“What?”
“You heard me,” he said, stepping closer. “This thing we stepped into—”
“A pile of crap?” I said.
Amusement pulled at his lips. “A pile of crap that we flipped. We did this. We made this crazy thing work. We made it real.”
“And I got scared,” I breathed, wanting to cross the feet between us so badly it hurt.
“I know.”
“I wanted to say things,” I said, hearing the wobble in my voice, feeling the burn that would bring the tears I hated. “They were there, in my head, and I couldn’t say them out loud.”
“And so I walked away,” he said, taking a step closer. “Before you could.”
“I wasn’t going to,” I said, two hot tears streaming down my cheeks. “I couldn’t imagine—I was going to ask you to come with me, because I couldn’t not have you in my life.” The sobs turned on the words like a faucet and I couldn’t stop. “But then you were just—gone, and you wouldn’t take my calls or my texts and—” I pressed my hands to my heart. “I went to your house and it was vacant.”
“You went to my house?”
“I was beside myself, Nick,” I said, laughing through the sobs. “I was so afraid to become my mother, that I ruined us and was still becoming her. I was miserable without you. I mean, I’m pulling things together now—” I held up my hands. “Not that I really look like it at the moment.”
“You look beautiful,” he said.
“That’s such a load of shit.”
“No shit,” he said, one step closer again, so close I could feel him. Smell him. Touch him if I wanted to.
God, I wanted to.
“You gave up on us,” I whispered through my tears. “You gave your bike away. I knew then that you weren’t coming back for me. And I still couldn’t file the fucking papers.” Heavy sobs shook my body. “How could I sign a paper saying I wanted a divorce from the man I love? The person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with?”
Through my tears, I saw his. I’d never seen him cry. Never seen him even well up.
“What did you say?”
“I said I don’t want a divorce.”
“I don’t, either,” he said, his voice rough. “But you know that’s not what I’m talking about.”
My fingers found the bottom of his shirt and his hands moved up my arms.
“The man I love,” I whispered through a hiccup.
I felt the rush of air from his exhale as his hands went into my hair.
“Lanie.”
He tilted my head.
“I love you, Nick.”
When his mouth covered mine, there was nothing better. Nothing sweeter, not a better fit in the world than this one man’s body against mine. His kiss mingled with mine. The way our arms fit around each other, the easy way my legs wrapped around him when he lifted me. It was perfect. Diving into his mouth, my fingers tangled in his hair as he palmed my ass—it was perfect.
I have no idea how we made it up the porch steps and all the way up the stairs like that without bodily injury, but when he laid me on my bed and looked into my eyes with no walls, no barriers—I knew I was home for real.
“Thank you for coming home, Nick,” I said, his face in my hands. “I love you so much.”
He kissed my lips, my eyes, and worked his way down to the sensitive spot below my ear.
“You are my home, Lanie McKane.”
* * *
I’d never felt so thoroughly sexed in my life. Every inch and muscle in my entire body whined with exhaustion and yet felt so incredibly loved. I stretched like a cat, spooning in his arms, loving the feel of his limbs entangled with mine.
I craned around to see him blinking awake and smiling at me.
“We fell asleep,” I said.
“We earned it,” he said, sliding his hand up from my belly to palm a breast, and he sighed happily against my shoulder. “I love these so much.”
I giggled.
“I’m glad I can provide.”
“We should probably eat something. What time is it?” he asked, leaning forward to see, stopping as he did.
“What?” I asked, looking at him and then following his gaze.
His wedding ring still sat on my nightstand. Not the letter. I’d put that away, unable to keep reading it, but his ring—that meant something to me. Even though it stood for an arranged marriage and not for love, it had turned out that way and I kept it sitting there by the clock.
I guess I hadn’t totally moved on, after all.
“Yeah,” I said.
Nick looked down at me with a look so full of everything I couldn’t have responded if I tried. Thank God I wasn’t expected to.
He pushed up and off the bed, and I instantly missed him.
“Where are you going?”
“To take care of something that I should have already done,” he said, retrieving his jeans and digging in the pockets. Satisfied with whatever he was looking for, he walked back to the edge of the bed. “Sit up please.”
“Sit up? What are we—”
He lowered to one knee. Completely naked. Dear God in Heaven.
“What—” There was no sound to the word. More like a slow exhalation around the thought of it.
“Lanie Barrett McKane,” he began.
Oh. My. God.
I pulled my pillow into my arms and pressed fingers to my mouth so I couldn’t squeal or say something completely wrong or inadequate like I was prone to do. Don’t mess this up, Lanie.
“I was going to plan this out for some big night, but—you and I don’t work that way. Our best moments have been unexpected.”
Understatement of the century.
“I never expected you,” he said, emotion catching his voice. “But God tossed you right in the middle of a jacked-up day and said ‘This is a gift, boy. It’s up to you to realize that.’”
Tears filled my eyes for the ninety-ninth time that day.
“I love you,” he said. “I love the way you mess things up without even trying.”
A laugh bubbled up through my fingers.
“I love how your favorite time of day is getting up and stumbling to the coffeepot when you could just sleep longer,” he said. “I love how you hide behind a pillow and peek out and cry during sad movies, and how your laugh can turn my day around.”
He pulled my hand from my lips and held it.
“Most of all,
I love the way you look at me, the way you touch me, the way you can walk in a room and take my breath away and not even know it,” he said, his voice so full of fire it made my breath catch in my chest. “The way you fight to the death to protect what’s yours.” One corner of his lips tugged upward. “Using any means necessary.”
“A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do,” I said.
“I never expected you,” he repeated. “I never saw you coming. But I’m damn glad you did.” He opened his other hand, and sparkles caught the light, making me suck in a breath. Holy mother of bling. He bought me a ring. He bought me a ring! “I put a fake ring on your finger the first time,” he said. “But that isn’t us anymore. We deserve the real deal.”
Nick slipped it onto my finger, and my throat felt like it would close up.
“Oops,” he said, starting to slide it back off. “I forgot to ask first.”
“You take that off, Mr. McKane, and you’ll be pooping it out tomorrow,” I said through happy tears, making him laugh.
“So you’d marry me again?” he asked.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him to me.
“I’d marry you a hundred times over, Nick,” I said, my lips against his.
“I only need one more,” he whispered.
“Did you hear that?” I called, casting my eyes upward to Heaven. “You can relax now!”
Ralph barked downstairs as if on cue, getting progressively louder.
Nick dragged his lips from mine. “That dog needs to learn timing.”
“He doesn’t bark at much,” I said.
“I know, that’s why I’m not ignoring it,” he said, pushing to his feet and bringing me with him. “Throw something on.”
“I’ll blind them with my ring,” I said, grabbing my white fluffy robe. He pulled on his jeans commando again. Good God, my husband was hot. “When did you buy a ring?”
“Today,” he said. “When I left the bank.” He dropped a kiss on my nose. “There was no question. Now stay here, please.”
“What?”
“You heard me,” he said, pointing before he headed down the hall.
“Mm-hmm, they get bossy when they put a ring on it.”
I heard a chuckle over Ralph’s hullabaloo, and I sank back onto the bed, wrapping the robe and the covers around me. Life had a way of flipping on a dime lately. Good one second, bad the next. Phenomenal the next.
I was riding the phenomenal wave at the moment, and really really hoping it was a long one. Nothing had ever felt this good or this right, and while that feelings thing scared the shit out of me, I was learning. It was worth it. Nick was worth it.
I held my new bling up and just stared.
“I wish you could see this, Aunt Ruby,” I said softly. “I wish you could see me. I’m happy,” I whispered to the ceiling.
“Lanie, come here, babe,” Nick called up, his tone sounding odd.
“Oh balls.” I swung my legs down. “Here we go.” The downhill slide. “Who’s here this time? All your ex-girlfriends?”
Ralph was still making a ruckus when I landed on the bottom step, but not at the front door. I rounded the stairs and headed toward the noise when I smelled it. Baked apples.
Baked friggin apples.
“Oh my God,” I said, my hand on my chest as the aroma brought tears to my eyes. “Do you smell that? Did I ever tell you—”
I stopped short.
There under the shelf holding the wooden spools, where Nick stood holding a cabinet door open and Ralph was now turning in circles in lieu of barking, was a collection of things. Our things. Even from a few feet away, I knew exactly what things they were.
Goose bumps covered my body as my gaze rested on neat stacks of shoes, shirts, a couple pairs of socks I’d blamed on Ralph, my favorite sunglasses, and Nick’s ratty black ball cap.
“Sweet Jesus,” I whispered, walking close enough to touch them. “My phone charger?”
“I thought you threw my hat away,” Nick said.
I picked up one of his shirts and held it to my nose. It still smelled like him.
She was baking apples.
She was happy.
Because I was.
“I love you,” I said.
He did a double take. “Your house just upped the spook factor by a mile and that’s where your head goes?”
I nodded. “That’s what it’s about.”
Nick shook his head and pulled me in for a hug. “Will I ever understand you?”
“Do you need to?” I asked. “Because that could get boring.”
He laughed. “True,” he said against my hair. “And I have the feeling that life with you will never be that.”
“You have feelings?” I asked, tilting my head in a tease.
Nick’s chuckle vibrated against the sensitive skin of my neck as he slipped the robe from my shoulders.
“Let me show you one of them.”
Aunt Ruby’s Hot Baked Cinnamon Apples
WHAT YOU NEED:
10 apples, cored, peeled and sliced thinly (I like Granny Smith or Jazz)
2 teaspoons of cinnamon
1 cup of brown sugar
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 pinch of salt
1 pinch of nutmeg
Finely chopped pecans (optional or as many as you like)
Whipped cream (optional) or ice cream (optional) (like either of these is really optional?)
DIRECTIONS:
Preheat oven to 375°F. Place cut and peeled apples in a mixing bowl (or if you mix everything in the baking dish, there is less to clean up. Just saying…) Gently mix all the ingredients together except the pecans.
Put apples in a non-stick pan if you mixed in another bowl, cover and place in the oven. Bake for 45 minutes, stirring at least once every 15 minutes.
Once they are soft, sprinkle with the pecans if you are using them, and cook for another few minutes to thicken the sauce.
Enjoy alone or with just about anything. I love it with ice cream, personally, but I’m an ice cream addict.
Keep reading for a sneak peek at Sharla Lovelace’s
second book in the Charmed Texas series
LUCKY CHARMED
Chapter One
“C’mon people,” I muttered, traversing the grocery parking lot for the third time. “The sales aren’t that good this week. It’s time to wrap it up.”
I could go to the bigger supermarket in Charmed, but I preferred this smaller one in Goldworth, near my office. Less people. Less judgment.
Less parking space.
Spotting a mom shouldering two reusable canvas shopping bags with two kids in tow, I cranked the wheel in her direction. She smiled quickly and pushed her kids in front of her as she approached an SUV, as if she was used to being stalked. As anyone who shopped here should be.
I groaned under my breath at the big cartoonish honey bee sticker on her back window that sported a dialogue bubble saying, “It’s sweeter in Charmed!”
I was so tired of honey. I despise it, honestly. I know that sounds like a random and insignificant fact, but when you live in a town like Charmed, Texas, that lives and breathes by the stuff, it can become a thing. Not that I’m averse to sweet. Chocolate, for instance, could easily run from my tap and I’d celebrate, but I have issues with a substance made by one insect throwing up on another, then party number two spending the next couple of days playing with vomit.
There’s a disclaimer to living in a town that breeds bees and brags of World Famous Honey on its welcome sign. You know a little too much about the process.
Summer was the hardest to stomach—no pun intended—with the annual Honey Festival kicking off right after school kicked out. It was even more everywhere than usual. Every retailer sports a stash of jars from whatever apiary hits them up first. Every restaurant sells them at the checkout. Hell, even the Quik-Serve convenience store had a supply on the counter
last time I was in. I couldn’t pop in for a coffee and a package of chocolate donuts without being accosted by honey jars.
This summer was a little better. My best friend, Lanie, was back in town with her new hubby (wink, wink) and so the consummate honey frenzy was overshadowed by a tinge of gossipy drama. The festival’s annual dance had all eyes on her, and no one noticed that I showed up to help her out. I don’t usually go. Most of the good townspeople of Charmed don’t care much for me, and that’s okay. I gave up on that fight a long time ago. Small towns are good at holding on to ancient grudges or still living through their high school days. I get it.
Once upon a time, my eighteen-year-old self was scandalous. Heaven forbid. My sins then evidently tainted the next decade, the perfect sainted (cough) man I married, and my mother, who apparently could never again hold down a job. (Side note: she wasn’t holding down a job the previous decade, either.)
So anyway, there was the festival, including the ridiculous Honey Wars, with crazy people hawking their self-labeled jars on every sidewalk, and then the Lucky Hart carnival a month later. It’s not honey-driven, but it’s crazy too. Or it was, anyway. I haven’t stepped foot inside that carnival in six years, since my divorce from said saint, now-the-mayor, Dean Crestwell.
As honey-bee-reusable-bag-mom drove away, I pulled into the spot and got out, ready to go load up on chocolate anything in those evil plastic grocery bags that I’m gonna go to hell for. My cell buzzed from my wristlet and I pulled it out and laughed as I answered, entering the store.
“Just couldn’t stand it, could you?”
“I know, I’m worse than a mom.”
It was Lanie. Calling from Vegas, where she and Nick were vacationing after renewing their vows. With real rings. That’s a story for another time.
“Are you kidding me?” I said. “You are a mom. You fawn more over that dog now than anyone I’ve ever seen.”
I was house-slash-dogsitting while they were gone. Lanie kind of inherited a Rottweiler when her old neighbor skipped out, and while it was a little iffy at the beginning, Ralph had won her over. The jury was still out for me in that regard, but I had to admit, Ralph was kind of sweet. When he wasn’t licking himself.
A Charmed Little Lie Page 22
