by Maisey Yates
He had seen what his father had done with the love he wasn’t ready for. And Caleb would have rather cut his own heart out than hurt Ellie that way.
He still would.
But he wouldn’t think about any of that. Because it didn’t matter. The future of the feelings he had didn’t matter. All that mattered was now. Because this was his one moment. To let himself feel everything he did for her, to let her feel it.
She wasn’t married. Not now.
She was not his friend’s wife. And she was more than his friend’s widow.
She was the woman that he had fallen in love with when she’d been eighteen years old. And she was the woman that he loved now. And every single woman she’d been in between; they were all one beautiful woman, rich and vibrant. A woman who knew how to laugh, who still laughed, even in spite of all the pain that she had endured. She was brave. His Ellie was so very brave.
And he wanted to honor that.
The other times they had come together... It had felt like he was challenging her. Asking her to take that unbearable desire that existed inside him and shoulder it, because God knew he had for so long. So very long.
But now...
He wanted to worship her. Wanted to give her everything she needed. Everything she deserved.
If it was his one chance to help her understand what she was worth, what she meant to him. Well, he was going to take it.
It didn’t matter what the hell it gave him, if it gave him anything at all.
And he didn’t know when that had shifted. When it had flipped. But it had. So he kissed her, and he put everything in that kiss.
He wanted to lay her down underneath the Christmas tree, strip her there. But with Amelia in the house, even though she was sleeping, he figured it probably wasn’t the best idea. But someday. Someday he would. He made that vow to himself because he felt he shouldn’t make it to her. Not now.
He took her hand and brought her up with him, held her hand as he led her up the stairs and into her room. He wanted to give her something different. Different than what she had, and different than what they’d shared. He wanted... He wanted to be enough. He wanted to be more.
He’d never wanted it so much in all his life.
There had been a part of him that had given up on it all those years ago. The part of him that had framed Clint for the guns. He had tried to best his friend by making him seem worse, rather than trying to make his own damn self better.
Well, that was over. It was done.
He was going to be the best for her. Here and now. To the best of his ability. It was what she deserved. Not less, that was for damn sure. And he’d been so worried about one of those men in town getting their hands on her because they weren’t good enough to sully Clint’s memory.
But he had given it to himself. And he had worried a hell of a lot less about being worthy of touching her.
Because that was the thing.
At some point the specter of Clint had to lift away. And it wasn’t about comparing.
It was unavoidable in the beginning, the comparison. But right now it had to be the two of them, and there couldn’t be anyone else in this bed with them. Couldn’t be anyone else between them.
And this felt momentous. So maybe...
Maybe it was building to something. Something big or something terrible.
But he wasn’t going to turn away from it.
He wasn’t going to turn away from them.
He had told himself this entire time that it couldn’t end with them together. But now he wanted to know why the hell not.
It wouldn’t ever be the same as what she’d had before. But like she’d said, what they had between them was different. Not like anything she’d had before. Not like it had been with anyone.
And it was the same for him.
She was Ellie Bell, and she had been singular, perfect, magical, tempting, in ways that no one and nothing ever had been before. From the first moment that she had walked into his life.
“Ellie,” he whispered as he laid her down on the bed gently.
He stripped her clothes from her slowly, revealing her body to his gaze. That pale, perfect skin, her lush curves.
“The first moment that I saw you,” he said as he unhooked her bra, “I knew something changed. Something in the air. Something in me. I’d never seen a more beautiful woman in my whole life. It was like the world stopped. And the sun shone around you like it was a spotlight, only for you.”
She blinked rapidly, her eyes glistening with tears. “Caleb...”
“I need you to know that. I need you to know that even though it hurts sometimes. That even though it was hard later... I can never be angry about that moment. Because it changed something in me. I tried to be angry at it, but I can’t. It was like seeing in color for the first time.”
She looked away from him and he kissed her neck, kissed a line down over her breasts. Hungry and hot, utterly perfect. For him.
She fit him in every way. And he had known that from the first moment he’d seen her.
And she needed him. She needed him, even if he wasn’t the perfect fit.
They both needed him.
He unbuttoned her jeans and slid them down her legs, kissed his way down her stomach and parted her thighs wide. They would never get over this. Tasting her. Pleasuring her. She arched against him, moving her hips in time with his tongue, with his fingers. And he could lose himself. Lose himself forever. With Ellie. In Ellie.
He loved her.
He always had. There hadn’t been a moment when he hadn’t. It was why the easiest thing in the world had been to take care of her these past years. To never even look at another woman.
Because once she wasn’t married...
Well, his body hadn’t even been able to muster up a kind of vague biological interest he’d managed to keep while she was completely off-limits.
And waiting for her to be ready had been easy. Caring for her daily life... That had been something he wanted in a way, far above sex. He couldn’t explain it.
But that was because the first moment he had seen her he hadn’t just wanted her in bed. He wanted her in his life.
Becoming her protector had satisfied something in him.
Had eased something in him that had been feral and hungry for years. And when she had shown interest in being with another man... Well, that was when that beast that had been satisfied gave a big oh, hell no.
Because he had waited. And he would have done it forever without ever being able to kiss her. Without ever being able to touch her. But if any man was going to have her, it had to be him.
And he would take whatever she could give him back. Because he wasn’t going to be able to live his life without her.
That had always been true.
But now that he had her...
He was an idiot. He thought that he was moving to a tree farm, making a separate life, because he was ready to draw a line underneath what they’d shared? No.
No.
He wanted to do that because he wanted to start making a life that was theirs.
That was what it had been time for.
Not to move away.
But to move into something else. Together.
He pressed two fingers inside her, and she arched up off the bed, crying out her pleasure as she pulsed around him. But he wasn’t done yet. He continued. Because he had to do something to show her, and the words wouldn’t work. Not right now. Not for the two of them. There was too much...stuff still between them to go there just yet.
But he could show her.
And he felt free.
Because there had been so many years when he couldn’t. When he had to hide it.
But right now it wasn’t about anything but them. Them, and the beauty of the feelings that he had for her. Not the curse of them, but
the wonder of them.
And so he pleasured her until her voice was hoarse, until she was leaving track marks on his back with her fingernails.
And only then did he get a condom and maneuver himself between her thighs; only then did he allow himself a slow, brilliant torture, sliding into her tight, hot body. Sliding home.
He held his breath for a moment. Listened to the sound of his own heartbeat echoing in his head.
He cupped her chin, slid his fingertips down the valley between her breasts. Pressed his hand against her chest and felt her heart. Felt it raging like his own.
She looked at him, but she didn’t speak. And he kissed away the questions that might rise up on her lips. Flexed his hips forward and decided to focus on carrying them both to oblivion. Because right now reality was so sharp. And it was cutting him so deep. Because right now it hurt to breathe.
In that brilliant, wonderful way it hurt to breathe on a cold, crystal clear day, when you hiked up the side of a mountain and looked down over the valley. When the air cut your lungs. That was what it was.
But he needed something to help numb the pain, and if anything could, it was the pleasure he found inside her. But each moment of pleasure only served to amplify the pain. Until they twisted and wound together into an unbreakable cord. And that he supposed was about right.
For this. For this all-consuming feeling that burned inside him. Like a beacon on a hill that couldn’t be put out. No matter the years, no matter the barriers.
He would burn for Ellie Bell until the day he died.
And it was a clear, joyful, brutal realization to have, buried deep inside her as he was.
She was wonderful. Beautiful perfection.
And whether the world ran on fate or not, he didn’t know. But from that first moment, he felt like he had been made for her. Made to be there for her.
In every way.
And he would. He pledged that, with his body, with his lips against hers, even though he couldn’t do it with words.
He surged inside her, making that vow over and over again. He and Ellie had been together a few times now, and each and every time, it had been an angry race to that ultimate moment of completion.
But now it didn’t matter. Not really.
He wanted to stay on this journey forever. Wanted to be with her, just like this.
But it couldn’t last. He couldn’t last. That soft whimpering sound she made in his ear, the way she held on to his shoulders... It was all too much. And when she raised her head and arched into him, whispering in his ear: Caleb.
It broke him. And he splintered like glass as that simple word, that declaration, that it was him she was with and no one else, that it was the two of them here in this bed, it was what undid him completely.
His growl as fractured as the rest of him, he thrust into her one last time, shaking as he found his release. He buried his face in her neck, and inhaled Ellie. Filled his lungs with her as he shook and shuddered, as he squeezed his eyes tightly shut, the stinging behind his lids foreign and intense. He punched his hands in the bedding, and he rode out a release that was like a storm. When he rolled over on his back there was sweat rolling down his face, and maybe other moisture, too, and his heart was threatening to pound a hole through his rib cage.
And then he pulled her up against him and held her there, her hair fanned over his chest.
“Caleb...”
“I’m staying the night,” he said.
“But Amelia...”
“Is four and won’t think anything of it. I’m here all the time.”
He expected her to argue, but she didn’t.
She buried her face in his chest and he felt wetness on her cheeks, and he knew it wasn’t sweat.
“Are you okay?”
“I don’t know. I will be. I will be.” She repeated the last part, more to herself, it sounded like to him. “We all will be.”
They would be. He would see to it. He was formulating a plan, and he had a feeling that she wasn’t going to like it. Hell, he knew he wasn’t going to like it. But he was done sitting on the sidelines. He was done letting things in the past have free rein over the present, and the future. Life was short.
And that was one lesson he seemed to have failed to learn in all of this.
He had said it to Jacob, but he hadn’t seemed to be able to take it on board himself.
Death was tragic because of love. And they had all loved Clint very much. He wasn’t a man who could be easily replaced. He wasn’t a man who could be replaced at all. But that wasn’t the idea. It was the wrong way to think about it. It wasn’t about stepping into his shoes; it wasn’t about being a stand-in.
It was about what he could give. And there were things—he knew it. It was about being the one who was here now.
But in order to do that, he had to bring something to the table.
More than just Christmas decorations. More than just sex.
And he knew exactly what that was.
CHAPTER TWENTY
WHEN ELLIE WOKE up the next morning, she smelled coffee.
And that was weird. She did have a coffeepot that she could set the timer on, but she never did it. Not on weekends, because she didn’t know when she would get up. And anyway, even on weekdays she usually forgot to set it all up before she went to bed.
But not just coffee. She also smelled...bacon.
She looked around at her decimated bed. And then slowly, memories crept back to her. Caleb.
Caleb had spent the night.
Caleb, who kept changing the damned rules on her.
Last night had been...different.
She had been ready. Ready to hop on and ride that man into that blind intensity that they seemed to be able to find together. But he had done something else. He had been gentle. He had told her all those wonderful things. About what he’d felt when he’d first seen her. Then she had scarcely been able to believe it. It had made her feel... He made her feel.
And that terrified her. In about a thousand places.
In about a thousand ways.
Last night he had been...
They had been...
She rolled onto her side, ignoring the tightness in her throat. And a tear leaked out and streamed down her cheek anyway.
“Caleb,” she whispered.
Then she heard the sound of a small, chattering voice, and she rocketed into a sitting position, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and flinging herself toward the door.
Amelia was up. Up and chatting with Caleb, who had spent the night in her bed.
She pulled on her pajamas and then rushed downstairs.
“Mommy,” Amelia said as soon as Ellie entered the kitchen. “Caleb is here. And he made bacon and biscuits.”
“Biscuits?” she asked.
He winked. “Tammy Dalton made sure her boys knew how to make biscuits.”
He was dressed. Totally dressed. Wearing jeans and a long-sleeved shirt—sleeves pushed up to his elbows and revealing those forearms that made her whole body go tight—and his cowboy hat. It was, of course, the same outfit he had on yesterday, but there was no way that Amelia would realize that, or what it meant.
She was hoping that Amelia wouldn’t give Caleb a repeat of last night.
That had torn Ellie’s heart out through her throat. And it didn’t seem like Caleb had weathered it very well, either.
Except...
She thought of all that beautiful sincerity he’d given Amelia. His answer hadn’t been what her daughter had wanted to hear, but he’d taken such care with it.
And then she thought of the sincerity he’d put into their time in bed last night. The way that he’d talked to her. The way that he’d looked at her. The way that he’d held her.
Amelia, for her part, didn’t seem to remember what she had
said to him last night, but she supposed that was how it was when you were four, and didn’t realize that you had effectively stabbed both adults in your life in the heart with your words.
She had never seen Caleb look quite like he had, and the graveness with which he had taken the question had made her feel more than any other response could have.
He had chosen his words so carefully with her. And with so much love. Not just for Amelia, but for Clint. With so much respect for the fact that Clint was a father who would never get to know his daughter.
And with such deep care that Amelia was a child who ached to have a father.
“Thank you for breakfast,” Ellie said.
“No problem,” he said. “I’m pretty hungry this morning.”
The way his eyes burned into hers, she had a feeling it wasn’t bacon he was hungry for.
Well, her, too.
No. She was hungry for bacon. But she was also hungry for Caleb. She could be hungry for both.
He turned away from the stove and grabbed a mug of coffee, handing it to her. “Fixed just how you like it.”
“You don’t just get to make my coffee,” she said. “You don’t know exactly how I want it.”
“I’ve watched you make coffee about a thousand times,” Caleb said. His blue eyes bored directly into hers. “I’ve watched you make coffee a lot more closely than any man should. And I know exactly how you like it. Because I have paid attention to every little thing about you for more than a decade.”
Lord, his eyes. So blue and serious on hers. Eyes she’d looked into countless times, and how had they ever not made her breathless?
Because they couldn’t. Because you were with someone else.
But he had always been there.
And this...this feeling in her, it had been there, too.
“And they say men aren’t observant,” she said breathlessly.
“Well, honey, for the purposes of this conversation, I’m not men. I’m me. More important, you’re not women. You’re you. And that’s why I know.”
He took a sip of his own coffee, the gesture careless as if he couldn’t possibly be aware that he had jumbled things around inside her with his words.
