“And then a couple of days later, someone happened to mention that she was seen talking to Miss Joan. Miss Joan, who’d been the one who’d tried to play matchmaker with us to begin with,” he pointed out. He searched Shania’s face, trying to see if she understood what he was telling her. “I didn’t want either one of them making you feel as if you were outnumbered and being forced to, well, be receptive to the idea of ‘us.’”
“But I am receptive,” Shania insisted. She put her hands on her hips. “Did you ever stop to think that maybe you should just come here and talk to me—the way you are right now?”
“In my mind that would have just been part of crowding you,” he explained.
“Or making me feel as if you were interested in continuing what you’d started,” she said with feeling. “Instead of regretting it with every breath you took.”
“I never not regretted anything more,” Daniel protested.
Shania winced despite herself. “I’m a physics teacher and I teach math on occasion. I’m not an English teacher, but you’ve got to know that sentence is so poorly worded it hurts.” She paused for a moment before saying, “But I’ll take it.” A grin curved her mouth.
And then she looked at Daniel’s face and saw something more. Something he wasn’t telling her. Something that was most likely at the bottom of all this.
“What else?” Shania asked.
His eyebrows drew together as he looked at her. “I don’t know what you—”
Shania didn’t give him a chance to finish or make denials. “The other night, when you said you had ‘baggage’ and I said everyone does, it’s about that, isn’t it?” she asked him. “About your ‘baggage.’”
When he made no comment, she knew she had guessed right. Now all she needed was for him to trust her enough to tell her just what that baggage he was carrying around was.
“Why don’t you unpack it so we can get it out of the way?” Shania told him, watching Daniel intently, looking for a sign that she was getting through to him. “Unless you don’t want to talk about it.”
He didn’t. But again, that wasn’t an option here, not now.
Daniel looked at the woman he had made love with for a long moment and knew that if he kept this to himself, he’d lose her. That exactly what he was afraid of happening would happen—and that he would be instrumental in doing it himself.
Taking a deep breath, he began to talk.
“You are not the first woman that I’ve been in love with.”
Shania stared at him. He hadn’t realized what he’d just said. For him, this was just part of the story. To her, it was the story.
But she kept silent because she knew that this—whatever this was—had to come out and if she stopped him now, it might just abort itself before it had a chance to see the light of day.
“Go on,” she urged quietly.
“There was this girl, Lana.” His face softened as he said the woman’s name. “She meant everything to me. We were going to get married and move out West to start a brand-new life together. We had everything all figured out.” There was a cold cynicism in his voice that she had never heard before, as if he was mocking himself and the idealist kid he had once been. “And then my parents died and I had to leave school to take care of Elena.”
He shrugged. “That didn’t fit in with the plan that Lana had for us. She put up with the situation for a little while, then told me that I had to choose. It was either her and our new life, or my kid sister and life in Forever. I was angry that she was doing this to me at a time when I was still reeling from my parents’ death and I picked Elena.”
He looked at her and she could read what was in his eyes. “I thought she’d change her mind, you know, reconsider. But she packed up her things and was gone before I even knew what was happening. It was like my whole world collapsed twice. I swore I’d never put myself in that kind of a position again.”
“And then you fell in love with me,” Shania said. When he looked at her sharply, she held her hands up. “Hey, you’re the one who said I wasn’t the first one you ever fell in love with—which means that you did fall in love with me. Or was that just something you said to move the story along?”
He frowned, annoyed with himself for not monitoring his words more carefully. “No,” he admitted quietly, “I meant it.”
She read between the lines—and things began to fall together.
“And now you’re afraid I’ll become another Lana and just walk out on you whenever you’re facing another crisis.” She peered into his face. “Did I get it right, Daniel?”
“Yeah,” he agreed reluctantly.
She squared her shoulders just a little. “You do realize that’s really insulting, don’t you?”
He looked at her in surprise. “I—”
“Because it is,” she informed him. “All women are not alike and I’d like to think that something inside of you knows that.” Her voice grew very still as she informed him, “I’m not accustomed to sleeping with my students’ parents or guardians, nor do I have a passing acquaintance with one-night stands. Never had one, never will,” she declared with finality. “The only all-nighter I ever pulled was studying for this one Quantum Physics final.”
He wanted to apologize for insulting her. “Shania—”
“I’m not finished,” she told him. “Now, if you’re trying to put up barriers because you don’t want to be stuck with me, just say so and you can consider yourself unstuck. Otherwise—”
Taking advantage of the fact that she paused to take in a breath, he asked Shania, “Do you always talk this much?”
She flushed. “Only when I’m very afraid that something that means a great deal to me is about to be forever lost the second I stop talking,” she told him.
“I guess then I’ll risk getting into this relationship with you,” Daniel said.
She looked at him as if she was scrutinizing him. “Haven’t you been listening? There is no risk, Deputy Tallchief,” she said. “There’s only me, forever and always.”
Daniel smiled as he took her into his arms. Heaven help him, he believed her. “I can handle that.”
“Good answer,” she told him, smiling. “And for the record, Deputy, I do love you. More than I ever thought possible.”
But he wasn’t finished asking questions yet. “How about Elena?” he asked. “We’re a package deal.”
If he thought that was a deal-breaker, he was wrong, Shania thought with a smile. “Even better.”
“Yes, it is,” he agreed just before he brought his mouth down to hers and picked up where they had left off the other night.
Epilogue
“You know what would make it feel more like Christmas?” Shania asked out of the blue.
She had taken a rare Saturday off from working on her lesson plans and had devoted the entirety of it to getting some heavy-duty Christmas decorating done with Daniel and his sister.
Daniel thought back to that morning, when he and Shania, along with a number of other people in Forever, had gotten involved in Miss Joan’s annual tradition of scouting for and bringing back the town Christmas tree. Putting up the thirty-foot tree in the town square took a good part of the day. Decorating it was usually a three-day affair.
“You mean more than helping bring in that giant tree for Miss Joan, starting to decorate that humongous thing and then letting you talk me into hauling another oversize specimen into my own house?” He looked accusingly at the tree. “The one we’re presently decorating?” Daniel asked.
The hour was getting late now and she could see that Daniel was just about decorated out.
“This is not an oversize specimen,” Shania protested. She was on a ladder, doing her best to hang decorations on the uppermost branches.
“It’s a lot bigger than the trees I usually bring in for the occasion,” Daniel counte
red.
Shania gave him a look. “What you were proposing to bring in wasn’t a tree, it was a malnourished twig and it certainly didn’t deserve to be called a Christmas tree.” She hung up another multicolored ball that caught the light and flashed it around the room. “And if you remember, Elena agreed with me.”
That didn’t carry any weight in his opinion. “You brainwashed her into agreeing with you.”
She wasn’t about to concede. “I did not. Your sister has free will. She could have disagreed.” Stretching, she hung up another decoration.
“Not likely,” Daniel contradicted. “You’re her hero. She would have been far more apt to disagree with my choice than yours.”
“That’s because my choice was better,” Shania informed him with what he viewed as a triumphant nod of her head.
Daniel pretended to sigh. “Have it your way.”
Her eyes smiled first before the rest of her caught up. “Thanks, I will.”
He laughed softly and shook his head. “I never doubted it,” he said. Daniel scanned the room, as if suddenly aware that they were alone. “Looks like we lost our helper.”
“You just noticed?” Shania marveled, amazed as she went up another step, holding on to the ladder with one hand as she reached up for a higher branch with the other. “I think she ducked out on us and went to bed about forty-five minutes ago.” Shania smiled at him fondly. “Not very observant, are you?”
He shrugged, picking up a couple more decorations himself and hanging them on the lower branches. “I save that for work.”
She was focusing on hooking a decoration on a branch that was almost out of reach. “I see.”
Daniel paused to look up at her. The small box in his back pocket felt as if it was pressing against his skin. “And you.”
Shania stopped hanging decorations and looked down at him, replaying his last words. “Why me?”
He knew he had to answer her, but his tongue suddenly felt leaden. “I’m just trying to gauge where we are,” he finally said.
“For the record, we’re in your living room, creating a proper-looking Christmas tree,” she answered, turning her attention back to what she was doing.
It was time, he told himself. “That’s not what I meant.”
“What did you mean?” Shania asked casually as she hung up the last of the decorations she’d brought up with her. Needing another handful, she climbed down again and went to the worn box that Daniel used to house the tree decorations.
“Where we are,” he repeated, his eyes on hers as he tried to get his point across without having to spell it out for her.
She looked at Daniel over her shoulder, scrutinizing him. Was something up, or was she reading too much into his words?
“Why is that so important?” she asked.
He put his hand on her arm, stopping her as she started climbing back up on the ladder with a fresh supply of decorations.
“Could you hold still for a minute?” he asked her.
“Daniel, I’d like to get this tree all decorated before next Christmas, so now isn’t the time for me to take a break. Besides—” she nodded at the tree “—I’m almost done.”
“Shania, Christmas isn’t for another three weeks,” he pointed out. “What’s the hurry?”
“So you and Elena can enjoy the fruits of all this labor longer,” she answered matter-of-factly.
He looked at her as if her words had caused him to have a sudden revelation.
“So, doing something sooner allows you to enjoy something longer?” he asked, as if trying to get something straight in his mind.
“In most cases. Certainly in this case.” She noticed he was still holding on to her arm. “So could you let go of my arm and let me get back to finishing up the tree?”
Instead of letting her arm go, he continued holding it. “In a minute,” he answered. “If I don’t do this now, I just might lose my nerve.”
She had no idea what he was talking about and why he was still holding on to her. Was he anticipating that she was going to bolt for some reason?
“Lose your nerve about what?” she asked him. “I think it’s only fair to warn you that I’m fading fast here and if I don’t finish this tree in the next few minutes, it’s going to have to wait until tomorrow.”
“Would that be such a bad thing?”
Maybe he still had a ways to go before understanding her, Shania thought.
“Perhaps not for someone else,” Shania allowed. “But I don’t like to leave something only half done.”
“Neither do I,” Daniel agreed.
“Then you understand how I feel,” she said, never taking her eyes off his face. He looked uneasy, she thought. Why?
“I hope so,” he told her.
His uneasiness seemed to spread to her. “Are we talking about the same thing, Tallchief?”
“Probably not.” Before she could ask him anything else, he reached into his back pocket, closed his hand around the small box and pulled it out. “I’m talking about this.”
Shania stared at the box, totally speechless and afraid to allow herself to even think that it might be what it looked like.
Daniel used his thumb to flip the lid back, exposing a small, perfect-looking pear-shaped diamond engagement ring. He’d used nearly half the money he had managed to save in the past couple of years to buy it.
“I’m dying here,” Daniel finally said, unable to take her silence. “Say something.”
She was mesmerized by the way the diamond gleamed, creating rainbows and flashing them on the wall. “It’s beautiful.”
That wasn’t exactly what he was hoping to hear. “Say something else.”
She raised her eyes to his. “Is that for me?”
“Getting warmer,” he told her. Taking the ring out of its box, he slipped it onto her ring finger. “It fits,” he said, happy that he had managed to correctly guess her size.
She could have gone on watching the way the light played off the ring for hours, but she raised her head to look up at Daniel.
“I think you’re supposed to ask me something really important now,” she told Daniel.
And then, amid the nerves that were dancing through him and his fear of possible rejection, Daniel realized that he had forgotten to ask Shania the one question that had been on his mind for the past three months.
Taking her hand in his, he asked, “Shania Stewart, will you marry me?”
She let go of the breath she had been holding this entire time. Her heart slammed against her rib cage as she cried “Yes!” just before she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him.
Daniel’s heart emulated hers, hammering just as wildly in his chest as he felt hers was pounding in hers.
He drew back his head just for a moment and asked, “You’re sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure!” she cried breathlessly. “Of course I’m sure!”
“That’s all I wanted to hear,” Daniel replied just before he lowered his lips to hers.
He went on kissing her for a very long time.
The Christmas tree was not finished being decorated that night.
* * *
Don’t miss previous titles from
Marie Ferrarella:
The Cowboy’s Lesson in Love
Adding Up to Family
Christmastime Courtship
A Second Chance for the Single Dad
Meant to Be Mine
Available now from Harlequin Special Edition.
Keep reading for an excerpt from To Keep Her Baby by Melissa Senate.
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To Keep Her Baby
by Melissa Senate
Chapter One
“Miss O’Leary, please describe your goals if accepted as a pupil of Madame Davenport’s School of Etiquette,” Larilla Davenport said from behind her desk.
“Just look at me,” Ginger blurted out as she stood up. Her low-cut hot-pink tank top, size extra, extra small, showed the lacy tops of her leopard-print push-up bra. Babe was written in rhinestones across her ample chest. Her ruffled miniskirt, which came to an end just past her rear, was also extra small. Big was her platinum blond hair in “beachy waves” to her waist. Four-inch stilettos, a bunch of cheap bracelets and heavy makeup completed her usual daytime look.
The fiftysomething woman sitting across from her—so spiffy in an ice-blue sheath dress and matching jacket, her dark hair pulled back in one of those elegant buns at her nape—looked Ginger up and down. Yeah, she was used to that.
The Lawman's Romance Lesson (Forever, Tx. Series Book 20) Page 18
