by T. S. Joyce
The Senior Seven were happy, their mugs full, their plates only half empty as they chattered about some almost-B&E that had been detailed on Bradford’s police scanner this morning. The culprit was Daryl Sanders, though, and he was a lover of the whiskey and likely just tried to get into the wrong house again. It had happened before. The handful of other customers in the café were either cleaning up to leave or just sitting down at a table with the pastries they’d purchased. It had been surprisingly busy today, and normally, she would’ve loved the extra business, but she was nursing one hell of a hangover right now. Alana hadn’t been that liberal with the Lemon Drop shots since she was in college.
Her phone made the pretty three-note chord that said she had a message. She was hopeful it was Aaron, but the noise made her wince.
It was from Lissa.
I had so much fun last night. I really needed that, sis. Not just cutting loose, but actually talking to you about real stuff. I love you bunches.
Alana grinned and typed in, Love you too, Lis.
The bell over the door rang, and when she looked up, a pair of familiar, powerful, jean-clad legs strode in. She could make out the bottom hem of Aaron’s black sweater sitting on his tapered waist just right, but his torso and face were completely blocked from her view by a giant vase of bright pink roses.
“What is this?” she asked as Aaron settled them on the counter with a lopsided grin.
“An apology.”
Pleasure warmed her cheeks as she plucked a tiny present from the center of the arrangement. After opening the small box, she pulled a packet of painkillers from it and gave him a questioning frown.
He gave her a charming wink that successfully leveled her ovaries to nothing. “For hangovers.”
She giggled. “I actually really need these today.”
Sitting in the bottom of the box was a small picture of Aaron’s bare chest, abs, and the top of his jeans, which he’d left unbuttoned. She could just make out the top part of his dick. Alana nearly choked on air. She clutched it to her chest, scanning the room as if she just got busted reading a naughty book in public.
“That’s repayment for those tit-tease pics you sent me last night,” Aaron said through a cocky grin.
Yeah, she kind of remembered that. She’d have to go back and read everything she’d messaged him now that she was sober. Now she was staring at the picture, and Aaron chuckled in a way that said he was sexy and he knew it, so Alana rushed to shove it in her back pocket.
“You don’t like it?”
Alana snorted. “Please. I’m gonna blow it up and make a new poster of Aaron Keller for my adult self.”
“Hang it right above your bed, yeah?”
Alana pressed her palms against her cheek to cool the heat there. “Stop.”
“Will you go out with me tonight?” Aaron asked suddenly. He opened his mouth like he wanted to say more, but changed his mind and left that question to fill the space between them.
“You like me,” she murmured.
With a grin that deepened his smile lines and made his bright blue eyes dance, he admitted, “I fuckin’ like you.”
Alana couldn’t help the excitement that bubbled up her spine and made her take a few running steps in place. One of her curls bounced out of her pins and fell in front of her face. Aaron cast a quick glance behind him, then brushed it back and tucked it behind her ear. “Say yes. Go out with me. Let me make up for what I did.”
The smile dipped from her lips. “Aaron, you don’t have to keep apologizing for that. I understand.”
He lowered his voice to a whisper. “I feel like shit about it.”
“Buy me a slice of pizza from that Italian restaurant down the street, and I’ll forgive you.”
“The one you went to on your date with Doucheface?” Aaron’s lips thinned to a line of displeasure.
“Yeah, there are, like, ten restaurants in this town, and I don’t want that one associated with Trey the Troll.” She ducked her gaze and admitted, “I want everything here soaked in the memories I make with you.”
Aaron took a step back like he’d been pushed. His eyes had gone round, his face angled in question. “What are you saying?”
Alana sighed and wrung her hands on the counter. “You didn’t scare me off, Aaron. I called this morning and extended the lease here.”
“Are you serious?”
Why was she so emotional about this? Blowing out a shaking breath, Alana nodded.
Aaron strode around the counter so fast she gasped, and his body crashed against hers in a lung squeezing hug. He lifted her off the ground and carried her into the kitchen and out of view of the curious café patrons. Aaron just stood there and held her as his heartrate went wild. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he said too growly. “You aren’t teasing me? You’re staying in Bryson City? For sure? Officially?”
She laughed thickly and hugged his neck tight, buried her face against his shoulder. “For sure and officially. I thought about it a lot, but I can’t leave this place. I can’t leave you. It would be like leaving a piece of myself behind. I don’t know what you did to me. I should be scared of you after yesterday, but all I wanted to do was see you again and tell you it would be okay. And I wanted you to tell me it’ll be okay. That you aren’t running either.”
“I’m not running, Alana.” He kissed her neck twice and whispered it again like an oath. “I’m not running.”
“Okay, then pizza tonight.”
“And then what? Woman, I know you have plans.”
She giggled as he settled her on her feet and looked down at her with eyes that had darkened two shades. “And then you’ll take me on another date, and another, and when you’re ready, you’re gonna ask me to marry you. You’re gonna respect my human side. Someday, I want your last name on me.”
Aaron cupped her neck and kissed her lips gently. And when he eased back, there wasn’t an ounce of hesitancy in his eyes as he murmured, “And then what?”
She gripped his wrists so he wouldn’t let her go, wouldn’t let her fall. “And then you’ll mark me and make me like you. You’ll do it right, and we’ll prove Weston’s dream wrong. And your bear will settle because he’ll finally understand, without a shadow of a doubt, that I’m not going anywhere.”
And she wouldn’t. This was the moment she owned a future with Aaron. Lissa had been right. This was the adventure, throwing caution to the wind, and trusting her heart. Her head still had moments of weakness, moments where she got scared of the pain and uncertainty that would flow in and out of this life she was choosing. But what could she do? Her soul had wrapped around Aaron long ago.
No matter what came their way, she was ready. She wasn’t facing the world alone anymore—not since Aaron had walked into her life. Now she felt like an important half of something bigger than she’d thought love could be.
A couple weeks ago, she would’ve balked at the unpredictability of a future like this. She would’ve clung to her lists, her plans, and her safe life if it had been anyone else other than Aaron. But her mate had come in and made her feel alive.
Aaron’s eyes were clear and sure as he looked at her as though she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
Now, the unpredictability wasn’t so scary anymore—not with Aaron right here, so steady and strong against her. Even after yesterday and how close he’d come to Turning her, she still somehow felt safe in his arms.
She would take a life of uncertainty with Aaron over a half-life of constancy without him any day.
Chapter Eighteen
“I need to get up there and change those lightbulbs,” Aaron said, squinting down the street from Dante’s to her lit-up Alana’s Coffee & Sweets sign. Half the letters were out, and the C was flickering on its last legs. Right now it read, Alan’s Cof & Swet. Appealing.
“How are you going to reach it?” Alana asked, setting down the empty wine glass. The table had been cleared half an hour ago, but she and Aaron had just been enjoying the night.
It was cold out on the front patio, but the manager had turned on the giant heater right behind her so she was plenty comfortable.
Aaron’s gaze turned thoughtful. “I bet Chief would let me use one of the big ladders.
She swatted his arm. “Quit looking at it like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like it’s an ugly sign. That’s my baby.”
“It’s a hideous baby.”
“Neat freak,” she muttered, crossing her arms over her chest. “You know, I had all these plans for the café.”
“Oh yeah? Paint me a picture.”
“Imagine this,” she said in a theatrical voice. “Out front, a handcrafted wooden sign stained a rich walnut color. New windows without BB gun holes that have been patched with putty.”
Aaron chuckled and nodded. “I like it already. What else?”
“I wanted wood floors. Not the new ones, but the refurbished old, scuffed-up kind. I wanted chandeliers, proper wainscoting, and designer paint. Better tables, nicer mugs, and eventually I wanted to upgrade my oven to a double so I could get my baking done faster. And I always wanted to get Wi-Fi set up so people could work in there.”
“It sounds awesome. What’s stopping you?”
“Money. You’ve been in there. The place isn’t exactly hopping. Even during the busiest months, I barely cover the cost of running the place and my bills. I drained my savings to start up the business, and there just isn’t money left over for the big stuff.”
Aaron frowned, and then his troubled gaze was back on her sign again. Ready to move away from her failures with the café, she asked carefully, “Do you want to see a picture of me as a baby?”
As if Aaron could tell how big a deal this was to her, he pulled her legs onto his lap under the table and gave her one of her favorite smiles. The one where his lips curved up higher on one side. “Yeah. I really do.”
Nervously, she flipped through the pictures on her phone to one Dad had sent her and Lissa a couple months ago when he was going through old boxes of pictures. The caption read, my beautiful baby girls.
Sometimes she forgot how bad her cleft lip and palate had been, so when the picture had come through in the message, she’d sat there shocked for several minutes before she was able to respond back to him.
There it was. Alana zoomed in to crop out the crib she and Lissa had been lying in. Lissa was looking up with her big, beautiful eyes, lips formed in a sweet coo, and Alana had a big grin on her face as if Dad was playing peek-a-boo over the side of the crib.
Her smile was wrecked, her lip split all the way up through the left side of her nose, and part of her palate was missing.
With a steadying breath, Alana handed Aaron the phone over the small table. He stroked her calf gently as he pulled the phone to him. She didn’t want to see his face when he saw her deformity for the first time, but for some reason, she couldn’t look away.
The smile dipped from his lips for just an instant but didn’t leave his eyes. He zoomed in farther, probably on her, and murmured, “Alana, you have the same smile. You’re so fucking cute.”
“Don’t say that. It took a lot of money to make my smile different.”
When Aaron poked the screen a few times, Alana frowned. “What are you doing?”
“Sending this to myself. I’ll get my mom to send me some baby pics of me so I can give them to you.”
“Y-you want to keep that?”
“Hell yeah, babe.” He looked at her as if she’d lost her mind with that question. “Nothing about your journey here turns me off. I love your lips, scar and all. Let me ask you something.” He leaned back in the chair and pushed her phone away. “Do you think you would be the woman you are today if you weren’t born with the cleft lip and palate?”
Well, that shocked her into silence. She hadn’t ever thought about that before. Would she be this self-assured, or proud of herself for getting through what she had? Would she know she was this resilient if she hadn’t been teased and overcome it? “No, I don’t think I would be who I am.”
Aaron angled his face and his smile was back, genuine and proud. “Well, I love the woman you are. I’m sorry for what it must have cost you when you were a kid, but I don’t think we would be here now if you hadn’t pushed through it. That scar on your lip means I got a shot to keep you. It’s one of my favorite things about you.”
Alana blew out a shaking breath and blinked back the moisture that was rimming her eyes. She would not ruin this beautiful moment with mascara streaks and relieved sobbing. No one in her life had been able to help her love her scar, but Aaron just had with a few sentences.
He looked so handsome here in the soft strands of outdoor lights that wrapped the pergola above them. His hair was pushed back on top, his eyes so blue and honest, his smile lines bracketing his sensual lips. He hadn’t shaved this morning or yesterday, and the gold stubble on his chiseled jaw made her fingertips itch to touch it. He wore a charcoal gray and black striped sweater with a V in the neck that gave her a peek at the defined line between his pecs and a hint of the tattoo that curved along his collarbone. His sleeves were pushed up to his elbows, exposing more ink, and his long legs were clad in dark jeans. He’d admitted when he picked her up tonight he had dressed up for her, and she loved that. This right here felt like the most important date of her life, and now his words had erupted her stomach with a fluttering sensation.
Alana pulled Aaron’s paperclip from deep within her pocket and spun it slowly in her fingertips. “I know what this means,” she whispered. “Harper told me about you giving a paperclip to your dad when you first met him, and about how he kept it. She told me you kept this one all this time.” She swallowed hard. “And then you gave it to me.”
Aaron’s hand on her legs had gone still under the table as she’d spoken, and he looked uncertain, but he needn’t be.
“You have this amazing ability to pick your people at first sight,” she said thickly. “You did it with your dad, and then you did it with me. And I just wanted to say I love you back.” That last part tumbled from her lips quickly so she wouldn’t change her mind and chicken out.
Aaron froze, and his blue eyes morphed to that unsettling muddy gold color that seemed to glow unnaturally. There he was—Bear. He should be here listening to her declaration too.
“I love both of you,” she said on a breath.
Slowly, Aaron leaned forward and plucked the paperclip from her fingertips. He settled his hands under the table in his lap where she couldn’t see and stared at the trinket with such a thoughtful look in his blazing eyes.
Aaron adjusted his weight and pulled something out of his own pocket. It was a small tube of something. Hesitating only a moment, he handed it to her.
“What’s this?” she asked, fingering the tiny treasure that had been warmed in his pocket.
“That’s the burn cream you gave me the first time I met you.”
Her face went slack with realization, and she dragged her gaze back to the medicine in her palm. Her voice quaked when she asked, “You kept it?”
Aaron nodded, but he wasn’t looking at her anymore. He was fidgeting with the paperclip. And when he finally gave her his bright-eyed gaze, his face was full of some emotion she didn’t understand. He lowered her legs out of his lap and onto the ground, and for a moment, Alana was scared she’d angered him. She was scared he was pushing her away again.
But instead, Aaron pulled her chair closer, leaned forward, kissed her lips, and then pulled away with a gentle smacking sound. Something cold touched her fingertip, and she looked down. It was the paperclip, smoothed out and re-shaped to wrap around and around in a perfect circle. Aaron had slid it up to the first knuckle on her ring finger.
“Oh, my gosh,” she whispered.
“Alana, I don’t have the ring you deserve right now, but I’ll get it. You told me earlier that when I was ready, I would ask you to marry me, and it was so damn hard not to drop to my knee right then and there. I know what
I want. I knew what I wanted the second I saw you, and with every moment I spend with you, my body…my heart…my soul tethers to you more tightly. You were right about the meaning behind this paperclip. I love you so much.” Aaron slid off the edge of his chair and lowered to one knee.
Alana’s shoulders shook with emotion as she held her hand over her mouth to keep her sobbing inside.
“Alana Warren, you are the most beautiful, tender-hearted, funny, patient, forgiving, strongest woman I’ve ever met. And I’d be honored…honored…if you would be my wife. Will you marry me?”
Her emphatic nod dislodged the moisture in her eyes so that tears streamed down her face as she croaked out her answer, “Yes.”
Aaron’s smile was instant, relieved. He pushed the paperclip ring onto her finger, then pulled her to him and hugged her tight as though he never wanted to let go.
A few couples sitting at tables around them began clapping and whistling. Alana laughed and held him. Feeling overwhelmed with emotion, she stared up at the strands of lights, mirroring the stars in the dark sky above. She’d forgotten they weren’t alone here because Aaron had that uncanny ability to make her feel like they were the only ones in the world.
Or perhaps it was more.
Perhaps it was that Aaron made her feel like the only one in his world.
Alana clenched her left hand to feel the texture of his paperclip on her finger. She’d waited her whole life for Aaron, waited her whole life for this moment, and he’d gone and made it so beautiful.
No matter what came now, they would face life together. She wasn’t alone anymore.
Now and always, she would remember this as the night when her life truly began.
Chapter Nineteen
Alana sipped her glass of red wine and settled it back onto the uneven floorboards of 1010. She wrapped the blanket Aaron had draped around her shoulders tightly around herself and stretched her leg out across the open doorframe she leaned against. This had become her favorite part of the evenings when Aaron wasn’t on shift at the firehouse.