Roseanne reluctantly took the proffered handkerchief. God knew, she needed it. "If you don't mind, I'd prefer working on forgetting this whole adventure."
Win's laughter faded. "You can remember it because it's never going to happen again. Count this as the last time I make you cry."
Roseanne slanted him a dark look. "As a matter of fact, Win, when I get back to Seattle I plan to spend at least two days in bed, crying my eyes out. Don't see how it can be avoided, in fact." She blew her nose with martial determination.
"You're not going anywhere."
Roseanne scowled at him over her handkerchief. "What did you say?"
"I said you're going to Seattle over my dead body."
Her jaw dropped as she stared up at him. "What—? You said you were hauling me off to the airport."
"Right, but that was before." He took the handkerchief out of her hands, produced a clean one and dabbed her wet cheeks with it.
Dumbfounded, she submitted to his ministration. "Before what?"
"Before you told me you do love me, after all."
For a long minute, Roseanne could only stare at him, thoroughly flabbergasted. "Of all the—! Of course I don't love you. I wouldn't love any man. I couldn't. Why, if I loved you, and you ever left me, or rejected me, I'd be devastated. I'd be— I'd—" Her voice trailed off as her jaw simply stayed open. I'd feel exactly the way I do right now. "No," Roseanne whispered. Did I really take that plunge?
Looking at her, Win slowly smiled.
With her jaw still slack, Roseanne stared back. "Oh, my God," she said, still in a whisper. "I do. I do love you, Win. Don't I?"
He laughed softly. "Only you can answer that, sweetheart."
"I do," she repeated. "But—" She gasped. "What about you? Do you love me, Win?" Wow. This was pretty important information.
"Uh huh." He nodded as he dabbed her other cheek with the new handkerchief. "Quite a lot, actually."
"Really?" It was amazing how full her chest suddenly felt. Win loved her! She flicked a quick glance up at him, though, remembering something. "Like a volcano?"
"Like a what—?" Win looked down at her in alarm. "Oh, that. About Sylvia. No, darling, not like a volcano."
"Oh."
"Volcanoes blow themselves out and go extinct." Win stopped drying her face and took her firmly into his arms. "The way I love you isn't like that at all."
"No? Then what is it like?" Her budding disappointment eased with curiosity.
Win appeared to think about his answer. "I'd say it's more like some passing ember fell into a bunch of dry wood that was me. The thing took hold and started to burn. The fire's only been getting bigger ever since."
Roseanne's arms wound around his neck. "I like that." Her voice went husky. "So tell me, does this fire need fuel added from time to time to keep going?"
"Oh, yeah." Win lowered his head. "Constantly."
"Win?" Roseanne stopped him before his lips could meet hers.
"Huh?"
"Do you think I could have my ring back now?"
His lips were so close to hers she could feel them curve into a smile. "Roseanne, are you by any chance proposing marriage to me?"
"For the second time, actually." Roseanne smiled, too. "Don't you like me asking for things now? You know, the whole trust and dependence bit?"
"Mm." Win made a sound of mild annoyance as he pulled back. "That's okay as far as it goes, but there are some things, my dear, that you have the power to grant me."
"Oh?" Roseanne found she enjoyed the idea. "Like what?"
His gaze hit her with stunning force as he suddenly swept her off her feet and into his arms. "Like what I'm going to take you down the hall to ask you right now."
"Oh! Am I finally going to get a look at the master bedroom?"
"You better curb that tongue," Win muttered as he made for the hall, "if you ever want to see that ring again."
Roseanne kicked her legs lazily. "I'm not too worried about the ring. I figure you'll have to marry me, once the kids start coming."
In hindsight, it might have been wise to save that particular tease, at least until she'd made a safe landing somewhere. As it was, Win nearly dropped her.
"The kids?" he choked out.
"Mm hm. I have a feeling they're going to start coming very soon." She fingered his lightly stubbled cheek. "You do want children, don't you, Win?"
Under her finger, a muscle twitched in his jaw. "More'n anything else in the world—except for you."
"Good." Roseanne nodded. "That's settled, then."
Win shifted her weight in his arms. "Nothing like having serious life discussions while one of us is up in the air."
"Is that my fault?"
Win grunted and pushed open the door to his bedroom. "Suddenly I'm in charge of everything."
"Oh, no, Win. I promise I'll take care of lots of things."
"I'll just bet you will," he muttered.
"Like the wedding," Roseanne announced.
He dumped her on top of the bed, his eyes widening. "Now you want to talk about a wedding? When will this end?"
"Soon, soon," Roseanne promised, laughing up at him. "I just wanted to say I agree with you about the ceremony. It should be in Seattle."
Win growled and moved to cage her with his arms. "Is there anything I can do to get your attention?"
"In a minute, darling. But then after the wedding, I definitely want to move down here."
"Is that right?" He lowered his head to nuzzle her neck, but she knew he was still listening because he thought to ask, "You going to transfer to the Houston branch?"
"No." Roseanne made an effort to avoid letting him get to her mouth—yet. "Actually, I'm thinking of resigning."
His tender predations abruptly halted. "You what?"
She craned her head around to be able to look at him. "You know, once I made partner it wasn't that big a deal any more. And besides, waiting for the dirty dozen to make up their minds made me realize how dependent I'd become on them. That didn't sit so well. So I'm thinking of striking out on my own."
"Oh yes, a little independence." Win slowly grinned. "That ought to be right up your alley."
"I think so." Roseanne smiled serenely as Win drew over her. "Especially seeing as how I'm going to be a little tied up on the home front."
"Right." Win kissed her lightly, beginning the familiar melting process. "What with the children and all."
Roseanne closed her eyes, savoring the sensation of Win pulling her into his magical place. "Yes, the children," she sighed. To her utter astonishment, she was actually looking forward to pushing out babies. "Do you know what I think, Win?"
"No, what?" He appeared to be losing his part in the conversation, finding Roseanne's neck to be quite a bit more interesting.
"I think we're going to have one of those marriages that truly works out. You know, the kind that last through thick and thin. For always and forever."
Win rose on his elbows and looked down at her. There was a shimmering promise of love in his eyes. "You've hit the nail on the head there, sweetheart. That's just how it's gonna be. Always and forever."
As his lips met hers, the bedroom door snicked closed. Roseanne could have sworn the lock bolted by itself. It seemed Win had regained his magic touch.
In a few minutes more, she was sure of it.
The End
About the Author
Alyssa Kress completed her first novel at age six, an unlikely romance between a lion and a jackal. Despite earning two degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and spending nearly a decade in the construction industry, she's yet to see her feet stay firmly on the ground. She now lives in Southern California, together with her husband and two children.
You can learn more about Alyssa Kress and her other novels at http://www.alyssakress.com.
Other books by Alyssa Kress:
Marriage by Mistake
The Heart Heist
The Indiscreet Ladies of Green Ivy Wa
y
Asking For It
Love and the Millionairess
Working on a Full House
Your Scheming Heart
I Gotta Feeling
Preview of If I Loved You
"Don't move!"
Pattie uttered this command from the door of her home office, pausing one horrified instant before flying across the room to block the bookcase atop her desk with her arms. "Just—stay right there."
Tristan whimpered. Pattie's two-and-a-half year-old nephew had somehow stuffed himself into the top shelf of the bookcase. Resembling some oversized and poorly considered knick-knack, he lay in between her mother's crystal candlesticks and a macumba mask from her pre-business-owner trip to Brazil.
How he'd managed to get himself into such a position was beyond Pattie's imagination. How to get him out again was not very firmly in her imagination, either. He was about six feet up.
"Of all the— Let's see. Maybe I can...climb onto the desk..." The candlesticks were goners, Pattie understood. The macumba mask probably wouldn't survive the rescue either.
Hiking up her narrow skirt, she placed a foot on the cushion of her desk chair, then maneuvered her other knee onto the top of the desk. As she put her weight on that knee, however, she heard an ominous crack. Along with the bookcase, the desk already held two computers and four monitors. Pattie herself, though athletically built, was five feet ten and no featherweight.
"Damn cheap Ikea furniture," she grumbled.
"Damn!" Tristan echoed. "Damn, damn, damn!"
Pattie groaned. Parenting was definitely not her forté. After taking her eyes off her nephew long enough for him to get into this fix, she was now teaching him a few cuss words for good measure.
"Please forget I said that," she muttered. "At least don't practice it, okay, while I go get the stepladder." But as Pattie started to ease off the desk, Tristan began to wiggle off the shelf.
"What are you doing?" she hissed, halting in her half-on, half-off position. Did the child have a death wish? "Please, kid, don't move."
Tristan stared at her with his dark brown eyes, eyes that were so much like Nick's. Suppressing the self-disgust that thoughts of Nick stirred, Pattie stared back. As they settled into this standoff, the chimes of Pattie's doorbell echoed through the apartment.
The nanny. "Damn," Pattie whispered. The nanny, whom the agency had told her was her 'last chance.' The one she'd wanted to impress that taking care of Tristan wouldn't be such an impossible job, after all.
"Damn," Tristan replied. "Wanna get down." He began to wiggle off the shelf again.
"No!" Pattie cried, and held up her hands. She wouldn't be able to catch him if he fell off the shelf. Meanwhile the desk beneath her gave another threatening creak.
Utter helplessness. The sensation settling over her was one she'd rarely experienced before her nephew had entered her life.
Now it caught her at least ten times a day.
Dammit, she couldn't finish this rescue by herself. Fortunately...
"Hello?" she called, wondering if the nanny could hear her through the exterior wall of the adjacent dining room.
"Hello?" a deep, male voice answered.
Pattie blinked. Oh, yeah. The agency had told her they were sending a man. He was the very best they had, they'd warned Pattie, the implication being if she let her charge drive this one off, they had nobody else to offer her.
"Hello?" The male nanny's voice carried strong and clear once again. It was a deep voice, too deep really, for a young man.
Frowning, Pattie called out again. "I can't get to the door—" But she needed the nanny in here. He could prevent Tristan from falling off the shelf while she ran to get the stepladder from the kitchen. "There's a spare key," she remembered. "Under the Tiki god!"
There followed a silence of apparent confusion. Nearly a dozen figurines nestled by the front door on the second-floor landing. Would the nanny know which was a Tiki god?
He must have, for she heard the too-deep voice again. "Found it."
Hallelujah. "Great! Let yourself in—" But Pattie could hear the front door already opening. The nanny appeared to own some initiative, which was a good thing, as Tristan was wiggling treacherously close to the edge of the shelf. A crystal candlestick wobbled. He was perched on disaster.
"Wait!" Pattie demanded, and waved her hands at the kid.
To her surprise, Tristan waited. In fact, he went absolutely still. His gaze shot past her.
Pattie turned.
A man who was definitely not a nanny stood in the open doorway of her home office. One of her downstairs neighbor's hotshot lawyer friends? No, even in the semi-casual clothes—tan chinos, a dark shirt, and a deeper tan zip-up jacket, he looked beyond that. With light-colored eyes in a face of hard-knocks experience, he could have been anything from a shark of high finance to a mafia henchman.
Damn. He'd be no use at all.
All the same, he strode into the room. With a twitch of his lips, he came to a stop in front of Pattie's desk. From there, he reached up and plucked Tristan out of the shelf.
The crystal candlesticks wobbled, then settled back into their places. The macumba mask from Brazil spun once, and fell gently onto its side. Without uttering even a small grunt of effort, the man set Tristan down on the Persian rug.
Tristan gave the man one petrified regard, then scrammed. His sneakers could be heard scurrying down the hall.
The man who was definitely not a nanny raised his eyebrows and turned to face Pattie. He was a big and solid guy, at least four or five inches taller than herself. Powerful. For a moment, very brief—and surprising—she felt awareness of him. It was a moment that felt like a punch.
He smiled. "Patricia Bowen, I presume?"
Pattie's mouth opened. How did the shark know her name?
"Zane Kincaid." He held out his hand. "Your new nanny. Or manny, if you prefer."
Oh, no. He couldn't be. This man looked like he belonged behind the prosecutor's table in a murder trial, or smoking cigars in the back room of some high-ranking politician. Meanwhile, the man who couldn't be her nanny stood with his hand held out as if he fully expected her to buy this rot.
Worst of all, he looked as if, behind that smile, he was laughing at her.
Uncharacteristic heat suffused her face. She supposed, being objective, it was funny. She'd just allowed her ward to wedge himself onto a shelf like a spare dictionary, she'd had to shout through the dining room wall to tell the nanny where to find her spare key, and she was still perched with one foot on her office chair and the other on her desktop.
But she wasn't in the mood to laugh at herself. Besides, it wasn't as if any of this was really her. She wasn't a parent; she was a businesswoman. Her real life was hustling her website design company, expanding her client base, and winning awards. Efficiency and success.
Meanwhile, it was impossible to scramble down from her desk with any pretense of grace. It didn't help when the guy reached out to help her, a big hand under her elbow as she stumbled back onto her feet. A strong hand. Her five feet ten didn't even make it tremble.
Pattie let out a deep breath, determined to grab back her pride. Casually straightening her blouse, she gave the way-too-old nanny a firm smile before holding out her hand. "Things aren't always this crazy around here," she claimed, straight-faced.
The hint of his laugh blossomed into the real thing.
She could tell she was blushing again, dammit. Okay, things were crazy. How else were they supposed to be? She'd inherited Savannah's impossible child three months ago. There'd been no warning, no possibility for preparation, and Pattie certainly had no previous experience with parenthood. God knew, she felt for the poor kid, but still— It had been like a volcano going off in the middle of her life.
And she wasn't even Tristan's closest relative. It was his father, wasn't it, who should be dealing with all this?
Yes, Nick should be the one handling this problem.
But Nick was
n't here right now. "I'd better go find Tristan," Pattie realized, "before he gets into more trouble."
Zane Kincaid shrugged. "I doubt he'll have the stomach for another escapade for, oh, twenty minutes or so."
He doubted it, did he? He was an instant expert on Tristan Bowen, was he? Zane Kincaid appeared to think he was, for he gifted her with a knowing grin.
Pattie narrowed her eyes. The grin said he knew more than she did. Of course, he probably actually did. Pretty much anyone knew more about kids than she. But the grin still got to her.
"Twenty minutes?" she said. "Oh, good. That will give us just enough time for our interview."
Interview? a voice screeched in her head. As if she had a choice about hiring the guy? She had a client coming at two with a check she badly needed—for a website she hadn't yet completed. She'd lost six nannies in the three months she'd contracted with NannyOntheGo. She wasn't exactly in the beggars-can-be-choosers market here. She had to take what she could get.
But that didn't mean she couldn't make him squirm a little first. Yeah, she'd like to wipe that grin of his face.
"Why don't you have a seat?" She indicated the cushioned sofa she kept in the room for clients. She sat in the desk chair and swiveled away from her desk to face him.
Looking amused, the man sat on her sofa. He crossed one ankle over the opposite knee, like he didn't have to impress anybody here.
Pattie put on her professional smile, then quickly crossed one leg over the other to conceal a shallow, two-inch cut she saw on her knee, probably a result of her bout with the Ikea desk. To Kinkaid she said, "Why don't you tell me something about your background?"
"My 'background?'" Eyes oh-so-innocent, he reached into his zip-up jacket. "What, exactly, would you like to know?"
Pattie watched in confusion as he removed a finger-length toy train engine from his jacket. She blinked as he set the toy on his crossed leg and began to run it up and down his thigh.
"Uh. Ahem." She forced her gaze up from the tan chinos and the muscles she could see under them. "How about telling me how you were previously employed?" Stockbroker, corporate raider—Olympic runner?
The Fiancée Fiasco Page 19