by Joanne Rock
Damn it, who knew how he thought? I hadn’t understood him six years ago and I sure as hell didn’t understand him now.
He waved the flash drive in front of my nose again, but I refrained from batting at it like an uncoordinated kitten. I’d wait until I knew I could grab it. Besides, his hold on me loosened even more as he teased me.
“This is hot, Miranda. Really, really hot.” He leered at me with brown eyes I’d once found handsome. Now I tried to hide a convulsive shudder, still hoping to get out of here without him...hurting me? I didn’t know if that’s what he had in mind, but I knew he’d manhandled me in the past when he’d gotten me into dark corners, even after his engagement to Nina.
There’d been a time I hadn’t fought back, but those days were done. I’d grown stronger on my own, and then Damien had blasted away any lingering insecurities. I hadn’t realized it until right this moment, but I was a far cry from the vulnerable woman Rick once knew.
“Rick, you’re holding stolen property.” I tried being reasonable, inching away from him a little at a time and hoping he wouldn’t notice. “I suggest you return it before I press charges.”
His eyebrows lifted. “I knew you’d gotten hotter over the years, but I didn’t know you’d gotten fiery.”
There was something foul in his tone. Something that scared me. My legs were shaking hard and I took another tiny step away, hoping I’d be able to run. He didn’t know I was stronger now, and I could use that to my advantage—
“Where do you think you’re going?” He grabbed me easily with one long arm and wrenched me back against him. “We’ve got business to discuss, Miranda.”
I swallowed hard. I could still scream. Maybe I should have screamed already. But there were few opportunities and I was trying to bide my time for the right one. Also, I was so scared, I didn’t trust my voice any more than my legs. For now, I was going to use the Nebraska Nice Girl skills. Maybe I’d take him by surprise as easily as I’d shocked the whole damn reality TV world.
“Nice girls do not finish last!” Shaelynn and I chorused silently together, giving rise to a near-hysterical giggle that I swallowed with a cough.
Oh, God, I was losing it. I probably wasn’t thinking clearly after his chokehold had deprived my brain of oxygen a few minutes ago.
“State your business then, Rick. I’ve got a friend to meet who is going to be looking for me if I don’t get inside soon.” I shivered from the breeze blowing off the Pacific, and the fact that Rick Barrow was holding on to me, his chili-dog breath making me gag and his sociopathic tendencies turning my belly to ice.
A set of headlights swung past us briefly and I prayed they’d come closer. Rick edged me farther behind the SUV. I listened hard and hoped the car had turned into the lot instead of continuing on Highway 1.
“You’re done hanging out with farmer boy, for one thing,” he breathed in my ear. “Whatever you thought you were doing with him is over, or else I’ll go to the press with this erotic smut you’ve written, and embarrass the hell out of your Thoroughbred breeder with Shaelynn’s porno adventures.”
Anger growled to life inside me, vibrating in my ears and along the ground beneath me, giving me the push to find my voice.
“You son of a bitch.” I shoved at him, hard, enough to loosen his hold. “How dare you—”
He bared his teeth like a rabid animal and cocked his arm back. I got ready to both scream and run like hell.
Except that his raised arm was suddenly wrenched backward so hard that Rick fell away from me, right into the waiting headlock of...Damien.
His handsome face appeared out of the night, his heavy biceps curled around Rick’s face like a nutcracker ready to shell an almond. Rick deflated like the cowardly piece of crap he was, dropping my flash drive at my feet and launching into a tirade of whines.
“I didn’t know she wanted it back,” he protested, his words muffled. “I thought she wanted me to read it. I was just going—”
The quick chirp of a siren and flash of police lights cut him off. I had a glimpse of his face reflected in red swirling light for a second before a squad car pulled up beside us. I scrambled over to Bill’s side and checked his pulse. He was breathing just fine. Heartbeat steady, thank God. I realized now that Damien’s Ford 450 idled nearby. That accounted for the growly, vibrating noise I’d heard earlier.
“You should pocket that,” Damien said, pointing to the flash drive with his free hand.
Still watching out for me, even after I’d left him.
My heart hurt at the thought as I did what he’d suggested.
Before I could say anything to Damien—thank him for finding me and saving me—Joelle streaked across the parking lot in a white hotel robe, her normally perfect hair flying in every direction.
“Oh God, oh God, oh God, I nearly died when he grabbed you.” Joelle swooped between me and one of two cops who’d arrived on the scene. The younger officer was helping Bill to sit up, while Joelle blurted, “Damien texted me to see if you were here, and I said no, but then I got worried and started looking out the window every now and then. When I saw your car and this guy, I called the cops, but they said they already had a car on the way, and I couldn’t tell what was going on, but oh, God, I’ve been so scared.”
Her words were fast and murmured into my shoulder while she hugged me. My heart still raced, adrenaline flowing through my veins and making me jittery. Or maybe it was the powerful emotions I felt for Damien, because all I really wanted to do right now was launch myself into his arms.
The cops had already helped Bill into the hotel for some water and a seat where it was warm. Another car arrived to take Rick away, the second set of officers ignoring his whining and protesting about whores and smut and Nebraska Backstabbers. I was pretty sure I’d be in the papers tomorrow even though I’d evaded the press at the farm. And I really regretted that.
“Thank you, Joelle.” I hugged my friend tight and counted my blessings. I may have left my family in Nebraska six years ago, but I’d sure found an ally as strong as any blood tie in my former boss. “I’m so grateful.”
“You can come back to work,” she said between tears. “Maybe just take a few weeks off and all this will have died down. You can buy half my tearoom and we can run it together. I miss you, my friend.”
“Wow.” I wondered if the adrenaline had been at work for her, too, but that was still a really nice thing to offer. “That’s very generous—”
“Miranda.” Damien appeared beside us, pressing a palm on my shoulder and—oh, it felt so good—reaching for my hand. “Can we talk first? Privately?”
“We’ll have some questions for her, Damien.” One of the police officers spoke up. “Actually, we’ll need a formal statement from you, too.”
Damien nodded and Joelle pulled back, sniffling and clutching her cell phone. I noticed Damien’s hand stayed on my shoulder, warm and strong. I wanted to curl into him with a fierceness that rocked me to my core, but I had to stay strong. I couldn’t cave when times got tough. I wasn’t the coward Rick had made me out to be, running from my problems.
This time, I really was running toward something. Strength, wholeness, fulfillment. Wherever I landed, back in L.A. or somewhere else, it would be my decision.
“Can we talk afterward?” Damien asked, his cheek close to mine.
I inhaled the scent of him. Leather and musk, horses and cinnamon tea. It seemed impossible we’d been in each other’s arms just a few hours ago. It felt like a lifetime.
And no matter how difficult it might be to face him privately and not be swayed by the magnetic draw I felt whenever I was near him, I needed to at least say thank-you for what he’d done for me. He’d been right to worry about Rick. I shouldn’t have been so careless.
“Of course.” I tried to smile up at him, to prove to myself and to him that
I was fine and strong and moving forward.
So it was really embarrassing that I chose that moment to burst into tears.
13
DAMIEN LOOKED TO HIS FRIEND on the local cop squad, who gestured toward Miranda as if to say “she’s all yours.”
If only she was.
He’d barely shown up in time to help her, and then his request for a private audience made her cry. Damien would give his attempts to win her back a negative ten.
“Miranda?” It tore him up to hear those sobs wrenched from her throat. “Should we talk now? Just sit for a minute before the police take our statements? They can speak to Joelle first.”
“No.” Miranda shook her head, adamant. “I’m sorry. I’m fine. It’s just been an emotional day.”
His brother’s words blared in his ears, about not being emotionally equipped to deal with romantic relationships. Damien was failing at this before he even started.
“Are you sure, miss?” The younger officer, a guy with a nameplate that said Squire, approached Miranda. “This should only take a few minutes.”
“I’m ready,” she said. “I really have to tell you what a bastard that guy has been to me.”
Damien wanted to hold her hand. Sit beside her while she told her story. But he’d been requested to make a statement, as well, since he’d had Barrow in a headlock when the police arrived. Besides, Miranda looked focused once she’d dried her tears. Something about the set to her shoulders told him she really needed to do this.
“She looks like she’ll be okay,” his friend Rafe assured him as he came over with a pad of paper and a pen in his hand. Rafe had been out to the farm more than once to ride his grandmother’s horse, which boarded in Damien’s stables, so they’d known each other awhile. “I wouldn’t let him talk to her if she didn’t seem ready, but my sense is the timing is good.”
“I hope you’re right.” Damien tried to respect the other man’s opinion, but it wasn’t easy to squelch the urge to tuck her under his arm and take her away from this nightmare.
“Do you want to say anything formal about the so-called erotic novel that she was writing, or do you want to ignore that facet of Barrow’s ranting?”
“Can I wait to see if Miranda wants to address that issue?”
Rafe grinned. “Mr. Fraser, I like to think we’re friends, but when I’m on the job I can’t let you match stories with your girlfriend.”
“In that case, I will say that Miranda is a creative force to be reckoned with, and she’s working on a novel in addition to her acting career and her entrepreneurial efforts.”
Rafe whistled as he transcribed the statement to his notebook. “Someone knows how to stick to the talking points.”
“She’s been through a lot, Rafe, and if I have my way she’s going to be a valued member of this community for a long time. So it would mean a lot to me if we can treat her with as much respect as possible.”
“Hey, my wife and I were rooting for the Nebraska Nice Girl the whole time.” He looked up from his legal pad. “And yes, I recognized her. If someone was trying to hurt her tonight, we will prosecute to the full extent of the law.”
The statement moved quickly after that. Damien tried to stick to the facts, though he got distracted a few times and glanced over at Miranda to be sure she was holding together. But she looked good. The officer who interviewed her appeared to take her seriously, writing copious notes as she spoke.
When Damien finished his interview, he walked Joelle back into the hotel and wished her a good night. By the time he returned to the parking lot, the officers were finishing up with Miranda. Once they left, Damien pointed toward his truck.
“It’s warm in the cab. Do you mind if we talk in there, or would you rather go somewhere else?”
He didn’t know if it was such a good idea to spend another second in the parking lot where Rick had grabbed her and threatened her, but Damien figured he’d let her make the call.
“That would be great, actually.” She hugged herself. “I’m freezing.”
He wasted no time opening the passenger door and helping her inside. When he’d settled into the driver’s seat he reached behind him for a wool blanket and tucked it around her. It took superhuman effort not to wrap her in his arms, too. But he wanted to do this right. Couldn’t allow himself to get lost in the taste of her to try and bridge the distance between them. If they were going to fix this, they needed to do it now, before she disappeared for good.
“Thank you,” she blurted, before he could think where to start. “I don’t know how you guessed where to find me, but thank God you did.”
“I only wish I’d gotten here sooner—”
“I should have listened to you.” She shook her head, gesturing with her sticker-covered fingernails. “It made sense to spend the night and come up with a better plan, but I didn’t want to risk my heart another second, and I thought I’d better leave while I still could, and it was just...foolish.”
He tried not to overthink the part about “risking her heart,” but that sounded potentially hopeful, and he tucked it in a corner of his mind.
“I wasn’t thinking clearly, either.” He wanted to drink in the sight of her—whole and unharmed—for a few hours at least, until he reassured himself she was really okay. Safe. “I should have asked how you wanted to handle the onslaught of reporters, instead of calling all the shots and hiding you away like I wish I could have done back when it was me being hounded by the media.”
“It was a good plan. I truly don’t like facing that kind of mob scene.” She took a tissue from a box between the two front seats and dabbed at her eyes.
“But I robbed you of the chance to meet them on your own terms. And maybe I could have spared you the encounter with Rick, too.” That’s what stung most. “If we’d stuck together—”
“Bottom line, I didn’t want to draw more unwanted attention to Fraser Farm, and you helped me find a way to prevent that from happening, so I have no right to complain.”
“You don’t understand. I regret the way things happened because I don’t care anymore about what effect your presence has on my business. I care about you more than I care about the public perception of the place.”
She reached up to the ceiling and clicked on the overhead light. He blinked as his eyes adjusted to the brightness and to her scrutiny.
“What are you saying?” She squinted blue eyes at him as if trying to get a clearer picture.
“Miranda, I’ve lived like a hermit ever since I took on Fraser Farm. That’s been by choice, because I don’t trust easily.”
“I can’t blame you, after the craziness of those early dating years.” She smoothed the fringe on the wool blanket he’d given her. “I haven’t been in the habit of letting anyone get too close, either. But then, you can see why, after meeting the power-tripping lunatic who was my first relationship.”
“Yet I wanted to reel you in and keep you close, starting that first day we met, and that’s never happened to me before.” The confession sounded rough. Felt rough, too. But he wanted her to stay, and not even a damned farm-stand sale was going to make it happen. If it took putting his heart on the line, he had every intention of doing just that. “When you looked at me and we shared that moment when Stretch first stood?” Damien smiled, remembering. “I knew then. I’d never want to let you go.”
* * *
I HELD MY BREATH.
Actually, I held on to everything. My breath. The moment. The fringe in my hand. I guess I thought if I could stop time, I’d feel this happy forever.
Plus there wouldn’t be any chance I’d misheard or misunderstood what this meant.
When I finally exhaled, I felt dizzy. Overwhelmed. But so full of hope I could burst.
“Do you mean—?”
“Please, don’t go.�
� Damien reached for my hand and held it. Then he reached for the other one and squeezed it, too. “Stay with me on the farm and do whatever you like. Run a tearoom. Ride horses. Write books. Bake quiches. Film a new reality show. Just...please be a part of my life.”
I’m not the type to be tongue-tied. But this outpouring of unexpected...amazing...awesomeness was robbing me of speech at every turn. Plus, the more he talked, the more I liked what he was saying. The more I realized I wasn’t dreaming. “You’re serious.”
“Everything comes alive when you’re around. Me. The farm. My staff. My guests. It’s like everything I’ve been working toward finally comes into focus when you’re there. Without you, they’re just pieces of the puzzle that don’t quite fit.” Damien looked out the windshield and I saw the first hint of self-doubt on his handsome, beloved face. “Help me out, Miranda. My brother said if I told you how I felt—”
I leaped into his lap. I hoped it wasn’t painful, but I threw my arms around him and squeezed him tight. Kissed his gorgeous, chiseled features. Rained kisses down his temple. Tucked my head into his shoulder and cried. Happy tears, yes. But true to messy form, I blubbered and blathered and generally sobbed nonsense against his chest.
“I love being with you. I’m so happy at the farm. It’s like home, but a million times better. Like the farm I always wanted and would have made for myself.” I sniffled and he handed me tissues. Stroked my hair. I curled up until my butt was half through the steering wheel, but I didn’t care. “Walking into your house was like Goldilocks going into the three bears’ place, only better because nothing was too big or too small, everything was just right.”
He laughed at that one, but I hope he knew what I meant.
“You’ll stay?”
“Heck, yes, I’m staying! I’m going to put bonsai plants in all the windows and tea canisters all over the kitchen. Two days from now, you won’t be able to picture that house without me in it, I promise you.”