She made him wait, the few seconds were agony as he tried to read her thoughts. Then she gave him his world on a platter with six little words.
“I love you, too. I’ll stay”
He stared at her, his brain on a three-second delay for processing, but then what she said made sense and he looped an arm around her waist, pulled her close, and kissed her.
She relaxed into him, her fingers curling around the lapel of his tuxedo jacket, keeping him pressed against her. She tasted like heaven and felt like home and he finally understood what Jack, Lucky, and Teague had been saying. He didn’t deserve her, and he was a selfish bastard to keep her, but he’d spend his lifetime making her happy.
They broke off the kiss, and he finally noticed the hush that still covered the crowd surrounding them and then he heard one of his friends, not clear which one, yell “What did she say!”
Ginger laughed and grabbed the microphone, her voice bright with laughter. “I said yes!”
The room erupted in applause and catcalls and wolf whistles from every corner of the big tent. The band even broke out into a startlingly loud version of “Celebration” and the crowd around them dissolved into a mas of boogying bodies who patted them both on the back as they passed by.
Beck handed off the mic to one of the waiters and pulled Ginger into an elaborate twist and turn that ended in a dip that had her long hair sweeping the dance floor. She gasped, her eyes wide as she looked up at him, her arms wrapped tightly around his neck.
“Scared?” he teased.
She shook her head, drawing him down for a quick kiss. “No. You’ll catch me.”
Epilogue
Five months later
Blue Ridge Parkway, Virginia
“I cannot believe I let you talk me into this,” Ginger grumbled.
Beck bit back his snort and hid the eye roll. It would only earn him a fight that he was never going to winthe hazard of having a lawyer as a lover. The only time he won an argument these days was when he either enlisted the help of his mom or if he could get Ginger in bed. Apparently orgasms disconnected whatever switch connected her brilliant mind to her clever tongue.
If he had a nickel for every time she’d expressed dismay at his convincing her to hang glide with him off a mountain in the last two weeks…well, he’d be able to buy a piece of pie and a coffee at the Comfort.
“You’re going to love it,” he answered in an overly calming tone that earned him a glare. He choked back the laugh at her pitiful attempt at intimidation and continued to triple-check her safety equipment. Everything looked great. “We’ll do a foot launch today, and I guarantee you’ll love it so much that you’ll want to take lessons so that you can launch from an aero tow. After that, it will be parachuting from a plane, bungee, and BASE jumping. You’ll see.”
“Don’t count on it,” Ginger said, smiling as she shook her head and squinted at him in the sunlight. Her long, glossy hair was pulled back from her face, cascading down in a waterfall of silk that he was itching to touch. She was beautifulbreathtakingher full lips turned up in a grin that promised him days and nights of laughter and understanding that did a great job of keeping his demons at bay.
Even when he couldn’t fight them back, she loved him anyway.
He couldn’t take his eyes off her. He’d come to expect her complete obliteration of everything around him when she looked at him like that. Even his beloved mountains were dead last in the list of things that made him happy these days.
It was a gorgeous spring afternoon, and the Blue Ridge was transforming from its stark, winter iron-hued beauty to one of deep blue-green, deepest brown, and a riot of bright wildflower colors. He’d grown up here, drawn strength and purpose from its lush caress and pushed his body to the limit against its harsh challenges, but it had never made it easy for him to sleep at night. It had never given him peace and reconciliation with what he’d seen and done as young man.
Ginger gave him that.
She’d given him everything worth having.
Beck closed the distance between them, barely registering the shift of her expression from amused to surprised before he cupped her face with his hands and took her mouth. It wasn’t a kiss meant to possess—they belonged to each other—that much was a done deal. This kiss was filled with all the emotion that simmered between them like heat rising off the desert—always present, just waiting to burst into a combustible inferno that would solder their hearts together.
Beck released her mouth, pulling back in time to watch her recover from their kiss. Her lids opened slowly, her dark eyes hazy with her pleasure. He’d be a liar of the first order if he denied the masculine pride he felt at knowing that he was the one that did that to Ginger.
He wanted to be the one who always did that to her. The only one.
They were still living in separate places, trading off overnights and weekends like college kids. Neither had pushed it, both needing to find their feet separately and together. Ginger was adjusting to her new job with Teague in the law practice, feeding her passion and using her talent by helping clients who needed assistance dealing with the healthcare system, and he was adjusting to life as ER Team Leader. He loved the job but hated the paperwork, and if he was pressed to tell the truth, he didn’t hate Bent as much as he thought he would. The guy was still a tool but Beck understood why. Bureaucracy would make anyone grumpy.
“Hey.”
“Hey, yourself,” she answered, her eyes narrowing slightly at the beginning of a grin that he made no effort to hide.
“I was thinking.…”
“I’ll alert the media,” she quipped, eyes sparked with curiosity when he drew them closer together until they were pressed against each other from their chest down to their toes. He circled her waist with his arms nuzzling against her neck, dropping kisses on her warm, exposed skin until she went limp against him, her arms lifting to drape over his shoulders, her long fingers tangling in his hair just the way he liked it. “Why do I feel like you’re trying to butter me up for some other great adventure?”
“Because I am,” he mumbled against her throat, pulling aside her hair to gain access to the sweet spot just behind her ear. A series of soft kisses and he grinned against her skin when the inevitable shiver ran through her bodyshe loved that. He loved everything about her. The sexy purr when they made love. The way she chewed on her pen cap when she worked a crossword puzzle. The way her eyes flashed with outrage when her clients were dismissed by the system. He loved her. Period.
Which was why things needed to change.
Ginger tugged on is hair, pulling him back until he was forced to look down into her eyes. “I’m not BASE jumping.”
“No. I was thinking of something a little more adventurous than that, actually.”
“What could possibly be crazier than throwing myself off a three-mile high suspension bridge?”
“This.” He reached into the pocket of his jeans and fished out the small metal object that he’d been carrying around with him for a week. He fumbled with it, almost dropping it onto the asphalt at their feet. “Holy shit. My hands are shaking.”
“Beck?” His name was barely a whisper, taken quickly by the breeze that was coasting over the mountain, but he heard the fear. Hell, he felt it deep and low in his belly. How the fuck Jack, Lucky, and Teague had done this was beyond him.
What if she said no? What if he was signing up for something that he couldn’t make work? What if he fucked this up?
He got a firm grip on the object, took a deep breath, and raised his eyes to meet her own dark ones.
“Ginger, I have no idea if we’re ready for this, but I want it so badly that it’s keeping me up at night.” He held up the key. An ordinary silver metal key from the local Lowes. Nothing special except that it embodied a future the kid from the trailer park never dreamed of having. “I bought a door.”
“You bought a door?”
“I bought a door.”
Ginger stared at h
im a couple of seconds longer, but then the realization of what he’d done spread across her expression, morphing her scrunched up confusion into cautious delight. Either way, she wasn’t running for the hills so he drove on.
“That night on the hill when I had no idea where to start with my house, you told me to start small.”
“I told you to buy a door.”
“Right.” He stepped closer, grabbing her hand and placing the key in her palm and closing her fingers over it. Ginger glanced down at their hands, her breath shuddering in her chest before she lifted her eyes, glimmering with the wetness that threatened to spill over onto her cheeks. “This is your key—to our door. I want you to help me build our home, and then I want you to move your stuff in and never leave.
Beck took a deep breath, never feeling this winded from jumping out of an airplane. Holy hell.
“Never leave?”
“I’m sure you’ll want to because I’m a jackass.” He scanned her face for any sign, knowing that he was about five seconds away from hurtling himself off this mountain if she made him wait any longer. “But I want to be your jackass. Always.”
He almost bit off his tongue when he realized what he’d said. He was no good at this hearts and flowers stuff.
“You want to be my jackass?” Ginger was staring at the key, turning it over in her palm. When she looked at him, her eyebrows were drawn up and her lips twisted with concern. “Did you buy a nice door? I mean it isn’t ugly or anything like that?”
Oh, shit. He hadn’t thought that she might want to pick out the door. She might hate it. “I think it’s a great door. Sissy helped me pick it out, but if you don’t like it we can pick out another one.” He shifted on his feet, reaching up to run his fingers through his hair and then realizing that it would give away his nerves. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans, willing himself to not screw up what really needed to be said. “Whatever you want. Hell, Gin, we can sell the land and move wherever you want. I don’t care as long as we do it together.”
“You think we can do this?” she asked, her voice small and almost whipped away with the wind on the mountain. But he’d heard the fear a million times in his own head so he knew where she was and what was holding her back.
Beck moved, reaching out to grab the hand that held the key and press it against his heart. “Baby, nobody has ever loved anybody the way that I love you. Whatever good I had left inside me, whatever my father and life didn’t beat out of me was waiting for you, fighting to stay alive until I found you. I didn’t know it at first, but I know now and nothing”—he slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her close—“nothing is going to stop me from loving you until the moment I take my last breath.”
Ginger stared at him, her eyes huge and full of every single fucking emotion a person could have. She bounced from fear, to happiness, to panic, to concern, to something that caused his mouth the shift into a grin, matching the one twisting her own into a joyful smile. They looked like a couple of idiots, but he didn’t give a shit.
Beck pulled her to him, lowering his mouth to kiss when he realized something.
“Wait.” He shifted back, ignoring her protest when their lips didn’t connect. “You never gave me answer.”
“I didn’t?” she asked, rubbing her chin like she had to think about it. Her smile when she stopped making him crazy was full of joy. “Of course I’ll do it. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”
He kissed her again because he could and he wanted to, amazed that he would be doing this for the rest of his life. One day he’d offer her a ring and his name and take that huge leap with her but for now, this was everything.
“The construction crew is ready to go as soon as we pick a house plan. With any luck, we could be in the house before Christmas,” he said. “Sound good?”
Ginger smiled at him, twirling the key around by the metal loop. “Sounds like perfect timing to me.”
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Acknowledgments
Thank you to everyone who read “The Boys” and waited patiently for Beck’s story to be written. I have loved every minute I’ve spent with Jack, Lucky, Teague, and Beck—I hope you have as well. If you ever drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway, just past Staunton, VA and in between the most beautiful mountains in the world is Elliot…stop by and have peanut butter pie at the Southern Comfort!
To the Main Man, Little Man and Lulu—thank you for being so patient and supportive of me. I love you guys.
Avery Flynn and Kimberly Kincaid—the best of friends and my sisters. I couldn’t do this without you.
Alethea Spiridon—thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You are the best.
Sizzlemongers—here’s to many more years of man candy pics, dirty books and lots of laughs!
About the Author
A USA Today bestseller, Robin Covington loves to explore the theme of fooling around and falling in love in her books. Her stories burn up the sheets…one page at a time. When she’s not writing she’s collecting tasty man candy, indulging in a little comic book geek love, hoarding red nail polish and stalking Chris Evans.
A 2016 RITA® Award finalist, Robin’s books have won the National Reader’s Choice and Golden Leaf Awards and finaled in the Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice and the Book Seller’s Best.
She lives in Maryland with her handsome husband, her two brilliant children (they get it from her, of course!), and her beloved furbabies, Dutch and Dixie Joan Wilder (Yes—THE Joan Wilder)
Drop her a line at [email protected]—she always writes back.
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Southerin Nights and Secrets (Boys are Back in Town) Page 21