by Wendy Warren
Willa nodded, mentally comparing the two great romantic loves of her life, Jase and Derek. They were both wonderful men, but fundamentally so different.
Jase turned in on himself during a crisis, withdrawing from her so totally it was as if they were in separate rooms even as they shared a bed. Derek’s care was as reliable as the tide.
Suddenly, he looked up. “I didn’t think this all the way through. You’re locked out of your house, aren’t you?”
Willa blinked. She hadn’t thought of that, either. “Yes. I guess I am.”
“Got a spare key hidden somewhere?”
“No.”
“Good. It’s not safe.” He eyed her steadily. “Stay.”
A simple invitation, yet one that sparked myriad possibilities.
“I want to,” she whispered.
“Good. I’ll make up the guest room for you.”
“No. You’ve got to be exhausted. I can—”
“You can decide not to argue.” He forked up a bite of scrambled eggs. “I’ll draw you a bath, too.”
“You certainly will not!”
Sternly, he arched a brow. “Arguing at four in the morning is exhausting.”
That stopped her. Besides, a bath did sound heavenly. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He tried the sausage then added, “Just because I’m being hospitable, it doesn’t mean I’m not still angry you went off into the woods by yourself.”
“I couldn’t not go.”
“Yes. You could have wai—”
“No.” She shook her head when he tried to rebut. “Mothers don’t wait.” Leaning forward, she beseeched him with her eyes. “I think I’ve finally figured out some things.”
The hand holding the fork slowly lowered. “I’m listening.”
“When Gilberto and I were the woods, the only thing that mattered was getting back to you. I knew you were out there looking for us, that you wouldn’t stop looking until you found us, and I realized you were right. Believing in the person you love, being one hundred percent certain you can count on him...it changes things. It makes you go the distance.”
She reached for Derek’s hands. He was so still, she knew he was listening to every word. “Before I met you, I didn’t think it was right to let go of my grief. I thought if I let go all the way, it would be a betrayal.”
“I’m not going to ask you to let go, Willa.”
With her fingers curled around his, she could feel his reserve. He didn’t pull away, but he wasn’t holding onto her, either. Not the way he had in the past.
“You were right,” he acknowledged. “There’s no way I can understand what you went through. After tonight, though, I think I get it a little bit more. I was terrified I might lose the one thing that finally means more to me than my own life.”
“Gilberto.” Grateful on his behalf, tears filled her eyes, and she nodded. “That’s exactly how a father feels.”
“Yeah. I do feel like his father. But I don’t mean only Gilberto.” Fiercely, his gaze bore into hers. “First day I saw you in the deli, I started wanting something I’d told myself a long time ago didn’t exist. I wasn’t even eighteen when I figured believing in ‘forever’ was bull, and if people couldn’t see that, then they were fools asking to be kicked in the teeth. All I knew about love was how to turn my back on it before it turned its back on me.” Pulling one of his hands free of hers, he rubbed his forehead. “When I saw you with Jase, I was angry. I was stinking-ugly angrier than I had any right to be. I know you had what you wanted with him and Sydney. I know that was supposed to be your happily-ever-after. It should have been.”
Her heart squeezed hard. For a second she almost wished for Derek’s sake that he’d fallen for someone with a simpler past.
Releasing his other hand, she came around the counter to stand in front of him, eye-to-eye with him seated on the stool. “Listen to me, Sheriff. You are not my consolation prize. Do you understand? I have never—not for a second—thought, ‘Well I already had the best in life, so now I’m willing to settle.’ You’re a gift.”
Gently, she brushed the thick black hair that had fallen over his forehead. “The thing is, when reality blows happily-ever-after out of the water, you begin to think true joy is a gift with someone else’s name on it. So when a man comes along—a very, very good man—and he reminds you that your heart may be broken, but it hasn’t stopped beating...you don’t necessarily know what to do with that. I can’t believe you were so patient with me for so long, but I sure am grateful.” She rubbed an index finger over his puckered brow, trying to erase the frown line. “If you’re willing to give me another chance, I promise it’ll be the last one I’ll ever need.”
Tension radiated from every muscle in his strong, hyperalert body. His expression was impossible to read, and Willa felt panic begin to stir.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” she urged.
Slowly, he nodded. “Okay. I’m thinking that you’d better be planning to make an honest man out of me. Because if you’re still talking about an affair—”
She threw her arms around his neck before he could finish the sentence. “I’m talking about locking you up and throwing away the key, Sheriff. As far as I’m concerned, this is for good.”
Derek half growled, half grinned his response. “Oh, it’s going to be a whole lot better than good.” Pulling her onto his lap, he went for a soul-searing kiss.
When they came up for air, Willa felt dizzy. “Wow. You are a mighty fine kisser.”
Pressing those magical lips into a tight line, he rued, “Darn it. I knew this was going to happen.”
“What?”
“Now you only want me because of my amazing sexual prowess.”
Even though he was kidding, she figured laughing very hard might hurt his feelings. It was nice, though, it was very nice, to feel as if her heart were light enough to float. She patted his chest. “Don’t sell yourself short. You’re a man of many layers, and I plan to explore all of them.”
A smile of unbridled joy stretched across his face. “Better get started then.” After another incendiary kiss, he pulled back to study her, using his thumb to trace her lips with a touch as gentle as summer rain. “We’ll take this happily-ever-after thing one day at a time,” he promised.
If Thunder Ridge could talk, it would have sounded just like Derek then. Powerful, reassuring, able to shelter the ones it loved from the harshest of life’s elements. The perfect haven for a woman truly ready to start living again.
“Should we wake Gilberto?” she asked as she snuggled against Derek. “Tell him we kissed and made up?”
“Nah, let the kid sleep. I want him to be wide awake tomorrow when we propose to you.”
This time, her heart leaped with excitement, not fear. Raising her head, she looked at him, adoring the crook of his dark brow. “It’s going to take two of you to do the job, huh?”
“Absolutely. Like you said, we’re a package deal.” Reaching for her hand, he raised it, kissing her temporarily bare ring finger. “For better, for worse, from this day forward. I love you with all my heart, Willa Holmes.”
“From this day forward,” she agreed in a whisper, nodding. “I love you, too, Derek Neel.”
If it were possible, Willa thought, she’d cling to this golden feeling and never let it go.
Slipping her arms all the way around Derek’s waist, she murmured, “You can kiss me again, Sheriff, whenever you’re ready.”
She didn’t have long to wait.
Through the windows behind them, the sky began to glow pink as the sun rose on two people ready to face the beautiful, uncertain future together.
Epilogue
“What do you think?” Willa asked the marmalade tabby she used to feed in the park before work every
morning. Growing courageous, he’d followed her to the bakery one day and had chosen not to leave. Together, they’d decided his name should be Harold and struck a bargain: he agreed to remain on the ground unless someone picked him up, and she promised to bring him whitefish and lox scraps from the deli as a reward. At night, he slept at her place.
“It’s good, isn’t it?” she said, scooping the cat up so he’d have a better view of the cake she’d been decorating for the past several hours. Instantly, he favored her with his bass, outboard-motor purr. “Really? You think I’m a genius? Nah, you’re just saying that.” He rubbed his nose against her chin. “All right, if you insist.” In truth, she was one hundred percent satisfied with her efforts.
A knock on Something Sweet’s front door startled her. The bakery was closed, chair seats resting on tabletops and only the work lights on. The wildflower-filled spring they’d all enjoyed this year was yielding already to verdant summer with longer days, but for now the sun still set before nine, and it was a full hour past that. She certainly wasn’t expecting anyone.
Willa couldn’t see the person standing outside the door until she was more than halfway there. When recognition hit, she gave a happy gasp. Setting Harold on the floor, she raced to the front, fishing the key for the dead bolt out of her pocket. “What are you doing here?” she asked as she opened the door, throwing her arms around Derek’s neck. “I thought you and ’Berto were enjoying your last night as bachelors. Is he with you?” Leaning to the right, she tried to see around her husband-to-be.
Derek kissed her soundly on the lips before answering. “Izzy, Nate and Eli invited him to go bowling. The question is, what are you doing at work this late, bride-to-be? You’re supposed to be home, getting your beauty sleep.”
“I’m busy.” Yesterday, he’d made her promise she wouldn’t work all day before their wedding. Now she gave him a kiss that she intended to be thoroughly distracting, then said, “If you’re all alone tonight, why aren’t you home, dreaming about me?”
With a hand on her lower back, he pressed her closer. “I do that every day, with my eyes wide open.”
“That deserves another kiss.” Grinning, she delivered it. “Okay, now go,” she ordered, making shooing motions.
“I just got here,” he protested. “When you weren’t at your place, I figured you were working on our cake, despite giving me your word you’d quit at six.”
“I said seven.”
“It’s almost ten. Where’s the cake? Let’s see it.”
“Before the wedding?” She crossed her arms. “Nope.”
Tomorrow she was marrying Sheriff Derek Neel in a wedding that had started out small and blossomed into a come-one, come-all bash. Derek was, after all, a beloved community member. So was Gilberto.
And so was she.
After more than two years of wandering, Willa had found her Promised Land right here in Thunder Ridge. That merited a rock-star cake.
“Time for you to scoot,” she told him.
Derek adopted the stubborn expression she was coming to know quite well. “Izzy told me I couldn’t see you in your wedding dress. She didn’t say anything about the cake. Lead on.”
After a moment’s thought, Willa shrugged. It might be better for him to see it before their guests. She had, after all, planned a surprise that was exclusively for Derek.
Preceding him to the kitchen, she made a sweeping “ta-da” gesture.
“That’s incredible,” he said as he gazed in obvious appreciation at the six-tiered, white-chocolate, buttercream-covered pièce de résistance she had draped with the sugar flowers, leaves and branches she’d been making in her spare time for the past few weeks. “Wait a minute, is that...”
Willa watched closely as he peered intently at the top tier, the one intended to be their anniversary layer.
Derek began to laugh, a robust, pleasure-filled sound that invariably made her feel as if the sun was shining straight into her heart.
“Yes, indeed,” she confirmed. “Our anniversary cake is a chocolate chip babka. It worked wonders for Mr. and Mrs. Wittenberg. She isn’t here in the mornings anymore, you know. She and Mr. W ‘sleep in’ now.” Willa winked broadly. “So, I figured a year from now on our first anniversary, when the flames of passion have died down...”
“I’ll need a chocolate chip babka to bring them back?”
“Well, you’re not getting any younger. Remember what Mrs. W said. According to the Food Network, breakfast treats can be a potent aphrodisiac.”
“Is that so?” Sweeping her into a kiss so hot it could have set the bakery on fire, Derek took his sweet time making her eat her words. “Still worried?” he murmured finally, against her lips.
“Mmm, not so much.” Willa felt decidedly, deliciously dazed as Derek released her.
“I brought you something,” he said, brandishing a small square box she hadn’t even noticed he was carrying. Opening it himself, he removed a few tissue-wrapped items and handed them to her. When she uncovered three ceramic figurines, she laughed with sheer pleasure. “Cake toppers!”
“Yep,” he agreed as she held up a miniature Sheriff Neel, a baker Willa and a little Gilberto.
“They’re wonderful. I love them.” Moving to the cake, she arranged the little figures in the buttercream, one tier below the dome-shaped anniversary babka. “Now it’s perfect.”
“Not yet.” Derek withdrew another item from the box.
This time when Willa unwrapped the gift, she gave a sharp intake of breath. No words could get past the sudden tightness in her throat.
“Is it okay?” Derek asked, his voice betraying his sudden nerves. “You’ve been so happy lately, and I don’t want to make you sad—that’s the last thing I want—but it’s important, and... I hope it’s okay,” he concluded, his habitual strength softened by concern.
“More than okay,” she whispered. “So much more than okay.” Reverently touching the lovely ceramic creature, she looked up at him. “But how—?”
“I took a photo from one of your albums,” Derek confessed, “so the artist could make it look like Sydney.”
And it did. It looked like Syd at the spring formal dance, when she’d been so thrilled with her dress and her hair, so excited to feel grown up.
“Gilberto and I agreed the whole family needs to be on the cake,” he said.
The whole family. Willa nodded.
Gilberto had started calling Derek “Dad”—often with a smile he couldn’t hide—a couple of months ago. Then last week, during a break from a tournament of crazy eights, he’d shyly asked Willa if he ought to start calling her “Mom or something” after the wedding.
It had been too long since anyone had called her that, and she had realized a heart could break and heal in the same blessed moment.
Looking at the doll again, Willa shook her head in wonder. Derek had given her a son, and the two of them had decided she should never lose her daughter.
“I love you,” she told her husband-to-be, knowing she’d never say anything truer.
Taking the Sydney figurine carefully from her, Derek placed it on the cake with the others, then stepped back and held Willa close as they admired their creation.
Safe in the sheriff’s arms, Willa thought about the wedding and about their future and about all the good that had come before it, too, and for a second she could have sworn she saw the Sydney doll smile.
* * * * *
When plain-Jane professor Gemma Gould agree
s to help her high school frenemy—football star Ethan Ladd—care for his infant nephew, sparks of every kind fly! But will the discovery of Ethan’s secret—and the truth about baby Henry—ruin their chance at happiness?
Don’t miss their story, the next installment in Wendy Warren’s new miniseries, THE MEN OF THUNDER RIDGE.
Coming soon to Harlequin Special Edition!
Keep reading for an excerpt from THE MARINE MAKES HIS MATCH by Victoria Pade.
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