Valentine’s Day already. Christ. That was the strangest thing about jail. The days just went on forever, one endless routine of the same damned thing that numbed minutes into hours into days. It had felt like Valentine’s Day for weeks on the cellblock. But now here it was.
And honestly, it really didn’t sound like the worst idea, taking a spin around LA while I ate candy hearts and thought about Stella. But I had shit to do; I had a life to make. I had stars to bite. I’d spent enough time away from her, and I wasn’t going to spend one minute more. So I shoved the box of hearts in my back pocket, leaned toward the driver, and said, “Listen, I need to get to New Mexico. As soon as humanly possible.”
She adjusted her glasses. Affixed to her uniform was a pin that said HELLO MY NAME IS: NOT A LADY YOU WANT TO MESS WITH. “Hon. This is a municipal bus. I can take you to the mall and that’s it.”
I scratched what used to be my stubble but was now a pretty full-blown beard. “I need to get to a pawnshop outside Albuquerque. I need to buy a ring, and then I need to go and ask the love of my life the most important question I’ve ever asked anybody and hope like hell she says yes.”
The driver’s glasses slid down her nose, and the door automatically swung shut behind me. “Three bucks isn’t gonna get you to Albuquerque.”
I pulled out a fifty. “All I need to do is get to the Greyhound station.”
She poured a few candy hearts into her hand from a box she had tucked into her sweater pocket. Crunching down on them, she studied me. Her eyes moved past me to the jail on the other side of the street and back to me again. “You just get out?”
“Yes, ma’am. Just this morning.”
“And the first thing you think to do is go buy a ring and propose to your lady?”
“That’s right.”
She chewed her candies thoughtfully. “You must really love her.”
Enough to take the fall for her, the heat for her, the twenty-to-twenty-five for her without a second thought. Love. Adore. Worship. “You’ve got no idea.”
“Well . . .” she said, trailing off. Using a small key on a lanyard around her neck, she unlocked the back of the fare collection column. She took out the dollar I’d put inside it, along with the one she’d taken from me, and handed back the cash. “Keep your money, young man. Sit tight. I’ll make sure you catch your Greyhound. Even if I have to make like Sandra Bullock in Speed to do it.”
47
STELLA
He’d called that morning to say he was on his way home. His bus was arriving in an hour, and I was just about to leave my apartment so I could be there when he arrived. My hands were shaking so hard, I thought I was going to have to ask Roxie to put my mascara on for me. Somehow, though, I managed to do it on my own, and I didn’t even poke myself in the eye. I looked at myself in the mirror and tried to take a few calming breaths. It didn’t work at all.
I checked my phone again. I was one minute closer to seeing him. I roughed up my curls and thought about lipstick, but then realized it really had been a miracle that I’d gotten the mascara on without impaling myself. Lipstick was much too risky with my hands shaking so hard.
There was a knock on the door. “Come in!” I said, expecting to see Roxie offering up yet another potential outfit change. Or Ruth, offering me another cup of some sort of odd-smelling calming tea. But the door didn’t open, and nobody was there when I looked out into the hall. Of course they weren’t here, I realized, feeling like a dummy. They’d gone out together, to put a down payment on a commercial space now for sale . . . once known as Pony Up, it was soon to be Ohm Sweet Ohm.
Little had we known that the Texan was on his third strike. So we hadn’t just dinged him—we’d ruined him. And now, he’d be spending the rest of his days at a medium-security facility on charges of tax evasion, money laundering, and running an illegal gambling ring. Pony Up had gone on the market after he’d been arraigned. Ruth and Roxie had the business plan all prepared: Meditation and yoga at night, and job counseling during the day. As a small-business owner, Roxie had been able to get a loan for a mortgage on a two-bedroom with a backyard. Right down the street from her son’s school.
We’d done it. Together. The stars were ours at last.
If Ruth and Roxie weren’t here, though, I must have imagined the knocking. Nerves, I thought. Just nerves. I smoothed my shirt and spun around to make sure everything looked as good as I could make it.
Except there it was again—I hadn’t imagined it. The knocking was coming from the bathroom window. My heart cartwheeled in my chest. I slid the frosted glass panel up and looked out. There was nobody there at all. I poked my head out and looked left to right, with my fingers on the sill. Still nobody.
But when I looked down, my heart jumped like a shooting star across the galaxy. Sitting on the adobe sill was the delicate gold ring that I’d said I liked so much at the pawnshop when we’d gone shopping for rings. And sitting inside it was a purple candy conversation heart that said MARRY ME.
The joy was so overpowering that I thought I would topple right over. But then everything became clear and steady. Because I heard the thump-clink-thump of his motorcycle boots. And there he was. He was beaming, his smile even more brilliant now that it was set off by his thicker, darker, oh-so-sexy beard.
Tears of relief and overwhelming happiness at having him home safe tumbled down my cheeks. Blurry eyed, I scrambled onto the toilet and climbed as far out of the window as I could. I wrapped my arms around him and held him close and got lost in the feelings that had been so familiar but had, for all those months, seemed like a dream. And now it was a dream that would never have to end. “I missed you so much.”
“I’m never saying goodbye to you again,” he said, his voice gravelly with tears too. We let go of one another just enough to look into the other’s eyes. Like we were memorizing the thing we had always been waiting to see.
For so long I had told myself I didn’t want a hero. But I did. And those were my hero’s eyes. All mine forever.
“You stuck?” he asked, smiling so hard that I felt his cheeks tighten against mine.
I shook my head. “Not this time,” I said, and slid back into the bathroom a little, still on my knees on the top of the toilet.
“Good. Because I’ve got a question to ask you,” he said. He took the ring from the windowsill. He wiggled off the wedding band I’d worn for the heist and slipped the delicate band onto my finger. “This is the last gamble I’m ever going to make. You ready?”
I didn’t know about ready. What I did know was that in my life, I had seen all sorts of beautiful things. But I had never laid eyes on anything as beautiful as Nick’s face as he gave me that tiny, elegant strip of gold. I blinked back my tears, and he swept them off my cheeks.
He pressed his forehead against mine, still with my hand in his. He took a deep breath, and then he said, “I’m lost without you, Stella. Will you marry me?”
He was my big wide open. He was my dream that would never end. He had stolen my heart, and I never wanted it back. “Yes,” I whispered, with my nose nestled against him, our cheeks wet with our tears. “One million times yes.”
48
NICK
Six months later
She stood in the kitchen of the Big Wide Open, dipping apples in a pot of warm caramel. She looked prettier that day than she ever had before. But then again, I said that every day. She was like the night sky in a blackout; every time you looked up, you saw something even more gorgeous than the last time you looked.
She wasn’t expecting me home yet. She thought I was still moving furniture at Mr. Bozeman’s new apartment at the retirement village in Flagstaff, where I’d spent the afternoon. While I’d been there, Mr. Bozeman had handed me a clipping from the newspaper. The Karmic Shithammer doubled as a gavel; the Texan had been sentenced to life, no parole. He’d live out his days in a jumpsuit as orange as his damned cheese puffs.
On my way back from Mr. Bozeman’s, I’d made a stop t
o get a surprise I arranged for Stella. I’d taken a shortcut, driving the pickup that her grandpa had owned and that had come with the ranch. As the new owner of Alvarado Auto, I’d had all the tools I needed to get it working again, and sometimes she and I just drove halfway into the night, holding hands, listening to the radio, with all the windows down.
Now, though, those nights would change, because in my arms I held her gift: a dachshund puppy, seven weeks old. He had that puppy smell, warm and soft. He was a brave little guy, hardly bigger than a big zucchini. Holding him safely against my chest, I hid behind the wall of the ranch and watched Stella a little longer through the sliding glass doors.
She dipped an apple into the caramel, but when she pulled the stick out of the pan, the apple wasn’t there. As usual, she was the first to laugh at herself, and she broke out in that smile, that nose-wrinkling joy that I loved too much. Unfazed, and never, ever angry, she grabbed a fork from the drawer and plunged it into the pan. It came out with an apple drenched in caramel. And then she closed her eyes and took a huge bite, one hand to her forehead, smiling as she chewed.
I crouched down with the puppy and put him on the patio. He wobbled on the warm pavement and got up on two legs to put his paws on my knee. It was one of those moments—me, about to give my new wife a puppy, on our ranch, on a beautiful summer day—that I knew I’d remember forever and ever.
“Time to meet your mom,” I told him, and he gave me a lick on the cheek. Very quietly, I slid open the door just enough for him to get through. From my pocket, I took what might’ve been the world’s smallest dog treat and tossed it into the house. It skittered across the kitchen floor. The puppy took off after it, and one second later I heard Stella squeal, filling the house with the sound of her contagious, delighted happiness. “Oh my God!” she giggled. “What in the world!”
For one second longer, I stayed low. I could hear her feet drumming on the floor. Her laugh filled up the ranch, and she squealed, “Ooh, you are so cuuuuuuuuute!” She really was the most joyful thing on the planet. She was everything I’d never known I needed and everything I could never be without.
I followed the puppy’s lead and headed inside. When she saw me, she ran into my arms, with the puppy still cradled in hers. I pulled her close and kissed her, walking her backward until she was up against the cabinets. As we kissed, the puppy went into kissing overdrive, not sure if he wanted to kiss me or Stella or maybe both of us at once.
“Let’s call him Elvis,” she said through a giggle.
“That’s what I’ve been calling him since I picked him out,” I told her. With my hands on her ass, I hoisted Stella up on the counter, with the puppy wiggling between us. But as I set her down and went in for another kiss, the sound of the local TV news began to fill the kitchen. Between my fingers and her ass, I felt the rubbery buttons of the remote. I’d set her on top of it. I shoved it aside and sank further into the sweetness that was Stella Norton. The dishes clanked in the cabinet behind her, and she hooked her legs around my waist.
But the volume was up high and impossible to tune out. One of the anchors said, “Back to you, Julia.”
“Well this next story, it’s a real gem! Next month, at the Tucson Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Showcase, Arizonans will be treated to a rare showing of one of the largest diamonds on the planet. Weighing in at a whopping five hundred thirteen carats, it is the mate to the recently stolen-and-then-returned North Star. Known as the Southern Star, it is prized for its clarity and its slightly pink tint. Fun fact: it was the inspiration for the Pink Panther! So get yourself down there to catch a glimpse of this beauty, girls. Gosh, what I wouldn’t give to get my hands on that!”
Still midkiss, we both opened our eyes. Hers sparkled, and I felt her smile. I knew what she was thinking, because I was thinking it too. You wanna?
But we shook our heads at the same damned time. In her, I had everything I’d ever wanted already. She was every diamond. She was every star. She was my eternal sure thing.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to my husband and best friend; you make my life into something I never imagined I would have. Thank you so much to my editor, Charlotte Herscher, for helping me refine and develop this manuscript; I absolutely adore working with you. Thank you to Maria Gomez and the team at Montlake for taking a chance on me; I’ve enjoyed writing this book more than you can imagine. Thank you to my agent and biggest cheerleader, Emily Sylvan Kim; I’m so glad to be on this adventure with you, and I cannot wait to eat all the shellfish in Manhattan again. Thank you to Eagle and Candi for your encouragement and support. Thank you to Sam, Sarah, and Sybil for everything, always and forever. Thank you to my parents, my dogs, my students, my colleagues, and my friends for making every day so very joyful. And thank you, finally, to my readers. Without you, none of this would be possible.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2017 Emily Roembach-Clark/Emily RC Photography
Bestselling author Nicola Rendell loves writing naughty romantic comedies. After receiving a handful of degrees from a handful of places, she now works as a professor in New England. Nicola’s work has been featured in the Huffington Post and the USA Today blog Happy Ever After. She loves to cook, sew, and play the piano. Her hobbies might make her sound like an old lady, but she’s totally OK with that. For more information and updates, visit www.NicolaRendell.com.
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