Sterling felt a lump in her throat. How could she ever leave this man and these people? It would rip her heart out. For one brief moment, when Mac had explained about the surgery, she’d allowed herself to believe. But normal lives were for other women. She had her world, back in Virginia. It was the only one she dared trust.
For most of the day she’d gone back and forth about leaving. True, she could operate Paradox, Inc. from here. She’d proved that. True, the doctors might be able to help her pain, but she’d never be the kind of person Mac needed. He thought that he could make everything right, but suppose he couldn’t. She didn’t want to think about having to rebuild her world again. She couldn’t take the chance.
Vincent Dawson was dead. Conner was with Erica. Jessie had just called her father “daddy,” and Burt had his arm possessively around Elizabeth, whose eyes were moist with tears.
And Mac. Mac shoved his hat back and focused his eyes directly on Sterling. Finally he said, “I have gifts, but the most important gifts of all have already been given. New lives, for all of us. Jessie is going away to school. Elizabeth and Burt are going to be married. Sterling is free of the past.”
“And,” he went on, “so am I.”
Burt cleared his throat. “So, boss, what’s in the bag?”
Mac smiled. “Presents. Everyone, find a place and sit.”
With great flourish, Mac drew the presents from his bag and presented them. “For Burt.” He handed the man his gift and waited.
“Do I have to open it now?”
“Of course,” Elizabeth insisted. “We all want to see.”
When he peeled back the paper and revealed a nightshirt and matching cap, everyone laughed.
“Not from Victoria’s Secret, but serviceable,” Elizabeth said.
Her laughter died when she opened her gift and found out that it was a sexy garment straight out of the latest catalog. “I’m not holding this up,” she sputtered. “I’m not even going to wear it.”
Burt’s face spread into a wide grin. “No? You’re right, at least not for very long.”
“Burt!” Elizabeth scolded. “Not in front of the child.”
Jessie tore into her tiny box. “What child?” She opened the box to reveal a key. Lifting her eyes in question, she held it up. “A key?”
“To your new sports car, Jessie. A great-looking woman like you should have her own wheels. They represent your newly found freedom and self-confidence.” He leaned over and kissed her. “You deserve the world, Jessie.”
Jessie didn’t even try not to cry. After wiping away the torrent of tears running down her face, she asked, “What about Sterling?”
Mac walked toward Sterling, handing her the last gift. “For the woman I love,” he said dramatically, “the woman who is going to be the mother of my second child.”
She couldn’t speak. What could she have said? I don’t love you. I’m not going to have your child? I … She peeled back the paper and opened her box. Inside was another box, a tiny one, which was empty.
“There’s nothing there,” she said.
“What would you like to be there, Sterling? If you could have anything in the world, what would it be?”
And then she knew. What she wanted was what she’d always wanted, to have someone love her. The career she could manage. Living without pain—well, she’d lived with it so long, she wouldn’t know how to manage without it. Her apartment? An apartment was just furniture.
Finally she looked up. Everyone was watching. There was a hush in the room.
She stood, wincing but using the pain to remind her that she was truly alive. “You, Mac. I just want you.”
He pulled off his hat and the long white beard. Then he took a step forward, pulled her into his arms, and kissed her. “I’m a little big for that box,” he whispered in her ear. “Can you tell?”
“Mac, you’re forty-two years old,” she scolded.
“Try telling that to my body.”
“Mac!”
“Okay, don’t tell it. I don’t think it would pay any attention anyway.”
“Hey, you guys, I don’t think my first visit from Santa in ten years should be X-rated,” Jessie said, wearing a playful frown.
Elizabeth held up her hand. “Listen.”
There was a stillness. The snow on the roof beside Santa’s sled ruffled and blew away as if something were disturbing it.
Then they heard it—bells.
“What is it?” Jessie asked.
Mac listened.
“I know,” Sterling said softly. “The chapel bells are ringing. All’s right with the world.”
EPILOGUE
They held the wedding in the little chapel by the lake at Shangri-la on a bright May morning when the sun was shining as its golden hue rippled through the water.
“It’s only appropriate that we pledge our love here,” Mac said to the visitors gathered together for this special occasion. “I built a safe haven to protect and heal those who are in need. But in doing so, I turned it into a prison for my daughter and myself. Sterling came into our lives and set us free. I will love her for all my life and cherish her as my partner, my wife, and my best friend.”
Sterling stood, pushed back her chair, and took her place beside Mac. “Shangri-la offers a place where those who are injured can be made whole, either physically or spiritually. I came here to be safe, without realizing that what I needed was to be made complete. Lincoln McAllister taught me that love replaces fear and that unlike some things it will last forever. I will love him for all my life and I take him to be my partner, my husband, and my best friend.”
The minister placed Sterling’s hand in Mac’s and announced that they were now husband and wife.
When Mac kissed Sterling, all their loved ones applauded joyfully.
Then Mac reached down and lifted Sterling.
“You don’t have to do that,” she protested. “I can walk.”
“I know, but I want to. I’ll always want to hold you.”
“And—”
“You’ll always tell me you can do it yourself,” he finished, then turned and carried her to the car. “And after little Conner and Rhett get here, I’ll let you run after them all you want.”
Jessie looked at Elizabeth. “Little Conner and Rhett?”
“An inside joke, darling,” Conner told her.
“You never know.…” Elizabeth replied.
Conner put his arm around Jessie. “Too bad the doctors couldn’t make it possible for Sterling to walk normally.”
“She doesn’t mind,” Jessie assured him. “They stopped the pain. And if Daddy has anything to do with it, they’ll find a way to finish the job sooner or later. If not, neither of them seems to care.”
She watched her father put Sterling in the car and close the door. Then she turned to Elizabeth and asked, “What do you know about quilts?”
“Quilts? Not much,” Elizabeth said. “Why?”
“I heard Daddy talking about making one.”
Conner laughed. “Was that before or after they started taking Danish lessons?”
“I don’t understand my father. He’s planned out the rest of their life, starting with a honeymoon in the Caribbean. Then he’s building Sterling a house in Taos where she can—get this—build automobiles.”
Conner shook his head. “What?”
“He said Sterling always wanted to be the head of General Motors. And you know, if she wants something, she’s going to have it.”
“And what’s he going to do while she’s becoming chairman of the board?” Burt asked.
“What else?” Jessie answered. “Make quilts.”
The guests started back to the van for their return trip up the mountain, chuckling at the change in the man lovingly called the head angel.
The head angel was beaming as he carried the woman he loved into their bedroom.
“We’re coming back here every year, to celebrate our anniversary, Mac. We’ll have a picnic right down th
ere on those rocks by the water—no matter what?”
“We don’t have to wait for that,” he said as he put her down and moved to the wall, where he punched in a new hologram. The lake and the water flashed on the screen. Overhead, a patch of moonlight cut through a black sky and frosted the scene with silver. Moments later soft music filled the room.
“It’s beautiful, Mac.”
“Come here, Sterling,” he said, extending his hand.
She took a step toward him, placing her hand in his. “What are we doing?”
“This all started when I asked you to come to a wedding, remember?”
“Of course I remember.”
“I almost got you killed.”
“But you didn’t. You almost died instead.”
“And you saved my life.”
“And you saved mine.”
He nodded. “Do you remember? tasked you to save the last dance for me.”
She nodded at the beautiful man whose eyes were filled with love.
“We never danced, Sterling. Dance with me now.”
“Now and always,” she said as she moved into his arms.
THE EDITOR’S CORNER
Welcome to Loveswept!
The chill of fall is in the air, creating the perfect setting for romance readers to snuggle up with a good book. And as luck would have it I think Loveswept has the perfect book for you! As you sharpen your skates, Erik is already on the ice in Toni Aleo’s next installment in the hockey Assassins Series, BLUE LINES. Reviewers rave about Toni’s characters and the emotional depths she takes them to. Introduce yourself to this ice-melting series beginning with: TAKING SHOTS, TRYING TO SCORE, EMPTY NET, and FALLING FOR THE BACKUP – you’ll see what all of the excitement is about.
And, the romance never stops – don’t miss:
Fran Baker’s SEEING STARS, a seductive tale of first loves and second chances; Sandra Chastain’s FIREBRAND, meet a sexy rancher Rusty Wilder – gotta love a man in cowboy boots! Sandra’s classics continue with THE JUDGE AND THE GYPSY, when payback turns to passion; and THE LAST DANCE, another installment in Sandra Chastain’s Mac’s Angels series! And, readers have never forgotten Iris Johansen’s bestselling Loveswepts including, MATILDA THE ADVENTURESS, a Delaney’s of Killaroo sequel.
Love doesn’t end here because there’s more next month!
Happy Romance –
Gina Wachtel
Associate Publisher
Read on for excerpts from more Loveswept titles …
Read on for an excerpt from Ruthie Knox’s
Flirting with Disaster
Chapter One
“Yes,” Katie said, gripping the steering wheel harder. “Uh-huh, yes, I get it.” She glanced in the rearview mirror, signaled left, and changed lanes. The traffic was getting thicker as they approached Louisville.
Her brother kept talking, his voice robbed of its customary power by the cheap speakers of her cell phone, which sat in a cup-holder mount and broadcast Caleb’s warnings upward at her head. “If you have the slightest indication that there’s danger attached to this threat, you’re going to call me, and—”
“Yesssssss,” she droned.
The drama was wasted on Caleb, who was going to give her this lecture for the seventeenth time whether she wanted to hear it or not.
It was wasted on Katie’s traveling companion, too. Sean didn’t react to anything she did. Ever.
Katie glanced at the man in the passenger seat of her Jetta, just to be sure. His expression as he stared out the windshield matched the bleak, featureless expanse of southbound I-71. He was like a human wall of granite, completely impervious to everything about her.
A stern, gorgeous cliff face.
Suppressing a sigh, she tuned back in to Caleb’s speech. “—you to be in charge of anything along those lines, Sean. This is a trial run for Katie. I’m only letting her go because Judah insists she’s the one he wants to work with. You got that, Katie? It’s Sean’s show. I need you to play nice and stay out of his way.”
“Yes,” she confirmed. “I know the deal. I agreed to the deal. I am on board with the deal. Now can we stop talking about it, please?”
She flinched at the way her voice came out, sharper than she’d meant to sound. It was only because she was nervous about this trip. Her palms had gone clammy and slimed the leather wheel cover, so uncomfortable did it make her to venture into an unknown city to do an unfamiliar job with a man who didn’t like her.
She had a tendency to bristle when nervous.
One more bad habit she needed to make an effort to tame. Better to be professional. What Katie really needed to figure out was how to act cool and icy like some kind of Bond Girl assassin, slinking around and poisoning people by slipping strychnine into their drinks.
Except without the poisoning. Her goal was to win herself a promotion from office manager to agent for Caleb’s security company, not to become an assassin. Not unless her ex-husband strolled into town needing assassinating.
“We’ll stop talking about it when I’m positive you’re going to cooperate,” Caleb said. “Right now, you sound like you’re blowing smoke up my ass.”
“I’m not,” she replied levelly. “I promise. I understand that this is your company and Sean’s assignment, and I’m just a companion on this trip. I promise I’ll be quiet and helpful and learn things, okay?”
“I need you to be safe.”
She made a face, then immediately regretted it. Wrinkling her nose and pursing her lips in response to Caleb’s babying only proved she deserved to be babied. Not the way she wanted Sean to see her.
She flicked another glance in his direction. If he saw her at all, he gave no sign.
“I’m safe,” she said.
“I care about you, Katelet.”
“I know you do,” she replied. “I care about you, too.”
“And it’s only because I care about you that I’m going to say this again …”
Katie tapped her fingertips against the steering wheel and stopped listening.
She understood his worry. Ever since she’d confessed that she was married and needed to locate her spouse so she could get divorced, Caleb had become all concerned and brotherly. She kept waiting for him to go back to the way he’d been before, but so far, no luck.
Five years older than her, her brother was a born nice guy who had spent most of his adulthood in the Military Police before moving home a year ago to help take care of their parents after their dad had a stroke. Katie had been living in his house rent-free at the time, working as a bartender nights and spending her days in elastic-waist pants, moping and watching daytime TV. Her husband, Levi, had cleaned her out and dropped her like a bad habit, and she’d returned from the life they’d built in Alaska in defeat. She’d practically regressed to adolescence by the time Caleb pulled her out of her self-pity slump.
He gave her a job running the office of his new company, Camelot Security, and after the first month or so, Katie had started to feel useful again. Competent. She’d discovered she had some get-up-and-go left in her after all. That she actually wanted to do something with herself.
Caleb was also the one who’d encouraged her to enroll in a couple of online classes. He’d even appointed himself her personal trainer, helping her whip her body into its best shape in years.
He was a great brother, but Katie was done with the coddling. She’d turned over a new leaf. He needed to get with the program.
“Sean, are you hearing all this?” he asked.
Sean nodded. He was invisible to Caleb, but the two of them apparently had a man-telepathy thing going, because Caleb said, “Great. Give me a call after you’ve talked to Pratt. I want to hear the details of these threats he’s supposedly getting. And if you can, find out why he’s brought this case to us instead of giving it to his security team from Palmerston, because—”
“Caleb,” Katie interrupted.
“What?”
“Give it a rest.”
“We’ve been over this and over this. Sean gets it. I get it. We’ll call you. Now let us do the job.”
Her brother exhaled explosively, which made Katie smile a little. “Aren’t you supposed to be taking today off?” she asked. “Go home and help Ellen with wedding arrangements or something.”
Caleb and Ellen had met on a job and gotten engaged about six minutes later. He pretty much lived over at her place now, and he’d become more of a father to her son, Henry, than the two-year-old’s real father ever had.
“God, no. She won’t let me near any of the wedding stuff. But I did tell Henry I’d take him to the hardware store.”
“So why aren’t you doing that?”
Katie spotted an exit and swerved toward it, weaving nimbly through three lanes of traffic. The gas tank was getting low.
“I’ve got payroll to figure out first.”
She caught herself right before the words left her mouth. I can do that when I get back.
It was the kind of thing a self-sacrificing doormat would say, not a slick professional. A decade of specializing in being a doormat had left her rumpled and ground down, with boot prints on her forehead.
Time to stop jumping to the rescue.
“You should hire somebody else to do payroll, now that I have a new job,” she said instead.
At the end of the off ramp she turned—a little too fast, perhaps, because she got distracted by the fact that Sean was looking directly at her. Somehow he made looking look like not-looking. As though he could see her, but he couldn’t be bothered to see her.
How was she supposed to concentrate on Caleb talking about payroll when Sean was not-looking at her that way?
She didn’t know what the guy’s deal was. It seemed as if he didn’t approve of her—though what it was about her he disliked, she had no idea. Her personality, her being on the job, her existence?
Sean had been working for her brother since the summer, and in that time he and Caleb had grown thick as thieves. He spent hours every week in Caleb’s office, a solid panel of pine muffling the mingled sound of their voices as they bent their heads over some obscure security challenge and Katie tried to get her work done at the reception desk a few feet away.
Mac's Angels: The Last Dance: A Loveswept Classic Romance Page 16