Then everything was quiet. Rain fell, splashing in puddles. Rica whimpered. Amanda’s harsh breathing mixed with Julia’s.
Either Rick and Evan and their backup, wherever they were, were down, or Rosey and his guys were. And since her heart was still beating, her world hadn’t just suddenly ended, Amanda knew which it was. She eased the coat from her head and flexed tight muscles to rise from her place in the mud. Before she’d done more than clear the trunk of the Camaro, Rick grabbed her, pulling her into his arms, trying to wrap her inside his coat with him.
“You’re all right, you’re all right,” he whispered. “Oh my God.” Brushing wet curls from her face, he kissed her forehead, her nose, her cheek, before thrusting his tongue into her mouth. That quickly, the chill was gone, heat bubbling through her veins with arousal and pleasure and love. Love…
She freed her mouth from his and cupped her hands to his face so she could stare intently into his eyes. “I love you.”
“I know.”
“And I’m going to marry you.”
He grinned. “I know that, too. And we’ll have beautiful daughters who will kick the asses of Satan’s other grandspawn.”
People were arriving, sirens sounding, voices approaching, but Amanda’s focus was entirely on Rick. “I never thought I’d say this, but I can’t wait to go back to Copper Lake and meet the rest of your family.”
“Really? You’d do that for me?”
Her brows arched. “I just came out half-naked in the cold rain, put on a show and pretended to turn you over to a man who wanted you dead. Yeah, I think I can stand a few days in Copper Lake. As long as you don’t mind if I kick Robbie’s balls out through his nose.”
Rick laughed and pressed his face into her wet curls. “Aw, darlin’, you are definitely the girl for me.”
Epilogue
C opper Lake didn’t look anything like Amanda remembered. Granted, it had been fifteen years since she’d left, mourning her father and heartbroken over Robbie, and towns changed. But even the places that remained the same—the square, the river that meandered through the middle of town, the schools, a few stores—all seemed brighter. Less depressing. Less threatening.
She sat quietly in the passenger seat of the Camaro, gleaming in the November sun with its new cherry-red paint job. The damage done in the shoot-out had been mostly cosmetic and Rick had patched it up on the days he’d taken off that following week.
Patched it, patched her. They’d made love, talked, planned and just been together. Doing yoga before breakfast while he watched, handing him tools when he worked on the car, sharing his couch—deeming hers too uncomfortable for snuggling, he’d moved his in along with the rest of his stuff—and watching TV…God, it sounded so schmaltzy, but the old saying was true. Life’s simple pleasures were the best.
He reached for her hand, twining his fingers through hers, making the diamond in her engagement ring send sparkles dancing around the car. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” There was nothing in Copper Lake that could hurt her. Sure, there were Calloways who weren’t thrilled to have a girl from the north side of town joining their family, and then there was Robbie, but they weren’t important. Rick loved her. That was all that mattered.
“Anyplace you’d like to see?”
She glanced at the clock. They’d left Atlanta around seven-thirty that morning to beat the Thanksgiving traffic. With Almost Heaven and the rest of Rosey’s clubs shut down, and him and half his family in jail awaiting trial, she’d taken advantage of her joblessness to get accustomed to the hours a respectable college instructor would keep. It hadn’t been as easy as she’d expected, but Rick helped, waking her every morning before he left for work so he could say a very sweet goodbye.
“Just the places where you grew up.”
“What about the places where you grew up?”
She thought about them—the shabby houses and apartments, the logging company where her dad had worked, the succession of diners and low-rent stores where her mother had worked. The schools where she’d been a nobody until Robbie had brought her to everyone’s attention. The lumberyard where her summer job had brought her to his attention. The hospital, the doctors’ offices, the church she had attended on occasion…they weren’t important, either. She would never forget the people, places and events, but she would never regret them, either.
“I know my history,” she said. Life might not have been easy, but it had made her who she was today and she was very proud of that woman.
“Okay. One quick tour of the life and times of Rick Calloway in the grand old town of Copper Lake,” he said with that easy grin she loved, and made a U-turn on River Road, the main drag.
She knew some of the places, of course—the schools. The elegant-columned church his family had founded, then attended for two hundred years. The football field, named for his uncle Jeb, where he’d been a star. The baseball diamond next door to the high school, where he’d played out a lackluster career. The SnoCap Drive-In, where kids with time and money to spare had hung out, and Charlie’s Custom Rods, where he and his brothers had honed their appreciation for old engines.
A few were new to her—his favorite fishing hole on the river north of town. The back section of his grandfather’s land where they’d hunted for sport. The country club where he’d attended the prom his junior and senior years. She could imagine what he must have looked like, charming and handsome in his tux, enjoying high school and anticipating college, carrying an absolute conviction that life would turn out well for him. He was a Calloway; it couldn’t possibly be anything else.
Finally he followed River Road north out of town, past the turn to his mother’s home, another half mile past the main entrance to Calloway Plantation. He turned onto a narrow dirt lane and followed it to its end, a clearing on the banks of a creek.
Amanda climbed out of the car and met him at the front. He reached automatically for her hand; she gave a little squeeze as his fingers closed around hers. “Another fishing hole?”
He shook his head.
“A place where you brought your girlfriends to make out?”
“Nope. You’re the first girl I’ve ever brought here. This is my land. Granddad gave each of us kids five acres. Robbie’s is a couple miles that way—” he nodded to the east “—and Russ’s is a mile north. Russ lives on his.” Chuckling, he wrapped his arms around her and snuggled her close. “Don’t worry. I’ve never wanted to live in Copper Lake. But this would be a nice place to visit, don’t you think? To bring our kids for weekends away from the city?”
She nodded. “Teach them to fish.”
“Tell them stories about their mama.”
“Who will retaliate with stories about their dad.”
“You can grade papers while I fish. I’ll clean ’em and you can cook.”
She smiled at him, warm and happy and, for the first time ever, absolutely certain that life would turn out well. She was in love with and loved back by the best man she’d ever known. “Ha. You can teach me to fish, and whoever catches the fewest does the cleaning and the cooking. Sharpen up your kitchen skills, darlin’.”
He snorted. “I’m a damn good fisherman.”
“So was my dad. It’s in my blood.”
Laughing, he lifted her off the ground and turned until the rough bark of a tree was at her back and his body, warm and hard, was against her front. “You’re in my blood,” he murmured, brushing kisses across her face before reaching her mouth. “God, I love you.”
God, I love you, too. She didn’t know if she said the words out loud and didn’t care. He knew, because he was in her blood, too. They connected to each other. Completed each other.
“Russ will build us a house if you’re interested.” A pause. “Are you?”
Amanda looked around. Tall, slender pines stretched endlessly into the sky; their needles and cones carpeted the ground. The creek bubbled from small falls into a pool, clear and deep, and the only sounds that disturbed the qui
et were the birds. The breeze. Their breathing.
Amanda Nelson, from the wrong side of town, living in a house on Calloway land, married to the handsomest, sexiest and best Calloway of all. What would her father think of that?
She knew the answer to that in her heart: as long as she was happy, he would be happy. That was all he’d ever wanted for her.
“Oh, yeah,” she said, smiling up at Rick. “I’m interested.”
ISBN: 978-1-4268-1149-4
FORBIDDEN STRANGER
Copyright © 2008 by Marilyn Pappano
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