“I know.” His arms tightened. “But it killed me to leave you two to cope on your own.”
Eyes burning, Nadia nodded. She thought she knew what he was telling her, but believing, that was something else. He wasn’t the kind of man she had ever imagined herself loving, and especially not after her terrible exposure to violence. But there had been something between them from the beginning. The search of her shop and apartment would have been humiliating under any circumstances. She’d have been angry. But the hurt that seemed to tear her open...that had been because it was Ben who suspected her, Ben who was callous enough not to care what he was putting her through.
She had believed she could never forgive him.
And yet, here they were.
He let out a long, ragged breath. Nadia lifted her head to meet his eyes.
A muscle twitched in his cheek. “You know I’m in love with you.” Just like that, he had bared himself.
The uncertainty Nadia saw on his face shook her. Still, she heard herself saying, “We haven’t known each other that long,” but knew perfectly well that she was pushing back against herself as much as him. Even so, she laid an open hand on his scratchy jaw.
“That’s true.” As always, those dark eyes saw deep, increasing her unsettling sense of vulnerability. “When we met at the auction, you flipped a switch in me,” he said huskily. “But I could see I scared you, so I tried to convince myself to give you some time before I stopped by at your store.” He mocked himself with a twisted smile. “I might have lasted a whole week.”
“You’re so intense.” She wasn’t sure how else to explain her reaction. “I looked at you and knew you were fully capable of exploding into violence.” Eyes stinging again, she pressed a kiss to his throat. “The next morning, you made me feel safe instead.”
He lifted one hand to her nape. The other traveled down her back. It was a second before she realized he was gathering the fabric of the T-shirt. By the time she did, his big hand had found bare flesh and squeezed her butt.
“Until I blew it,” he murmured.
“Yes.” But her thoughts blurred. Her skin felt sensitized, hot. She was exquisitely conscious of his growing arousal.
“I had to investigate you.”
“I know.” She squirmed against him.
“Nadia. Will you look at me?”
She went completely still for an instant, then tipped up her chin.
“If you decide not to stay in Byrum, I won’t, either.” His jaw tightened. “No, I don’t plan to turn into a stalker. But...I want to be with you.”
Struck speechless, Nadia gaped at him.
His eyes burned. “I need to know how you feel about me. And I mean it. Anywhere you want to go.”
Some chances in life, you had to take.
“I want to stay. At least...to see how it goes. And if the atmosphere stays too ugly for me to feel at home, I hope we’ll make a decision together about where we should go.” She took a deep breath for courage, even as his expression changed. “I love you, too.”
For what had to be ten seconds, he only stared at her, as if he really had thought she might reject him, or say, Hey, you’re moving too fast. The next thing she knew, he swept her up and carried her into his bedroom.
Passion exploded between them, the lovemaking frantic, hungry, fast. She had barely come back to herself when he started moving inside her again, and this time tenderness tempered the urgency.
His heartbeat in her ear, beneath her hand, Nadia had never slept better.
* * *
“I WISH PEOPLE would quit apologizing!” Nadia exclaimed two weeks later. “It’s horribly awkward, and I’m afraid they’re ending up so embarrassed they’ll slink around avoiding me forevermore.”
Ben laughed at both the sentiment and her choice of words. “You don’t feel even a little secret pleasure when they’re groveling?”
She tried to frown at him, but the effort wasn’t convincing. Finally she sighed. “Okay, sometimes.”
Lucy appeared from the kitchen with a basket of cookies from the Hadburg Café. She’d gone earlier today to scope out the shopping in a smaller town, she had told them. If she’d explained what stores she’d visited or what she’d bought, Ben had tuned her out. The cookies were a bonus, though. “Julie Baird,” she said now, taking her seat.
“No.” He looked at Nadia. “Really?”
“Really.” She made a face. “She even did it graciously.”
Lucy rolled her eyes. “Because in her egocentricity she had no doubt you’d accept even more graciously and all would be forgiven and forgotten.”
Ben reached for a cookie. Oatmeal raisin. “Kills the idea of forevermore.”
She made a face. “Unfortunately.”
“She told us how much she admired the online campaign for the Hixsons and other people.” Which had, to date, brought in over ninety thousand dollars and was still going strong. Lucy gave a small, feminine snort. “She was sure she could help.”
“What did you say?” Ben asked Nadia.
“I told her that I’m not really involved in the effort—” which she wasn’t, since Colleen, Lucy and Rebecca Byler had run with it “—but that I’d let Colleen know she was interested in case they ever felt they needed more input.”
“A polite ‘thanks, but no thanks.’” He took a big bite of cookie.
“She couldn’t hide her surprise.” Lucy’s smile brimmed with satisfaction. “With luck, she won’t be back.”
“I don’t think she was ever really interested in quilting.” Nadia took a cookie, too. “What she does enjoy is being in charge. She’ll find some other cause.”
Ben said, “I saw Jim Wilcox today when I stopped by the hospital to check on the motorcyclist who hit the overpass embankment.”
Both women nodded. In a town this size, everyone would hear about a serious accident within a matter of hours, even if they never turned on a television or radio.
“How was he?” Lucy asked. “The guy on the motorcycle, not Jim.”
“Hasn’t regained consciousness. Doctor is still hopeful, though.”
His sister nodded.
“Jim and I crossed paths in the parking lot. He was stunned. Maybe this isn’t news to you two, but Bishop Josiah and Roy Yoder—” He stopped. “Did you know he’s a minister along with running the cabinetmaking business?”
Nadia nodded as Lucy said, “Hannah has said so.”
“Anyway, they sat Jim down and said they have agreed among themselves to take care of the hospital and doctor bills for his little girl, just as they would for a member of their faith. He has dealt fairly with them, the bishop said, and should not have to face such a burden alone.”
“Oh, thank God.” Tears shimmered in Nadia’s eyes. “Hannah said her father agreed to talk to the others, but I hadn’t heard what they’d decided. That has to be a staggering amount of money!”
Ben grimaced in agreement. “Jim was surprised to find they had a good idea of how much it would amount to. I reminded him that the Amish undergo extensive surgeries and medical procedures, too. They’re not naive. After telling me, Jim, ah, broke down and cried, and I’m guessing it wasn’t for the first time.”
“His own church members are pitching in, too,” Lucy contributed. “Colleen attends the same church. They’re taking meals to the family, and have raised over ten thousand so far to help with bills. Maybe now he can use that money for the mortgage or whatever else he’s behind on.”
Ben chased the last of the cookie with coffee. “His problems aren’t over, but he has a chance now.”
“Him and the Hixsons.” Nadia used her napkin to dab at her eyes. “I don’t know why I keep crying. It’s just...”
When she failed to come up with an explanation, he filled it in for her. “Happy endi
ngs get to you.” For that instant, he’d almost forgotten his sister was in the room. It was Nadia he saw, with her perplexity and joy.
Her face lit. “Yes!”
There were happy endings all around them. People were too often small-minded, selfish, even mean. But he was learning that they were also capable of coming together, of forgiveness and sacrifice, which made him feel better about staying on in Byrum.
The barn raising at Leonard Hixson’s place was scheduled for next Friday and Saturday. Unless something came up at work, Ben intended to help at least one of the two days. He knew both Lucy and Nadia were involved in planning and preparing meals to feed the volunteers, in the way of the Amish who used work frolics as a social gathering, too.
The Hixsons had already moved back to their property, thanks to the donation of an old manufactured home. They planned to stay in it for the time being, and use the donated funds to buy the equipment dairy farming required.
The decision had been made to get the Hixsons back on their feet before moving on to raising money for another family. Their loss was the greatest. Some of the other victims had received insurance payouts, and a number of organizations were contributing to the rebuilding.
While Ben’s parents were here, they’d driven out to survey the tornado damage. Before leaving three days ago, his dad told them he had kicked in $10,000 to the Hixson dairy farm fund.
“So, I have an announcement,” Lucy said suddenly.
The other two looked at her.
“I got a job. I’m going to be working for Hannah’s dad, in the cabinet shop. They’ve gotten busier and busier, and want someone to take over billing, answering phones, greeting people who come in. After Hannah went to work for Nadia, they thought they could do without her, but they’re having trouble keeping up.”
Ben was careful to hide his conflicted feelings about a job that would have her working closely with an unmarried Amish man she already counted as a friend. She’d have every right to slap him down if he so much as mentioned his concern, however. She was definitely an adult.
And, he reminded himself, happier than she’d been in a lot of years.
Nadia beat him with her congratulations, but he added his.
“I had an idea.” It was Nadia his sister was now looking at. “If you’re moving in here with Ben, I wondered if you’d rent your apartment to me.”
Now, that was a great idea. Nadia had been hovering on the fence, keeping most of her stuff at the apartment even though she’d been spending some nights here, him some nights there.
She blinked a couple of times, then turned her gaze on him. “Ben?”
Why did she sound as if she wasn’t sure what he wanted?
He took her hand in his. “I want to go to bed with you every night, wake up beside you every morning.” He paused. This wasn’t the usual way to do this, but why not? “I want us to start planning a wedding.”
The tiny gasp from his sister was easily ignored. He stayed focused on Nadia, who had gone completely still. She might not even be breathing, but she searched his face with those haunting eyes.
After a moment, she gave a small nod, as if she’d seen everything she needed to. “Yes.” Her smile felt like the sunrise, glorious and hopeful. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” he said, voice scratchy. Didn’t matter how many times he told her that. Every time, his rib cage constricted his breathing.
Then Nadia smiled at Lucy. “I would love to have you in the apartment.”
His sister’s delight tightened the squeeze around Ben’s chest.
He wouldn’t cry, but happy endings got to him, too. Something about himself he’d never known.
Not minding Lucy’s presence, he pulled Nadia from her chair and kissed her.
* * * * *
If you enjoyed this story by
Janice Kay Johnson,
you’ll also love her most recent books:
PLAIN REFUGE
A MOTHER’S CLAIM
BECAUSE OF A GIRL
THE BABY HE WANTED
Watch for her next book
coming in October 2017.
All available at Harlequin.com.
Keep reading for an excerpt from AIRMAN TO THE RESCUE by Heatherly Bell.
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Airman to the Rescue
by Heatherly Bell
CHAPTER ONE
SARAH MCALLISTER’S EYES fluttered open and her gaze landed on the first items in her line of sight: several exposed wires crawling out of the socket in the ceiling above her bed like a spider’s creepy legs.
She hated spiders almost as much as she hated contractors.
Her brand-new ceiling fan and light fixture combination belonged where those wires were, but instead it sat in the as-yet-unopened home improvement store box. She had Gus “should be murdered in his sleep” Hinckle, her hired contractor, to thank for that.
Sarah sighed and rolled over on her side. She startled at the sight of Shackles, her shaggy rescue mutt, sitting on the floor near her bed staring up at her. Unblinking.
A month after adopting Shackles, Sarah and her rescue were still getting used to each other. He’d been through a great deal, she got it, but was it her fault he’d been flown to California by Paws and Pilots only to have his forever family change their mind? In the end, she’d agreed to adopt Shackles and had given him a name worthy of their mutual situation. He was unwittingly tied to her and she was tied to her father’s old house and the small town of Fortune, California, for reasons that didn’t seem to make sense any longer.
“Time to get up.”
Sarah fought with the white cotton sheets wound twice around her legs since she’d tossed and turned throughout the night. In other words, the usual.
First order of business today was to put in a call to Gus and ask him for the tenth time this week when he planned on getting his ass over here to finish the job she’d hired him to do. Paid him to do, in fact, with a nice little deposit for his troubles. She stumbled over the unfinished flooring in the hallway where the hardwood slats were propped against the wall, waiting.
The last time Gus had been here a week ago, he’d given her high hopes he might actually finish the job. What he’d done looked promising because, when she could get the man to work, he knew his stuff. Eventually her father’s old house, a relic of the sixties, would be updated to the
twenty-first century. Then she’d be able to flip the house for a tidy profit and get out of dodge. Back to Fort Collins, Colorado, since there was nothing left for her here in Fortune.
She grabbed her cell phone from the kitchen counter and hit her speed dial for Satan. As had occurred every day for the past week, the call went immediately to Gus’s voice mail.
Blah blah blah I’m a contractor. Blah blah blah not just a contractor but an artist. Blah blah blah I’ll finish your project in time and under budget.
Oh yeah, that last one was hilarious.
“Get your ass over here and finish what you started or I swear I’m calling the cops! And I mean it this time.”
As if the cops cared about a shifty contractor. The jails would be overflowing if that were the case. “I’ll call the Better Business Bureau and file a complaint! Did I mention my brother is an Air Force pilot? He’s big and bad and he’ll kick your ass. Get over here!”
She hung up and threw the phone toward her couch. Her brother might be a badass but he was too busy running their late father’s flight school, Magnum Aviation, chartering flights through his new company and spending every other moment with the blonde who had tamed him. Sarah wasn’t going to ask him for any more help. He’d already done enough by installing the granite countertops after she’d bought him out of his half of the house.
Shackles stared from his empty dog bowl to her and back again. “All right, all right,” Sarah said, filling his bowl. Never let it be said he couldn’t communicate. In fact, he was better at communication than most men.
On the off chance he’d changed his routine, that he’d finally begun to trust her a teensy bit, she went back to the counter and started the coffee. But true to his idiosyncrasies, Shackles wouldn’t eat with anyone else in the room. He stood, guarding the bowl, less Sarah should suddenly be taken with the desire to start eating kibbles for breakfast. And he had still not touched the food.
“Where’s the trust?” Sarah grumbled and headed to hit the shower, grateful Gus had never even started on her bathroom project.
Her Amish Protectors Page 26