by Rachel Lee
But he was insisting. Partner, not handyman.
“Those are your terms?” she asked.
“Yeah. I don’t feel right the way things are. Call me crazy, but it’s how I feel.”
So he definitely needed to contribute more than sweat and labor. Her heart swelled a bit as she recognized just how overly decent he was. And as she realized he wouldn’t settle unless he felt he was on fair footing.
“You’re a remarkable man,” she said finally.
He shook his head. “Just need to do what’s right.”
That gave her something to think about. She certainly didn’t want him to feel as if he were taking advantage of her, even though he wasn’t. On the other hand...
“Have you considered,” she asked, “that I might feel I’m taking advantage of you? You already do so much.”
“I do damn little when you come right down to it. Some manual labor that I need at least as much as you do. Working hard helps me to feel better. I can’t just hang around. What I’m asking for here is a fair deal. If you want me to stay.”
If she wanted him to stay. A fair deal. He was talking in business terms right now, and that hurt. She didn’t think of this as a business relationship.
“Is that how you see me? As part of a business deal?”
He swore. “Damn it, no! That’s the last thing I think of when I think of you. See? I can’t even make myself clear. I’m always hurting you somehow. I should just go.”
Her chest squeezed until she thought she couldn’t draw breath. Her heart began to hammer. There it was again. She sucked air into that constricted place and said angrily, “There’s something we need to clear up right now before we go one step further.”
“What’s that?”
“You’ve got to stop threatening to leave.”
“Threatening? I only mean...”
“I don’t care what you mean. It’s hitting me like a threat! You want to talk about hurting me? Every time you give me a reason you should leave, that hurts. It hurts badly.”
His mouth opened a little. He looked surprised. “I don’t mean it that way.”
“Maybe not. But that’s what it sounds like. Have I asked you to leave? No. But you keep coming up with excuses to go. I can’t take that, Liam. I simply can’t take that.”
“I keep trying to think about what’s best for you!”
“Well, that’s not good for me in any way. I don’t want to wake up some morning to find you’ve just vanished. Or see you take one of your walks and never come back. God, that would kill me!”
As soon as she said it, she knew it was true. One way or another, she had reached a point where she couldn’t imagine life without Liam. “You’ve got to stop,” she said again, as her eyes began to burn with tears. “Just stop saying it and thinking it. Please.”
The silence that followed was agonizing.
Then he said, “Okay. I won’t talk about it and I won’t think about it unless you say you want me to go.”
Then she felt awful. “I don’t want to force you to stay. That’s not what I mean!”
“Hell.” He rubbed his chin. He paced one circle in the kitchen, his leg hitching slightly as always. “I get the feeling I keep saying everything wrong. We seem to be cross-talking here. Can I try again?”
She nodded.
“Okay.” He faced her. “I don’t want to leave. That’s not the issue. The issue is whether this is right for you. That’s the only issue. Do you really want me hanging around long-term?”
It was as if a stillness came over her heart, and with it came a certainty. “I don’t want you to leave. I’m sure of that, Liam.”
“Okay, then. I don’t want to leave, either. But you’ve got to agree to let me help out financially around here or I won’t be comfortable. That’s all I’m asking.”
Insisting more like, she thought, her heart lifting a bit. “I can deal with that,” she agreed.
“Okay, then, it’s settled. I won’t talk about leaving anymore, and I certainly don’t want to. Was that clear enough?”
Not quite. She wanted more than a handyman. But he hadn’t even suggested it. Even as her heart lifted, her stomach sank. He’d stay, but she knew with absolute conviction that she didn’t just want a partner in running the ranch. She wanted ever so much more.
Hardly realizing it, she stepped toward him. She reached out a hand to him, then she caught herself and let it fall. She needed him to make the move.
He’d seen the aborted move, though, and a smile began to creep across his face. “You, too, huh?”
She didn’t have a chance to ask him what he meant because he closed the distance, wrapped her in his powerful arms and picked her up, then headed for the stairs.
“I’m becoming very fond of you,” he muttered as he climbed. “In fact, I want you more than ever.”
That was fine by her. Her heart began to sing as it hadn’t sung in a long time.
The day’s fading light poured through the window to wrap around them as they fell naked onto the bed, but Sharon felt as if they were wrapped in a golden glow. When his staff sank into her body, she felt a sense of completion and wholeness she hadn’t felt in forever. This was right, so very right.
And later, when they lay damp and sated, all tangled up on the bed, she burrowed into him as if she could get inside him and never leave.
She wanted this to never end. Never.
“I probably shouldn’t say this,” he murmured, “but I love you.”
Her heart nearly stopped, then skittered as it began to pound. “Why shouldn’t you say that?”
“Because it’s not fair to you.”
She reared up on one elbow, tossing her hair back, and glared at him. Funny to be so angry when every cell in her body was feeling heavy and happy and replete. “Stop worrying about what’s fair to me. Let me do that, okay?”
His smile was lazy. “Okay. You sure can get mad on a dime. I think I just said something nice to you.”
“Then you qualified it. Stop it. And while you’re at it, say it again.”
“Which part?”
Her anger dissipated as she heard his teasing tone. She playfully swatted his shoulder. “You damn well know which part.”
“I love you,” he said without qualification. “Maybe you don’t...”
She put her hand over his mouth. “Shh. I’ve been doing nothing but thinking about this, trying to think about what was fair and best for both of us.”
“We both seem to have that failing,” he remarked from behind her fingers.
“No kidding. Anyway, I’m glad you love me, because, damn it, I love you, too. I want a life with you, Liam. Just the way you are. I can’t imagine waking in the morning and not seeing you. I can’t imagine a day without you. I wasn’t kidding when I said it would kill me if you just left.”
He grabbed her then, squeezing her so tightly that she squeaked. At once he loosened his grip. “Sorry, I guess you need to breathe.”
The laughter bubbled up in her then and spilled forth. Never had she believed she would be so happy again.
He rolled her over until he was propped on his elbows above her. Smiling, he looked down into her eyes.
“I only want one promise.”
She rolled her eyes. “Let me guess. I’ll tell you to go if I get fed up.”
“I wasn’t going to make it that easy. Not now.”
A smile lifted her mouth. “Then what?”
“We don’t have kids right away. In case. I mean, I want you to be sure I’d be a good father.”
She thought about it. “There’s time.” This time there’d be plenty of time. She was sure of it. “Anything else?”
“We name our first son Chet.”
Her breath caught. Then she whispered, “Yes, of course.”
“Chet Majors O’Connor. That’s okay?”
“That’s very okay. Chet would like that.”
“I’m not asking Chet. I’m asking you.”
“
I like it, too.”
“And someday we’ll tell him the story. But anyway, what do you want from me?”
She looped her arms around his neck and looked into those light green eyes that had both maddened her and given her life’s most precious gift: joy. “That you’ll never leave me. That you’ll be here every single day.”
“I promise.”
“Then I’ll take that as a marriage proposal.”
He laughed, looking happier than she’d ever seen him. “And your answer is?”
“Yes, Liam. Very definitely yes.”
They came together again, this time slowly, lingering over each new touch. The passion built gradually, growing steadily until it became a white-hot blaze.
They’d come home, Sharon thought. At last, they had both found a home. With each other.
Then she gave herself up to the future.
* * * * *
A Match for the Single Dad
By Gina Wilkins
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Epilogue
Chapter One
“He’ll say no. Daddy always says no,” almost-eleven-year-old Kristina McHale said glumly. She was known to her family and friends as Kix, a nickname bestowed on her by her slightly older sister, Payton, who’d had trouble as a toddler saying her baby sister’s formal name.
With the wisdom of her thirteen years, Payton waved a hand dismissively. “We can talk him into it. You know how he’s always nagging about ‘family time.’ Well, a week together in a cabin would count for that, right? Besides, that week includes both your birthday and the Fourth of July. How can he say no?”
“He’ll find a way,” Kix predicted.
Payton sighed in response to her sister’s pessimism. “We can at least ask. You ask. Give him the look. You know, puppy-dog eyes. I’ll act like I think it’s sort of a dumb idea, so he won’t figure out we’re conspirators.”
“Con—cons—?”
“Working together,” Payton explained impatiently.
“Oh.” Kix practiced widening her already-big blue eyes. “You think this will help?”
Eyeing her critically, Payton shrugged. “Couldn’t hurt. Lower your chin a little and maybe poke out your bottom lip. If you could make it kind of quiver a little, it would be even better.”
“Like this?” Kix gave her sister a limpid look from beneath thick dark lashes, her rosy mouth pursed in a hint of a pout.
“Not bad. I bet he’ll say yes. Once we have him at the resort for a whole week, we’ll make sure he spends time with her.”
“How are we going to do that?”
Payton sighed impatiently and pushed an auburn strand out of her face. “I can’t think of everything all at once, Kix. We just will, okay?”
“Okay.”
Pacing the length of her bedroom, Payton continued her scheming. “Once Dad spends more time with Maggie, surely he’ll get around to asking her out. I mean, we know he likes her because he always smiles when she’s around, right?”
Sitting cross-legged on her sister’s bed, Kix nodded enthusiastically, her brighter-red hair tumbling into her freckled face. “He has to like her. He’d be crazy if he didn’t.”
“Well, it is Dad,” Payton muttered, making Kix giggle. “Still, maybe he’ll finally do something right and ask her out. And maybe we’ll finally have someone on our side for a change who’ll tell Dad he has to stop treating us like dumb little girls. Maggie always looks so pretty. I bet she’d convince Dad and Grammy that we’re old enough for makeup and double-pierced ears and cool clothes. At least, I am.”
“Hey!”
“Well, you’re almost old enough,” Payton conceded. “And there are other things she could take your side about.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“So we’re agreed? You’ll tell him tonight at dinner that you know where you want to spend your birthday week?”
“Agreed.”
They exchanged a complicated handshake to seal the deal.
* * *
Early on a Sunday morning in June, Maggie Bell shifted on the wooden picnic table bench beneath the big pavilion at Bell Resort and Marina. The newly risen sun glittered on the rippling waters of southeast Texas’s Lake Livingston ahead, making the lake look like liquid silver streaked with veins of gold. Even this early, the air was already quite warm, though she was comfortable enough in her scoop-neck, cap-sleeve yellow T-shirt dress and wedge-heeled sandals.
Seated around her at long wooden picnic tables and in folding chairs beneath the big pavilion at Bell Resort and Marina, a small crowd sang the chorus of “Amazing Grace,” most of them even in the same key. In a long-standing tradition at the resort owned by Maggie’s family, nondenominational sunrise worship services were held year-round for guests and any area residents who chose to participate. Attendance had always been good, but especially during the past few months. Specifically, since good-looking and personable Jasper Bettencourt had started leading the services.
Golden-haired, blue-eyed, male-model handsome, always casually dressed in jeans and cotton shirts, Jasper, known to his friends as Jay, hardly fit the stereotype of a small-town minister. Longtime locals remembered him as a hell-raising teen from a dysfunctional family who had escaped the area more than fifteen years before. It had been quite a shock when he’d returned with a theology degree, founded a little nondenominational church and dedicated himself to community service and caring for the aging, former-pastor uncle who was his only living relative. He was a compelling speaker, a talented singer and a genuinely nice guy who drew people to him with his mix of humor, kindness and compassion. Each Sunday he led the sunrise service attendees in a few well-known hymns, accompanied on guitar by his friend Garrett McHale, before presenting a brief but always moving sermon.
Seated in a folding chair beneath the pavilion with the morning’s printed program gripped loosely in her hands, Maggie sang the familiar song without needing to refer to the lyrics. She chose instead to watch the accompanist.
Dressed in a green shirt and neatly pressed khakis, Garrett looked like the ex-Air Force officer he was. Tall and lean, he wore his brown hair in a crisp, short cut that emphasized the few gray strands at his temples. His posture was impeccable, his movements measured and efficient. His eyes were the same clear gray-blue as the early-morning sky. Garrett, too, had grown up in this area, leaving to join the military at about the same time his lifelong best buddy, Jay, had struck off for parts unknown. Garrett wasn’t as strikingly handsome as Jay, yet for some reason Maggie’s attention was always drawn to him. She wasn’t sure of his exact age, but she’d guess he was maybe ten or eleven years older than her own twenty-seven. The age difference didn’t bother her. The fact that he was a single dad to two girls just heading into their teens was a different matter altogether.
She glanced at the auburn-haired thirteen-year-old at her left, then at the almost-eleven-year-old redhead on her right. Garrett’s daughters, Payton and Kix, always sat near her during services. A few months ago, she’d filled in part-time for a few weeks at the local country club for a tennis instructor recuperating from emergency surgery. She’d gotten to know Payton and Kix in the kids’ class. She was hardly a tennis pro, but the club owner was a family friend who’d been in a bind and who knew Maggie had played competitively during high school and college. Somehow, Maggie had allowed herself to be persuaded to fill in.
At about the same time Maggie had taught his daughters, Garrett had started joining his friend Jay for Sunday sunrise services, bringing Maggie and his girls together even more often. She was fond of both Payton and Kix, but they were a handful. She couldn’t imagine being responsible for their full-time care and well-being.
Jay closed the m
eeting with a prayer and an open invitation to the little church in town where he would hold services later that morning. He made himself available to shake hands and speak with guests afterward while Garrett packed away his acoustic guitar. Payton and Kix started chattering the moment the service ended, telling her about their activities since they’d seen her last Sunday, talking over each other in attempts to claim her full attention.
“...and I love your red leather sandals with the cork wedge heels so much, but Dad won’t let me even look at heels yet because he says they aren’t practical for someone my age...”
“...and my friend Kimmy got her own smartphone, but Daddy says no way can I have one...”
“...and there was a really great party at Nikea’s house, but of course Dad wouldn’t let me go just because most of the kids were older than me...”
“...and I wanted to play video games with my friend but Grammy made me clean my room, and it could have waited until later, but she...”
Laughing, Maggie held up both hands. “Girls, girls! I can only listen to one of you at a time.”
They started again without noticeable success in being patient, but Maggie managed to follow along for the most part. A litany of complaints about their father was not-so-well buried in their babbling. She had already observed that he ran a fairly strict household, though it was obvious—to her, at least—that he was crazy about his girls. She suspected he was simply overwhelmed at times. His only assistance in raising them came from his mother and grandmother, who shared a house on the same block as the one in which Garrett lived with his daughters. From what little she had seen of the family, it seemed as though Garrett was almost as responsible for the older women as he was for his daughters.
This was a man encumbered by serious baggage.
Guitar case in hand, he approached with a faint smile. Why did she find the slight curve of his firm lips so much more appealing than Jay’s bright, beaming grins? She liked Jay very much, but there was just something about Garrett....
“Good morning, Maggie,” he said in his deep voice that never failed to elicit a shiver of reaction from her.