by Maisey Yates
He took a sharp breath and continued. “You can’t trust anymore. You can’t trust everything will be okay, because you’ve seen that sometimes it isn’t. That’s what it’s like to have lost people like I have. And I can think about a thousand pieces that I could create that would express that. But it would mean that I had to feel it. And it would mean I would have to show other people what I felt. I wanted... From the moment I laid my hands on you, Maddy, I wanted to turn you into something. A sculpture. A painting. But that would mean looking at how I felt about you too. And I didn’t want to do that either.”
Maddy lifted her hand, cupping Sam’s cheek. “I understand why you work with iron, Sam. Because it’s just like you. You’re so strong. And you really don’t want to bend. But if you would just bend...just a little bit, I think you could be something even more beautiful than you already are.”
“I’ll do more than bend. If I have to, to have you, I’ll break first. But I’ve decided... I don’t care about protecting myself. From loss, from pain...doesn’t matter. I just care about you. And I know that I have to fix myself if I’m going to become the kind of man you deserve. I know I have to reach inside and figure all that emotional crap out. I can’t just decide that I love you and never look at the rest of it. I have to do all of it. To love you the way that you deserve, I know I have to deal with all of it.”
“Do you love me?”
He nodded slowly. “I do.” He reached into his jacket pocket and took out a notebook. “I’ve been working on a new collection. Just sketches right now. Just plans.” He handed her the notebook. “I want you to see it. I know you’ll understand.”
She took it from him, opening it with shaking hands, her heart thundering hard in her throat. She looked at the first page, at the dark twisted mass he had sketched there. Maybe it was a beast, or maybe it was just menacing angles—it was hard to tell. She imagined that was the point.
There was more. Broken figures, twisted metal. Until the very last page. Where the lines smoothed out into rounded curves, until the mood shifted dramatically and everything looked a whole lot more like hope.
“It’s hard to get a sense of scale and everything in the drawings. This is just me kind of blocking it out.”
“I understand,” she whispered. “I understand perfectly.” It started with grief, and it ended with love. Unimaginable pain that was transformed.
“I lost a lot of things, Maddy. I would hate for you to be one of them. Especially because you’re the one thing I chose to lose. And I have regretted it every moment since. But this is me.” He put his fingertip on the notebook. “That’s me. I’m not the nicest guy. I’m not what anybody would call cheerful. Frankly, I’m a grumpy son of a bitch. It’s hard for me to talk about what I’m feeling. Harder for me to show it, and I’m in the world’s worst line of work for that. But if you’ll let me, I’ll be your grumpy son of a bitch. And I’ll try. I’ll try for you.”
“Sam,” she said, “I love you. I love you, and I don’t need you to be anything more than you. I’m willing to accept the fact that getting to your feelings may always be a little bit of an excavation. But if you promise to work on it, I’ll promise not to be too sensitive about it. And maybe we can meet somewhere in the middle. One person doesn’t have to do all the changing. And I don’t want you to anyway.” She smiled, and this time it wasn’t forced. “You had me at ‘You’re at the wrong door.’”
He chuckled. “I think you had me a lot sooner than that. I just didn’t know it.”
“So,” she said, looking up at him, feeling like the sun was shining inside her, in spite of the chill outside, “you want to go play Yahtzee?”
“Only if you mean it euphemistically.”
“Absolutely not. I expect you to take the time to woo me, Sam McCormack. And if that includes board games, that’s just a burden you’ll have to bear.”
Sam smiled. A real smile. One that showed his heart, his soul, and held nothing back. “I would gladly spend the rest of my life bearing your burdens, Madison West.”
“On second thought,” she said, “board games not required.”
“Oh yeah? What do you need, then?”
“Nothing much at all. Just hold me, cowboy. That’s enough for me.”
* * * * *
Meet all the cowboys in Copper Ridge!
SHOULDA BEEN A COWBOY (prequel novella)
PART TIME COWBOY
BROKEDOWN COWBOY
BAD NEWS COWBOY
A COPPER RIDGE CHRISTMAS (novella)
HOMETOWN HEARTBREAKER (novella)
TAKE ME, COWBOY
ONE NIGHT CHARMER
TOUGH LUCK HERO
LAST CHANCE REBEL
HOLD ME, COWBOY
Look for more COPPER RIDGE books, coming soon!
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Second in her fabulous HEIRS BEFORE VOWS series.
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One Heir...or Two?
by Yvonne Lindsay
One
Van slipped the ring into his breast pocket and snapped the lid closed on the jeweler’s box in his hand. The very large near-flawless white diamond was precisely what Dani would expect when he asked her to marry him at lunch today.
He knew that wasn’t all she was expecting. He cast an eye over the merger documents on his desk. The amalgamation of Dani’s family business, Matthews Electronics, and his DM Security would be a match made in corporate heaven. It only made sense to carry their relationship from the boardroom into the bedroom. They were kindred spirits—both focused on their business targets, both leading professional, uncluttered lives and neither of them wanting the burden of parenthood. Neither of them expected—or particularly wanted—passionate love and romance. But they’d share respect, attraction and compatible interests—and what more could he want than that? Yep, life was pretty much perfect for the boy who grew up never feeling
like he belonged anywhere, and this ring would help seal the deal.
A subtle ping on his computer screen alerted him to a message from Reception. Using his Bluetooth earpiece, he connected to Anita—his dragon at the gate, as the rest of the staff called her.
“There’s a woman here to see you, Mr. Murphy. She doesn’t have an appointment but she is most insistent.”
He could hear the disapproval in every syllable of Anita’s perfect diction. Despite himself, Van felt a smile tug at his lips.
“Does the woman have a name?” he prompted. Clearly his receptionist was flustered, a reaction infrequent enough to amuse him. It was unlike her not to give him her usual shorthand summary of details that he needed to make a decision about any unexpected visitor.
“She says she’s an old friend and doesn’t need an appointment.”
A prickle of foreboding made the hairs on the back of Van’s neck stand up. That sensation had kept him alive more than once doing his tours of duty and since, in the private sector, and he wasn’t about to ignore it now.
“Get her contact details and tell her to make an appointment to come back. Thank you, Anita.”
A lot could be learned from a name and contact details, especially by a man with his resources. Just before he clicked off the call, he heard a slight commotion in the background.
“No,” he heard Anita say very firmly. “I most definitely will not hold—”
Then all he heard was a scuffling sound. He frowned. What on earth was going on? He didn’t have to wait long to find out. The commotion he’d heard in his earpiece was very definitely coming toward him down the corridor. Van gritted his teeth in frustration. His was a specialized international security company. How secure was it really if someone could walk in off the street and cause this much of a ruckus? He was up and moving from his chair before he even completed the thought, but before he could reach the door to his office, it swung open and a woman swept in. In that split second, every notion, even the breath in his lungs, stalled right where it was.
Kayla Porter.
Damn.
The last time he’d seen her, five years ago, she’d been curled up asleep on the sofa bed of the substandard apartment she’d shared with her late sister. The bed they’d shared for a few intense, incredibly hot hours before he’d pulled himself away.
Kayla stopped in her tracks the moment her eyes lit on him. Five years since he’d last seen her and she hadn’t changed a bit. Still dressed like an escapee hippie from the sixties and still with the long flowing blond hair. He could even remember the scent of the shampoo she’d used back then. Something herbal and sweet and essentially Kayla. The memory was visceral and hit him hard.
“Good to see you again, Van,” she said in that husky “come to bed” voice of hers as she took a few steps into his office.
Her eyes flicked over him, from the top of his head and his precisely mussed, expensive haircut to the tips of his highly polished handmade shoes. She smiled.
“I see you can take the man out of the army but you can’t quite take the army out of the man, right?” she commented with a nod to his gleaming footwear.
No, she hadn’t changed. Still with the flip attitude. Still thinking she was welcome wherever she went and that people would pretty much forgive her anything.
“I take it you’re the one upsetting my receptionist? You couldn’t have made an appointment?”
The second the words were out of his mouth and he saw the surprised hurt reflected in her clear blue gaze, he wished he’d thought before speaking. But that was how it always was with Kayla. She brought out the worst in him. Always had, even when they were kids growing up next door to one another. Granted, she was four years younger than Van and her sister, Sienna, and her nuisance factor had correlated with the age difference. But it hadn’t gotten any easier to deal with her once they’d grown up. Somehow, she always put him on edge, made him feel out of control. And that was why, after their one-night stand, he’d walked away and never looked back. Even though it made him ashamed of himself whenever he thought of it—or remembered how before Sienna had died, he’d promised her he’d always look out for Kayla.
The past always had a habit of biting you in the ass.
“I’m sorry—” he started again, moving toward her. “You’re here now. What can I do for you?”
He tried not to look too closely at where a rapid pulse beat at the base of her throat, because if he did, he’d remember just how silky soft her skin had been beneath his tongue, remember just how she’d tasted. A flush of desire heated his blood but he pushed back, hard. He wasn’t that man anymore. Not driven by emotional and physical need. No, he’d finally learned to control himself and his behavior. Learned not to act on impulse. Learned to weigh and consider and recognize when a situation was just risky or out-and-out dangerous. And for some reason his senses were screaming red alert right now.
Another sound from the corridor outside filtered into his office. A sound that made Kayla turn, a look of dismay on her face.
She moved toward him, her hands outstretched. “Van, I need to talk to you about something important. I really need your help. I—”
Anita arrived in the doorway looking totally nonplussed, and no wonder, because she had a baby in her arms. A baby? Van looked from his flustered receptionist to the strand of pearls clutched in a chubby fist and thrust in a gummy drooling mouth, and then to Kayla again.
“Yours, I presume?” he asked.
And then the baby looked up from her prize and he was struck instantly by the eyes that caught his. Eyes that were identical to the ones that reflected back at him every morning in the mirror.
“Yours, too, to be precise,” Kayla said, softly, finding her voice again.
* * *
Kayla could see Van’s mind casting back to that one night they’d shared after Sienna’s funeral, gauging the age of the baby, doing the math and coming up with numbers that made no sense at all. The baby began to fret and she moved forward to take her from her very reluctant minder. If Kayla’s sitter hadn’t fallen through...well, if her sitter hadn’t up and left her with no notice, her baby girl wouldn’t be here at all.
“Come on, Sienna. We’ll have none of that. Let the nice lady’s necklace go.”
“Sienna?”
Van’s attention, locked for the past minute on the baby, now transferred to her.
“She’s named for her mother. Appropriate, don’t you think?”
Van gave her another hard look, leaving her in no doubt she was in for a grilling. He’d never actually said what he’d done in the Special Forces but she had no doubt that interrogation had probably been on an extensive list of lethal skills.
“Her mother? Sienna?”
Kayla turned to the receptionist, who still hovered in the doorway. “Thank you, I think we’ll be fine now.”
The woman looked from Kayla to Van and back again. Van seemed to come to attention.
“Yes, thank you, Anita. Could you please call Dani and tell her I’ll be delayed for lunch today. Perhaps we can reschedule for dinner instead.”
“Yes, sir, right away. Are you sure about...?” Anita gestured vaguely toward Kayla and the baby.
“I think I can handle them,” he said firmly.
His eyes remained locked on Kayla’s—silently demanding an explanation. At his words, Kayla couldn’t help but feel a tingle run down her spine. Part anticipation, part fear, part sensual memory. But Van had made it perfectly clear when he’d left her without a note or a word since that he was very definitely not interested in her. She shored up her defenses and clutched Sienna to her a little more tightly, earning a surprised squawk from her little girl. Again, she wished she hadn’t had to bring her precious child into this meeting. If she’d had any other choice, she’d have taken it.
As
soon as the door closed, Van spoke.
“Kayla, why are you here?”
She drew in a deep breath. “Like I said, I need your help.”
“And a phone call wouldn’t do?”
It stung to hear him sound so dismissive, but it served to strengthen her resolve. “No, it wouldn’t. Last time we saw each other—” Her mouth dried and she swallowed to moisten it. She began again, more resolutely this time. “After Sienna’s funeral, you said to call you if I needed anything.”
“And I meant it. But, Kayla, even you have to realize that you can’t just waltz into my place of business and expect to see me straightaway.”
“I’m sorry, but it’s really important—otherwise I wouldn’t have...”
Darn, she should just come right out with it. She looked up at him and saw a stranger. Gone was the boy next door—the one who’d received more beatings from his father than he’d ever earned, the one who’d allowed her sister to befriend him and bring him into their home, the one who as a teenager had gotten her out of more scrapes than she could remember. Gone was the soldier, gone was the passionate lover who had rocked her entire world. In his place stood a cold, controlled and distant individual. A man so unfamiliar to her now that she began to wonder if she’d ever really known him at all.
“Is it to do with her?” He gestured toward the baby.
“In a way, yes. Do you want to hold her?”
Without waiting for an answer, Kayla crossed the short distance between them and held Sienna out to her father. It should have been a beautiful moment but Van looked alternately horrified and annoyed as he instinctively put his hands out to receive his daughter.