His entire life lay in the balance. He could no longer pretend. The next few minutes meant everything to him.
“You got my note,” she said, standing awkwardly beside the couch. “I’d actually given up on you,” she continued while he was still trying to make sense of what she’d said. “It’s been almost four hours.”
“What note?”
“You didn’t get my note?”
“What note?” Zack asked again.
She walked around the couch to sink down on the edge of it. “I attached a note to Sammie’s collar.”
“I haven’t seen it.” Zack sat down on the other end of the couch, his hands between his open knees.
“I went out as soon as she came in.”
“So you didn’t get my note.”
“No.” He wished he had, if for no other reason than to put her out of her misery. She seemed so damn uncomfortable she was setting him on edge, as well. Adrenaline crackled through him.
“Then why are you here?” she asked abruptly.
Finally, an answer he knew. “Because when I realize I’ve been wrong about something, I have to set it right.”
The tension in her beautiful face softened. “What were you wrong about?” she whispered. He could see a hint of tears in her eyes.
His practiced speech, the well-rehearsed words, were nowhere to be found. His mind went blank, leaving nothing but the stark truth.
“I was wrong not to see what I was doing to myself. To Dawn. And to you.”
She turned on the couch, facing him, and leaned forward. “You mean you—”
“I went to see Dawn this evening,” he told her. The words, once he’d set them free, poured out of him. “You were right about so many things, Randi. Who and what she is has nothing to do with me or with anything I did or didn’t do. And punishing her for that wasn’t doing either of us any good. Nor was punishing myself.”
“You saw her?” Randi asked, her eyes alight with the life he’d found so compelling from that very first day in his office. “How’d it go? What did she say? Is everything okay?”
“The conversation was a bit awkward, but I think everything’s going to be fine. Better, I imagine, than any of us expected. The discomfort between us may take a while to disappear, but we found that beneath it all lay the remnants of a friendship that was very real for a good many years.”
“You didn’t fall in love with her all over again?” Randi asked, touching Zack with the vulnerability she was showing him.
“No. Not even tempted. How could I be, when I was in such a hurry to get home to you?”
“You were?”
He nodded.
“And you really didn’t get my note? You’re really here because you trust me?”
He nodded, reached for her hand, pulled her across the couch and onto his lap. “That note didn’t have anything to do with the fact that Barbara didn’t know a thing about any scholarship, did it?” he asked, giving her the sternest look he could muster.
“You did get it.” She didn’t sound disappointed, exactly, but…
“No, honey, I didn’t get it. But when I confessed to Dawn and Barbara what an idiot I’d been, citing my many infractions, including the last argument over the scholarship money, I got a completely blank look from the friend you’d been so anxious to help.
“Then, with one foot already in my mouth, I proceeded to dine on the other one when I explained that it was the reason you wanted to meet with her—only to find you’d already had the meeting. And said nothing about the money.”
Randi sat on his lap, facing him. “I couldn’t ask her when I realized, while I was sitting there talking to her, how hopelessly in love with you I was.”
“Thank God,” Zack said simply. The world that had been spinning out of control for more than a year had finally begun to right itself. “I love you, too, Miranda Parsons, more than life itself.”
He couldn’t wait another second to taste her lips. He was immediately on fire with the urgency of her response to him. He kissed her until he couldn’t breathe, and still it wasn’t enough. He needed so much more.
“Marry me,” he whispered against lips swollen and moist from his kisses.
She pulled back far enough to look him in the eye. “You’re sure?” she asked. “Because once we say we’re doing this, there’s no way it’s not going to happen.”
“Then let’s say it fast, because it can’t happen soon enough for me.”
Randi whooped. Jumped off his lap and stood there staring at him. “You want to marry me.” She said it in that way she had of making a statement sound like a question.
He nodded.
“Me,” she said, pointing to herself.
And suddenly Zack understood. Randi had her own insecurities. Ones he’d probably contributed to. Ones he’d spend the rest of his life helping to vanquish.
“I want to marry you, Randi, the woman you are right now, standing before me looking so sexy I’m not going to be responsible for what I do in the next hour, the next year, the rest of our lives.”
She grinned. And maybe even blushed.
But he wasn’t done yet.
“I want to marry the woman who challenges me every opportunity she gets. The woman who has the courage to tackle her fears, to dare to meet a dog and maybe even like her—”
“Sammie saved me today,” Randi blurted out.
“Remind me to thank her later.”
“Okay,” Randi said, unusually agreeable.
“So, if we’ve just decided we’re getting married, what are you doing way over there?” he asked. His next move would be to go to her, pick her up, carry her to bed. He just wanted to hear what she had to say first.
Knowing Randi, it was bound to be good.
“I can’t think when you’re so close to me, and I want to savor this moment. To really understand that we’re getting married.” She grinned. “Besides, I liked all the things you were saying.”
He stood up. “Do you understand yet?” he asked, approaching her slowly.
Randi ducked away from him. “Almost,” she said. “There’s just one thing I have to do.”
His eyes narrowed. “What’s that?” He had to be on his guard with her, he knew.
“It’ll just take a minute,” she said, surprising the hell out of him by reaching for the phone. Not what he’d expected at all.
She dialed quickly, without thought. Someone she obviously knew well.
Zack crossed to her, putting his arm around her waist. She was trembling.
He felt her tense suddenly, as the phone was picked up at the other end.
“Will?”
A brief pause. “Yeah, I know it’s late.”
Another pause. “No, no, everything’s fine. I just had to tell you…” Her voice broke and Zack realized she was crying.
This tough, capable, courageous woman was choking on tears. “I’m getting married.”
Zack couldn’t make out her brother’s words, but he heard the suddenly wide-awake and unmistakably delighted tone of the other man’s voice. And was filled with gratitude that he’d come to this town, to this place, to this woman.
Randi was laughing and crying at the same time, and holding on to Zack with every ounce of strength in her. And Zack, who hadn’t cried since he was a little boy burying his first dog, felt the threat of tears in his own eyes.
There was no doubt left in his mind. In his heart. Randi was really his. For now. Forever.
His world tilted again, finding a new axis. Everything in his life was perfectly aligned.
Love had a way of doing that.
EPILOGUE
BECCA PARSONS stood by the piano in the Montford mansion, barely able to contain the emotion rising inside her. All around her were people she’d cried with, laughed with, worried about. People she loved.
The room was filled with noise. Glasses being lifted in toasts, dishes clanking, laughter, too many conversations to count. Life was as it should be.
&n
bsp; The Montfords were home. And newly alive as they welcomed their nephew and his wife into their fold. As their house once more rang with a child’s laughter, that of Ben’s seven-year-old daughter, Alex.
Her sister and brother-in-law were over there, bragging—Becca was sure—about their baby daughter, never to replace the daughter they’d lost, but adding a whole new dimension to the lives Sari and Bob still had to live. Her dear friends, Martha and Phyllis, both divorced, were deep in conversation. They were good deserving women. Survivors. Beauties in their own right. She hoped life had good things in store for them.
She wanted to remember to introduce Phyllis to Cassie. They had professional interests that might complement each other, and—
“How’re you doing, my dear?”
Becca shivered as Will’s voice whispered in her ear. She turned to smile at him, still thrilled by his touch, even after all these years. “Great. How about you?” she asked.
“I’m full.”
She smiled at his teasing. “We haven’t eaten yet.”
“I know.”
His eyes were serious as they met hers, and Becca read their message. His life was full. Full and good and so worth the living.
As was hers.
This was her town. These were her people. And Becca knew they were all dedicated to making the world, or at least their little corner of it, a better place to live. A safe haven, a place where security and love, trust and decency healed the hurts, gave hope where hope was lost, prepared the way for miracles.
“Bethany should be awake soon. You want me to go get her?” Will asked.
Their daughter and Sari’s daughter were sleeping in portable cribs down the hall in the library.
“Martha’s daughter is in there with them. She’ll come get us when they wake up.”
The two new mothers had been insisting for weeks that they were going to get sitters for this evening. But no one had believed them. Including the Montfords, who’d called earlier in the week to say they’d rented cribs if Becca and Sari needed them.
“Tory and Ben look happy,” Will said, nodding toward the young couple in whose honor the party was being held.
“I’m just wondering where Randi got to,” Becca said. She’d been looking for her youngest sister-in-law for the better part of half an hour.
“I saw her and Zack slip out back quite a while ago. There’s only so far they can go out there—if you know what I mean. I expect they’ll be back soon.”
“Will!” Becca felt compelled to react with a bit of shock, though she was secretly so thrilled for Randi she could hardly contain herself.
“We were exactly like that once, if you’ll remember,” Will reminded her. Becca was mortified to feel herself blushing.
“Where’s Cassie? I haven’t seen her, either,” Becca said, changing the subject before she found herself out in the garden with Will. It would be just their luck to have Bethany wake up while they were in a compromising position, and people went looking for them.
They’d never live it down.
Hmm. Might be worth it just to see…
“She’s in the kitchen,” Will was saying. It took Becca a moment to remember what he was talking about. The question she’d asked.
Carol Montford came in from her husband’s office behind Becca and Will, a shocked look on her face.
“Carol, are you all right? What’s the matter?” Becca asked, sliding her arm around the older woman’s waist.
“Nothing. Oh, where’s James?” she asked, glancing around for her husband.
“I saw him in the other room. I’ll go get him,” Will said, but Carol grabbed his hand before he could move.
“I want you to hear this, too,” she said, “and I can’t wait another minute to tell someone.”
“What’s happened?” Becca asked anxiously.
Something good, she hoped.
“It’s my Sam!” Carol said, speaking of the son she hadn’t seen since he’d left Shelter Valley—and Cassie—in disgrace ten years before. “He’s coming home!”
Becca’s eyes met Will’s over the congratulations, the growing commotion, as someone found James and gave him the news. Shelter Valley was ready to welcome home the prodigal son.
And this was what life in Shelter Valley was all about, Becca thought again. The lonely found love. The lost were found. And sometimes, miracles really did happen.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-6256-4
WHITE PICKET FENCES
Copyright © 2000 by Tara Taylor Quinn.
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