by Tawna Fenske
What?
“Get off me,” Andrea wheezes.
“You crazy bitch.” Vanessa’s still gripping the peppermill as her hair falls over her face. “Stop squirming or I’ll bash your head in.”
The fury in her eyes leaves no doubt she’d do it. Vanessa’s not messing around. I’ve never seen her like this, but one thing’s clear: She needs zero help from anyone.
Even if she did, Roughneck’s got it handled. He dives into the fray, teeth bared and snapping. He clamps his jaws around Andrea’s pantleg with a ferocious snarl. She screams and grabs Vanessa’s arm, but Vanessa’s not letting up.
“Holy shit.” Lana skids to a stop beside me, eyes wide. “Good dog.”
But it’s Vanessa earning the real ninja points. She’s flipping Andrea onto her stomach and binding her wrists with a phone cord pulled from her purse.
“Never come at woman with a handbag the size of Alaska,” she barks at Andrea. “Or a woman with zero fucks left to give.”
The swearing, the fury, the utter badassery—this shouldn’t be turning me on. I’ve always known Vanessa’s competent as hell, but this…this is next level stuff.
Vanessa looks up then, her gaze meeting mine. She doesn’t smile, but at least she doesn’t glare. Just stares at me for a few long seconds as her dog growls and tugs at Andrea’s pantleg.
Then she stands up, grabs her phone, and—cool as a cucumber—places a call. “Hello, police? I’d like to report a crime.”
***
Three hours later, we’re back in my office. Vanessa has changed into jeans and a T-shirt, and she’s sipping her second lavender latte as Amy Lovelin stands up and closes her notebook.
“Thank you for giving me so much of your time,” Amy says. “I’m sure we’ll have more questions, but you’re free to go now.”
“Thanks.” Vanessa stands and shakes her hand, looking a little tired. “You’ve been great.”
“Me?” Amy laughs. “I’m not the one who took down a crazed actress holding a syringe full of snake venom.”
“Roughneck gets the credit,” she says modestly, even though we all know she had the situation under control before her dog arrived.
“Give him an extra biscuit for me.” Amy bends and scratches him behind the ears, earning a groan of happiness from the dog who hasn’t left Vanessa’s side for hours. When she took a bathroom break, he followed her inside.
“Dean.” Amy straightens and shakes my hand. “We’ll be in touch.”
“Thank you.”
And then we’re alone. Vanessa stands in the doorway, looking like she’s not sure whether to stay or run like hell.
“Vanessa.” I hold out my hand, not sure where to start. “I have no right to ask you to stay here and listen to my paltry, inadequate, much-too-late apology, but if you’re willing to hear me out—”
“Yes.” She drops back into her chair and crosses her legs. “I believe in letting people have their say. In giving people a chance to be heard.”
Ouch. “I deserved that.”
“Yep.”
She’s not going to make this easy for me. She shouldn’t, I know that. “I’m so sorry,” I begin. “I’m sorry for shutting you out. I’m sorry for doing my stupid king-of-the-county routine when it’s clear you’re the goddamn empress of the universe.”
Her mouth twitches just a little, but her expression stays stony. “Thank you. I accept your apology.”
It should come as a relief, but it doesn’t. Not even a little. She’s still hurt, and she has every right to be. I can’t expect a few lame words to do anything but patch the roof I’ve blown off the house we’ve been carefully building.
I take a deep breath and try again. “For so long, I’ve thought it was my job to take care of everyone. It’s not about being the older sibling. It’s feeling like that’s the best and only thing I had to offer the people I care about.”
“That’s not true.” Her expression softens just a little. “You have plenty to offer.”
I shrug, not willing to accept compliments I don’t deserve. “My ability to fix things—I’ve been known for that since I was a kid. But I realize it’s the last thing you needed from me, and I’m sorry. I know it doesn’t make it better knowing it came from a place of love, but it did.”
“It makes it a little better.” She shrugs, glancing away. “Plenty of people do shitty things in the name of protecting the people they care about.”
The pain etched on her face is plain as day. “Your mother, you mean.”
She turns back to me, expression wary. “What do you mean?”
I take a deep breath. I’m not sure how she’s going to take this. “While Amy was questioning you, I made some calls. I should have done that first.” Actually, scratch that. “No, what I should have done first was talk with you. That should have been my first move the instant I got that email.”
She nods once, still guarded. “It would have been nice.”
“For what it’s worth, I never doubted you,” I tell her. “I never thought you were a cheater. My instinct was to squash the scandal, but it should have been to make sure you understood that I know what kind of person you are. That I trust you completely.”
Tears fill her eyes, but she blinks them back hard. I watch her take a few deep breaths, hands clenched in her lap. “Thank you.”
I hesitate, choosing my words carefully. I’m not sure how to ask this. “Would you have told me?” I probe gently. “Would you have explained how your mother filed a false report to kill your chance at passing the CPA exam?”
I watch her chest rise and fall as she looks at me, not breaking eye contact. She doesn’t answer. Not right away. When she does, her voice is hard as granite. “She wanted me to be a socialite like her. Thought a career in a male-driven field would get in the way of me scoring a husband and settling down like she wanted me to do.”
“God. I’m so sorry.” I’m not sure if I’m angrier about the 1950s mentality, or that anyone would go so far to control someone they’re supposed to love. “I’m sorry I turned out to be every bit as bad. Worse, because you trusted me.”
She shrugs and looks down at the knee of her jeans. Amy gave her a chance to change out of her torn dress. It takes my breath away how lovely she is in a T-shirt and faded denim.
A tiny smile flits over her face. “I didn’t trust you, so we’re even.”
I laugh, though it’s clear her joke is hiding more hurt. “Hardly. God, Vanessa.”
I want to ask about the exam. How she proved herself and passed with flying colors. With a better score than she had the first time.
“I offered to take it again,” she says, reading my mind. “Naked. No chance of hiding notes in my bra.”
“Seriously?”
She shrugs and looks away. “They didn’t take me up on the naked thing, but they did frisk me like crazy.”
“I’m so sorry.” I sound like a broken record. “I just want to keep apologizing again and again, but I know it won’t help.”
“It helps a little.”
“Not enough. It could never be enough.” Neither could the next words I want to say, but I owe it to her to say them out loud. I owe it to myself.
“Vanessa, I love you.”
She looks up, startled. I hurry to keep talking so she doesn’t feel forced to repeat it. “You don’t have to say it back. And I don’t mean it as a desperate, last-ditch effort to convince you to give me another chance. I’m telling you because before I met you, I had no idea what it felt like to love someone so completely that it overwhelmed any rational thought.”
The edges of her smile tug up just a little. “For an irrational guy, you’re surprisingly functional.”
“That’s just it.” I drag my hand through my hair, not sure how much to share.
All of it. Bare your guts, you idiot.
“I’ve been walking around beating my chest and doing what I’ve always done as the guy in charge. Then you came along, and I realized I wasn�
�t the center of the universe. Not even close. And I realized the most amazing things in my life—loving you, for starters—they’re completely out of my control. And that scared the hell out of me, to be honest.”
She looks at me for a long, long time. Slowly, she reaches out to lace her fingers through mine. “I shouldn’t have walked away.”
“You had every right to. You had every right to punch me in the nuts if you wanted to.”
She laughs. “Lana did suggest it, but no.” She takes a deep breath. “Being brave means sticking around and fighting for what matters. It means having the hard conversations instead of throwing up my hands and saying ‘I’m done.’”
“You’re the bravest person I know,” I say. “Even before I saw you climb a tree topless or beat the crap out of Andrea.”
“You’re pretty brave yourself.” She looks down at our intertwined hands. “Brave is saying ‘I love you’ when you’re not sure the other person’s going to say it back.”
I suppose that’s true, though I hardly deserve credit. “I’m just telling you how I feel. I should have done that a long time ago.”
“Maybe.” She shrugs. “There’s a lot we both could have done differently.”
I take another deep breath. I’m still nowhere near making this right. Unlacing my fingers from hers, I reach under my desk and pull out the box. “I can sit here spouting words all day long, but it won’t make up for what I did,” I tell her. “Words are one thing. Actions are another.”
“What do you mean?”
I reach into the box and pull out the first object. “The remote control to my office TV.” I place it in her hand as an offering, smiling as she curls her fingers around it. “For the record, I’ve never let anyone touch it.”
She laughs and holds it up to look at it. “I’m honored. Also a little confused.” She flicks the power button on and then off again. “How does rendering your television useless solve anything?”
“It doesn’t, but I wanted to show I can give up control. It’s my lame attempt at symbolism.”
“Not that lame.” She gives me a small smile and sets the remote aside. “What else?”
Could this really be working? I don’t dare hope as I reach into the box again. “My coffee mug.” I set it on the desk in front of her. “I’ve had this for twelve years. It was a present from the first director I ever worked with, and I’ve always been petrified someone would break it.”
She turns it around on the desk, frowning. “You’re not giving me this, are you?”
“Yes. I even washed it.” That sounded dorky. “Still going for the symbolism, I guess. I trust you with one of my most treasured possessions.”
“That’s…sweet.” She laughs. “A little weird, but sweet.”
This next thing stands a good chance of falling flat. I don’t know how she’ll take it. If I’ll be opening up old wounds.
But I have to take a chance. If I’ve learned nothing else today, that’s it. I reach into the box again. My fingers close around bent metal and round, glossy beads. As I pull out the abacus, Vanessa gasps.
“Where did you get that?”
“Is it the same one?” I hoped it might be, but I wasn’t sure. “Maybe not identical, but it’s like what you had as a kid?”
She nods, tears filling her eyes. She reaches out and strokes a finger over a row of blue wooden beads. “It’s just like it.”
“I thought so. The way you described it sounded like the one I had growing up. After you told me that, I called my mom and asked her to ship it to me.”
Her eyes snap to mine, and her lips part slightly. “This was yours? The one you had as a kid?”
I nod, feeling simultaneously silly and hopeful. “We’ve got a lot of heirloom jewelry in my family. My mom’s always urged me to go through it. That I might want a ring to propose with someday.” I never took her up on it with Andrea. It never felt right, handing over a family treasure. “Anyway, I called my mom after you told me your abacus story. I said, ‘I’m in love with the most amazing woman I’ve ever met, and I’ll probably want that ring soon. But I need something else.’”
A tear slips down her cheek, and she doesn’t bother brushing it away. Instead, she reaches out to touch the abacus. “It’s beautiful.”
If I didn’t already love her, this would be the moment I fell. The instant she looked at my battered childhood toy and found it as precious as any diamond.
Don’t worry, I got the ring, too. There’s plenty of time for that without scaring the shit out of her. Right now, this means more.
“I love you, Vanessa. I love your brains and your beauty and how the bumps in your road have made you the brave and amazing woman you are. I love that you don’t need me, but that you might be willing to make room for me in your life anyway.” I pause, grinning. “And I love that you dig numbers as much as I do.”
She laughs and wipes a tear off her cheek. “Dammit, I said I wasn’t going to cry again today.”
“Hey, I’m good with it. No emotion is off-limits as far as I’m concerned.”
“Good. Because I love you, too.”
“Yeah?” The wave of joy that hits me is so huge, so fierce, that I almost can’t find words. But I somehow find a way to get up off my ass and scoop Vanessa into my arms, hugging her so hard she gives a startled squeak.
“I love you so much,” I say, breathing the words into her hair.
“I love you, too, you big dummy.” She laughs again as I nuzzle her neck. “So much.”
“I love you.” I seriously can’t stop saying it. “I plan to spend every day proving that for as long as you’ll let me.”
She draws back and smiles up into my eyes. “Sounds like a plan.”
Epilogue
CONFESSIONAL 439
Vincent, Vanessa: (CFO, Juniper Ridge)
I never used to believe in happily ever after.
Actually, that’s not true. I believe in it. I was just never sure that was in the cards for me. I watched my sister find her perfect guy and thought “That’s nice. That’s really amazing.’” But I never expected to find that.
Sometimes, being wrong is the best possible outcome.
“Want some popcorn?”
I plunk the bowl on the armrest between Dean’s seat and mine without waiting for an answer, grinning when he shovels it up in one of his massive paws.
We’re five months in, and I’m still obsessed with his hands.
“Thanks.” He finishes chewing and throws an arm around the back of my seat. “Want another beer before I start the show?”
“I’m good for now.” Mine’s tucked in the armrest on my other side, hoppy and cool and perfect. “I can’t believe we’ve already got an on-site brewery.”
“Cooper knocked it out of the park getting everything set up a month ahead of schedule.” The pride in his voice is obvious, and I’m not sure if it’s for Cooper or the fact that Dean never flinched handing the whole thing off to his brother. “I can’t believe how fast it’s coming together.”
I nod and help myself to more popcorn. “It’s shaping up to be a nice little town.”
We’re snuggled up in the full-sized theater near the main lodge. Starting next week, it’ll be packed with residents turning out to see first-run films and mingle with their new neighbors in the café lobby. For now, we’ve got the place to ourselves.
Well, us and Roughneck. He’s curled on the ground at my feet, and I slip off my sandal to rub toe circles on his belly. He groans in appreciation and rolls over to grant better access.
Dean reaches for more popcorn. “This is good. What did you put on it?”
“A little butter, some salt, and a few big sprinkles of blue cheese powder from Rogue Creamery over in Southern Oregon.”
He finishes chewing and gives me an odd look. “They have that in the café?”
“No, it was in my purse.” I grin and grab another handful. “I brought it to girls’ night at Mari’s so I could make dip for the veggies, an
d I forgot to take it out.”
“Of course you did.” He kisses the edge of my temple. “Delicious.”
“You don’t think it’s too salty?”
Dean grins. “I wasn’t talking about the popcorn.”
I laugh and take a sip of my beer. It’s been months since the incident with Andrea, but it feels like a lifetime ago. Since then, we’ve brought on dozens of new community members ranging from doctors and lawyers to florists and hairdressers. There are several couples and quite a few kids, but most are singles looking for a fresh start and maybe a shot at love.
I figure their odds are good. Dean and I weren’t looking for it, and see how things turned out?
He kisses me again and snags another bite of popcorn. “I’m pumped for you to see the pilot.”
“You already watched it?” I fight to keep the disappointment from my voice. We’ve planned for weeks to watch together.
“Nope, I waited—I promise.” He squeezes my hand. “I’ve seen a few clips here and there when Gabe and Lauren asked for my opinion, but mostly I’ve left it up to them.”
See? This is what I mean. The Dean I met a few months ago could never have stepped aside and let his siblings run the show. Don’t get me wrong, he’s still plenty involved with finances and sponsors and real estate decisions. But he’s gotten way better at letting go and trusting others to do their jobs.
“I’m sure it’s amazing.” I lean my head against his shoulder and fish my hand in the popcorn again. “Everyone’s been working so hard.”
“Nothing’s more rewarding than doing the work and watching it pay off.”
I laugh and nudge him with my elbow. “Is that a Mari quote?”
“Duh. Remember, she said it in our last couples’ workshop? I was taking notes.”
He’s so damn adorable I can’t stand it. “Have I told you lately how hot it is that you’re this devoted to mastering communication skills?”
Dean grins and nuzzles my neck. “You’re saying it turns you on?”