by Amy Andrews
“How does that even work?”
He shoved his hands in his pockets, obviously trying to quell any urge to reach for her as he just as obviously chose his words carefully. “However you want it to work.”
Jane gave a small grunt. Good freaking answer. But she needed specifics. If this was going to work, it was going to need a concrete plan. “Okay. I’ve been thinking, and this isn’t a green light or anything, because I honestly don’t think it can work. It’s just spitballing for the moment.”
“Okay.”
His response was measured, but she could hear the echo of hope in the huskiness of his voice. “I could visit you in Australia once every few weeks. For, say, a couple of weeks at a time. I think between Tad and his parents and mine, I could manage that with Finn’s care, but—”
“Wait.” He shook his head vigorously, cutting her off. “No.”
Propelling himself forward, he crossed the space between them pretty damn fast for a man hampered by a cane and a limp. Before she knew it, he was standing within touching distance, and every cell in her body was humming with electricity.
“Cole…” She held up her hand in case he decided to come any closer. She couldn’t think when he was so close.
“No, Jane…please let me explain.” He reached for her hands, and instead of refusing, she let him take them, because he was close and she was weak—damn it. “I turned the sportscasting job down.”
Jane blinked. What now? “You did?”
“I did. I appreciate”—he smiled then, and so did she—“more than you know that you are even thinking about flying back and forth around the globe for me, but you don’t need to, and I would never ask you to do that. To spend such long periods away from Finn. I got offered a job here, in the U.S., with the main rugby body in Australia, doing a bunch of different stuff, but mainly talent scouting. American rugby players for Aussie teams.” He squeezed her hands. “I’m not leaving. I’m staying right where I am.”
Jane couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Really?” Her brain crowded with possibilities and questions all tumbling over each other. “Where are you going to be based?”
“I can base myself wherever I want. I was hoping California…” He smiled at her, and Jane’s heart fluttered madly. “There’ll be travel involved, but it’ll be mostly overnighters with some occasional longer trips to Europe.”
“That’s what the meetings were about?”
He nodded. “Yep.”
“But…” Jane shook her head, not daring to believe it could be that simple. In fact, knowing it still wasn’t. Cole being in America—in California—was a big hurdle to knock over, but there were still others. “I thought you wanted the sportscasting job?”
“No. Not really. It was there, and I thought it was my only option to keep me in the rugby realm, but the reality is, I want you more. And talking to Ronan in Denver was way more exciting than the prospect of being on someone’s idiot box every Saturday night. I’m here to stay, and I want to be with you.”
Jane’s pulse accelerated. That sounded damn fine to her, and it’d be so easy to just throw caution to the wind and go for it. But this was the time she had to get it right. If this thing was to happen—and she did want it to happen—then she had to start as she meant to go on.
“Okay…so you’re here. But there are other things to consider, Cole.”
“I know.” He nodded and moved forward again, their bodies still separate but only by the distance of their conjoined hands. “We’re going to have to tread carefully for Finn’s sake, take things slowly. I’m fine with being just Cole, just your friend, for as long as you think he needs. I know I won’t be able to stay over and we have to do this at his pace. I know that, and I’m perfectly fine with it. You get to call the shots here, Jane. You and Finn.”
She shook her head as the sound of another hurdle falling over ricocheted around her head. “It’s not just Finn you’re getting. It’s Tad, too. Who can be frustrating and unreliable and incredibly self-centered, but the thing is, he’s always going to be in my life and Finn’s life and your life, too, if this thing happens. And it can’t be acrimonious, Cole. It can’t be tense. I will not allow it. I will not turn Finn’s childhood into a battlefield.”
“Jane.” He lifted a hand and stroked it down the side of her face, and she wanted nothing more than to shut her eyes and rub her cheek into the caress. “If you think I would ever make a child’s life the hell that was mine, then you really don’t know me at all.”
And bang went another hurdle.
“It’s not just Tad you’ll be inheriting through me, you know. It’s his parents and whoever might one day be in Tad’s future. A…stepmom.”
Jane cringed at the thought, even though she knew it was possible. In fact, highly probable. Anxiety crawled up her throat, her breath catching there at the mere thought. As if he knew the consternation it caused her, Cole drew her gently into his arms, and she went, pressing her ear to his chest, hearing that reassuring thump of his heart as he rested his chin on her head.
“I’m here for that,” he murmured. “Whatever you need from me.”
Another hurdle tumbled as his voice rumbled into her ear so seductively that Jane actually sighed. She shut her eyes and burrowed in a little closer, forgetting for a moment that this was impossible. “His parents are really nice. They’ll like you.”
“I hope so. I want to be part of your lives, Jane, and if that means being part of Tad’s and his extended family’s, too, then bring it on. I didn’t expect to fall in love when I came to America, but I did, and that’s never happened to me before. Not like this. When I commit to someone, I commit. That’s why I want to marry you.”
Jane’s eyes sprang open. “What?” Her breath hitched. She took a step back, his arms falling away.
“I want to marry you.”
Leaning into his cane again, he got down on his left knee, his expensively tailored trousers looking bizarrely perfect there on her beautifully polished floor. Jane gasped. Out loud. “Cole…” Her voice shook. “What are you doing?”
“I’m proposing.”
Proposing? Jane’s pulse raced. What the hell? “Cole. Get up.”
He shook his head. “No. It’s okay. I know you think that at some stage I’m going to get tired of an instant family and the challenges of loving you and Finn and just bug out on you. But I’m not going to. I told you I was here for the long haul, and I meant it. I want marriage and more kids, if that’s what you want, or just Finn if not, and I want to make that official. You don’t have to say yes now; this is just my unofficial notice of intention. My way of showing you I’m serious about forever.”
He shoved a hand into his pocket, and Jane’s heart almost stopped. This was crazy, he was crazy, and her heart almost exploded with love.
“I’m sorry that I don’t have an engagement or a promise ring,” he said, “but I have this.” Jane blinked as Cole pulled out a pair of needle-nose pliers. “When I look back now, I think you threatening me with a pair of pliers was the moment I fell in love with you.”
What the hell? That had been within the first minute of their acquaintance.
“I know,” he said with a wry smile, as if he could read her mind. “I know that sounds crazy. I didn’t know you from Adam, and I was jet-lagged to hell and in pain, but your fierceness grabbed me by the gut. You were such a mama lion, and something deep inside me understood you were a force to be reckoned with, and it was right.”
Jane nodded, recognizing the sincerity in his words, hearing the truth of them and suddenly knowing her own truth. After denying that anyone could fall in love so quickly, she knew the exact moment for her, too. “For me, it was you making the tire swing for Finn.”
Cole shrugged. “Every kid needs a tire swing.”
No. Every kid needed a man who was going to make tire swings for them. Be t
here for them. Who was going to show up. And this man, who she loved despite all and any sensible, rational thinking, wanted to be there for Finn—for her—even more.
He thrust the pliers at her, and she noticed for the first time there was a small note card attached to one of the handles with some kind of red ribbon. In big, bold ink, it said I do.
“Take these as a symbol of our relationship and as a token of my unswerving commitment to you. Give them back to me when you and Finn are ready to take the ultimate step, and I’ll swap it for a ring so damn big they can see it on the moon.”
Jane’s heart melted to a puddle of goo in her chest. She didn’t need a ring, huge or otherwise, and it’d probably only be a liability in her line of work, but the fact Cole was willing to wait, that he understood it wasn’t just her decision?
She did need that. She needed to know he could be patient with the fact she’d never just truly be Jane alone. But…
“What if it takes years?” she whispered, her voice suddenly stupidly husky.
“I’ll wait.”
Tears pricked the backs of Jane’s eyes as she took the pliers from Cole’s hands, her fingertips caressing the note card. “Much appreciated,” she murmured with a smile.
He growled low in his throat. “You know I’m going to have to kiss you now.”
“I hope so.”
Using his cane, Cole pushed to his feet, and Jane stepped right into his embrace, her arms circling his waist, her hands a little trembly. “I love you,” she said, gazing up into his eyes, not quite believing that this man wanted her—loved her. Had given her a pair of needle-nose pliers as a symbol of his commitment to her.
She’d never been so damn swept off her feet in her life.
“I love you, too,” he whispered, lowering his mouth to hers, drowning her in his heat and his hardness and the headiness of his aftershave, and she knew if they couldn’t make it, then nobody could.
“Why don’t we move this upstairs?” Jane said, pulling out of the kiss before she debauched him on her pristine, magazine-shoot-ready parquetry.
“I like your thinking,” he murmured, grabbing her hand and pulling her out of the room.
They hurried across the entrance hall together, stumbling a little in their haste, Jane’s pulse and libido tripping almost as much as her feet. They got to the bottom of the sweeping staircase and stopped as Cole switched his cane to the other hand and grabbed for the railing.
“I really wish I could carry you up these stairs,” he confessed. “It’d be a very dashing way to round off my proposal.”
Jane smiled. “As long as I don’t have to carry you, I’m good.” She slipped an arm around his waist, relieving him of his cane. “How about we go up side by side, together?”
“Mmm.” He dropped a kiss on her mouth. “I like the sound of that.”
Yeah. So did she. Jane liked it very much indeed.
Epilogue
Several months later, Christmas morning, California
Finn, still in his pajamas, beat Jane to the door when the bell rang at precisely seven a.m. If anything, he was more excited than she was about seeing Cole this morning.
He’d been awake since five thirty, asking how much longer, Mommy every ten minutes. He was always excited, of course, to see Cole, who had an apartment only a ten-minute drive away, but this was a very special morning, after all.
“Cole!” Finn exclaimed as he pulled on the doorknob with gusto, the giant wreath decorating the front of the door swinging precariously.
“Matey.” Cole grinned at him, accepting the enthusiastic hug as Finn threw his arms around Cole’s waist.
Jane’s heart fluttered in her chest as it always did at the obvious love and affection between her two guys. They were a true mutual-admiration society, and she never tired of witnessing the way Cole was with Finn.
“Merry Christmas, Cole,” Finn said, his voice muffled by Cole’s ridiculously over-the-top Christmas sweater with a red reindeer nose at sternum height.
“Merry Christmas, Finny,” Cole said, ruffling Finn’s hair. And then he switched his attention to Jane, and his gaze went from playful and PG to something hotter and definitely not PG. “Merry Christmas,” he murmured, his mouth curving up into a slow, lazy, knowing smile.
A smile that told her he remembered their Christmas Eve session over Skype last night, which was also not PG. In fact, she was pretty sure they’d breached several telecommunication laws. What could she say? The man was good at phone sex.
And he’d been away in New York for a few days until late last night.
Jane returned that smile with a similar one of her own. “Merry Christmas,” she said, her voice a little breathy.
And then they just stared at each other for long moments because it had been a few days and she’d missed him. Having Cole so close these past months had been wonderful. He’d respected her requirement they take things slow for Finn’s sake and had let her set the boundaries and call the shots. He’d gotten his own apartment, hung out with them whenever he could, showed up when he said he would, was fine with squeezing in sexy times to her schedule and in secret, and helped out with Finn when he wasn’t away, which was usually only a few days a month. And he’d never pushed for more.
She couldn’t have asked for a better, more patient man.
Aware suddenly of the cool air coming inside despite the bright blue sky outside, she laughed and said, “Let Cole in, Finn. We’ll catch our deaths out here in this cold air.”
Okay, it wasn’t snowing, like it currently was in Credence, but it was cold for California.
“C’mon, Cole!” Finn separated himself, grabbed Cole’s hand, and tugged. “We have a present for you.”
“Hey,” Cole said, pressing his lips brief and hard and urgent against hers for the two seconds his mouth came close enough to snatch a kiss before he was whisked away.
Jane laughed as the little boy pulled the giant man with apparent effortlessness across the main living area. Luckily, Cole no longer needed a cane.
“C’mon, Mommy!”
Finn’s voice grew fainter as he disappeared into the living room, where the Christmas tree sat all bright and festive and bursting with gaily wrapped presents awaiting the arrival of Tad and his parents in a couple of hours. They were all—Cole included—sitting down to lunch together, and Jane was looking forward to it. Tad had grown a lot these past months. He’d picked up a teaching job, and he and his parents had accepted Cole as part of her and Finn’s life.
It didn’t mean everything was plain sailing all the time, but everyone was making an effort, and it was working.
Jane’s heart rate picked up a little as she followed at a more sedate pace. She was pretty damn excited, too.
“Can I give it to him now, Mommy?” Finn asked as soon as she took a step through the doorway.
Finn, who was sitting on his haunches in front of the tree, was practically vibrating off the ground, and she laughed. “Yes. You can give it to him now.”
Cole, who’d parked his ass on the arm of the couch right next to the tree, looked from one to the other as Jane came to a halt behind Finn. He narrowed his eyes and waggled his brows as he said, “What are you two up to?”
Predictably, Finn giggled. “It’s a secret. Mommy says I can’t tell you.”
“Oh does she now?” He regarded her with faux exaggerated suspicion, but that smile playing on his mouth ruined the effect.
“But it’s okay because now it’s Christmas!” And Finn picked up a present about the size and shape of a shoebox and thrust it at Cole.
Taking it, Cole smiled at Finn, then at her. “I wonder what it could be,” he said, returning his attention to Finn, then giving it a little shake, playing to his audience.
“Open it. Open it,” Finn demanded, almost bunny hopping closer to Cole on his haunches.
&nbs
p; Cole chuckled. “Okay, okay.”
And then Jane’s heart really started to thud. She was equal parts nervous and excited. She was pretty sure Cole would approve of the gift, but there was a lot at stake. When the paper revealed it was a shoebox, Cole raised an eyebrow at Finn. “Cool. You got me shoes.”
Finn shook his head. “No, no, no. Open the box.”
Another chuckle, and Jane watched as Cole opened the lid. Watched as his smile died and he went very still. Watched as he glanced at her sharply, all kinds of hope and desperation marring his rugged, sexy face. “Really?”
Jane had promised herself she wouldn’t cry, but her heart was full. Hot tears scalded her eyes as she nodded. “Really.”
Cole reached in and pulled out the pliers from the bed of rich velvet fabric she’d used to line the box. Around the handle, hanging from a piece of red ribbon, was a small card that said we do in big black print.
“We’re getting married!” Finn announced, throwing his hands in the air. Then, as if it was too much for him, he leaped up and hugged Cole again.
And Jane, her heart overflowing, joined them.
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Acknowledgments
When my editor, Liz, floated the idea of doing a crossover book, I was immediately intrigued. What a great way to entice readers of my Sydney Smoke series to try out my Credence series. And vice versa! And so Cole and Jane were born. And, better still, another rugby player—an American—to add to my Sydney Smoke team. Another #hotrugbydude to give a HEA! I hope you’ve enjoyed it, and I hope if you haven’t read both series that you are intrigued enough to give the other a go!
As ever, there are many people to thank at Entangled for helping get this book into your hands, and I thank each and every one of them, but especially Liz for her support and encouragement and unflagging belief in, and enthusiasm for, the romance genre and Alethea Spiridon for stepping in and editing at such a late stage. Also Hannah for my line editing – you are a Queen and I thank you from the bottom of my heart that you not only do the line edit thing but that you are always so liberal with your praise. That means a lot to my fragile writer ego.