by Helm, Nicole
“You have no idea.”
He figured neither did she, but they’d figure it out together. For the first time he understood that word. Together. The weight of it. The importance of it. Why it was worth the potential for loss. “A very long time ago your mother told me you had a crush on me.”
“And you thought I was repulsive,” she returned, wrinkling her nose.
“No. I was scared, because she told me I wouldn’t be the boy for you until I learned to deal with my demons. I just wanted to ignore them. I just wanted them to not exist. So, I decided I wouldn’t be the boy for you, and I would put all those demons away. Make them not exist. But they existed inside of me, even when I didn’t give them any light. That little boy who had a manipulative father and a mother who supported that man no matter who he hurt—he was there. Making decisions an adult should have been making. But you were wrong about one thing.”
She sniffed, lifting her chin. “I doubt that very much,” she said haughtily. Tears in her eyes, smile tugging her lips.
The combination of deep emotions he’d been avoiding so long he hadn’t even known he was doing it and her smile felt like a lock clicking open. It was a change, all the smaller changes leading up to this moment unleashed this big one.
“I don’t need those first thirteen years as foundation—yeah, they happened and yes, I need to face them and deal with them when they inform my choices, but the foundation I built my life on is the one Susannah gave me. I made some bad choices along the way, but she gave me all of you. She saved me, much as she could. Now I have to do the rest of the saving.”
Pen swallowed audibly and blinked rapidly. “Well,” she said, her voice cracking before she shook her hair back, pinning him with a regal expression. “Are you ever going to kiss me? Or are we going to talk ourselves to death until the girls wake up?”
“Are you sure… Are you sure you want to take all this on?”
“I have three daughters. Your baggage has nothing on what you’re taking on.”
He cupped her face, looked her right in the eye. He knew he’d have to get used to doing just this. Over and over again. “I love you. I love them.” Then he did what he should have done a long time ago and kissed her.
And let himself go. Fully. Wholly. Knowing she would always hold his heart. Knowing it would be hard, but there’d be this. That no matter what happened, no matter what hurt, her love would fill up the cracks life created.
Brynn’s screech pierced the air and Pen jerked away in surprise, but then leaned in to him as she saw the girls standing in the threshold of the living room.
Brynn had a look of absolute awe on her face. “Santa did it!” she whispered.
“What?” Pen looked at her daughter in confusion. “Santa did what?”
Addie grinned at Ethan and slid her arm around Brynn’s shoulder. “He really did.”
Pen looked up at him. “What on earth am I missing?”
Ethan shook his head, though he couldn’t help grinning back at Addie. “Nothing. You’re not missing a thing.”
Brynn rushed forward, throwing herself at both of them. “Are you guys gonna get married? Is Ethan gonna sleep in your bed?”
Ethan might have choked on his own spit over that one, but Brynn was already bouncing away. “Look at all these presents!”
Pen laughed as the girls started poking through looking for their names. She hooked her arm around his waist. “Still sure?”
“Always.” Because Ethan Thompson’s greatest secret had been revealed. His secrets. His lies.
And now his life could really begin—on the foundation Susannah had given him, and on the love Pen had convinced him to feel.
Epilogue
Nine months later
“But I hate math.”
Brynn’s whining had put Pen on considerable edge. Especially since she knew if Brynn spent even half the time trying to figure it out that she spent complaining about math, homework would take half as long.
And since Fritz and Sadie were cowards and always disappeared once the homework came out, Pen was left to deal.
She hadn’t been dealing very well tonight. Then Ethan had taken over when he’d gotten home. He’d slid into what had become his seat. She put the dinner she’d saved for him next to his elbow, and he’d set about working with Brynn through her math homework while he ate his dinner.
He wasn’t a perfect man, but he sure knew how to make a perfect moment, his head together with Brynn’s, helping her through a frustrating concept.
It was just a shame she was tired of…just this. He’d been staying at the farm since Christmas, but insisted on keeping separate rooms for the sake of the girls.
Pen rolled her eyes at that.
All of his worries about his father’s retribution had turned out to be…pointless seemed a harsh word, but not only had Ethan’s police friends kept an eye on Abe Thompson, the whole town had. The first time Abe had stepped foot into Last Stand, Minna Herdmann—the town’s matriarch—had immediately called the police and told them to keep an eye on that man.
The one and only time Abe had even tried to head out toward the farm, one of the other police officers had pulled him over. Abe had lost it and was thankfully back in jail after his altercation with the officer.
Though she knew Ethan felt somewhat guilty other people were involved, he’d learned an invaluable lesson about how many people loved him and would help keep him and the Martins safe.
Things were good. Settled. Sadie’s agritourism plan was taking off like gangbusters and Pen had found herself enjoying giving people tours in a way she didn’t enjoy milking or cheese making. Ethan came home and helped with homework and said I love you to all of them, sincerely and often.
But Colt had finished up the cabin Ethan had agreed to let him build. Ethan could move in whenever he wanted. He’d said something about getting it furnished first, but he hadn’t said anything about what came next.
If he moved out to that cabin without even bringing up her and the girls moving with him, she’d knock him out with a frying pan. Or so she told herself in the privacy of her own head.
“Finished! Finally. Mom, can I—”
“It’s fifteen minutes past your bedtime. Brush teeth. Go to bed.”
Brynn groaned dramatically. “That’s not fair.”
“I know. It’s cruel and unusual. Just like your whining.”
“Ughhhh.” The sound continued as Brynn slowly, slowly, stomped her way up the stairs.
“I don’t know how I’m going to survive fourth grade math,” Ethan said around a yawn. “I don’t think I survived it the first time around.”
Him. How he was going to survive it. Because he was a part of this. A part of this and doing nothing to make that permanent.
Pen tossed the dishrag into the sink and whirled. “When are you going to ask me to marry you?”
He looked like a deer caught in headlights before he slowly closed Brynn’s math book. He didn’t say anything. Forever.
It was his great superpower, because as much as his quietness before had been about holding himself separate, Ethan was a naturally careful man. He didn’t let her start stupid fights—too often—because he took his time. He thought about what he said before he said it.
She loved him for all of those things even if she currently wanted to shake him until words fell out. Of course, when they did, they always inevitably shocked her into silence.
“October sixteenth.”
She’d expected a hedge. Or maybe a question to turn it around on her. When do you want me to ask you to marry me? Or worse some horrible secret about never wanting to get married.
But he’d given her a date. A very specific date. “October… Be serious.”
He stood in that slow, careful way of his. “I’m very serious. I’m going to ask you to marry me on October sixteenth.”
“Why would you…” It dawned on her then, what that date meant. “Mom’s birthday.”
He shrugged.
He was trying to act casual, but he was uncomfortable. “Susannah brought me into your life, I figured it’d be symbolic.”
She teared up just from him thinking such a thing. “Oh, damn you.”
“When you start cursing me I know I really did something right.” He slid his arms around her waist.
She let herself lean in to his chest. He’d made that easy. The leaning. The partnership. Life wasn’t easy, and he wasn’t who she’d once thought he’d been, but he was her dependable Ethan. She knew she could always lean, trust, believe.
“I have to wait another month. What for?” She looked up at him, an idea occurring to her. She grinned.
“That smile is always scary, I hope you know.”
“I do. I think it’s well established I don’t mind scaring you a little bit. Sometimes you need it.”
“I suppose I do.”
“I don’t want to wait, but I do want a special date like that. We could get married on October sixteenth.”
“But that’s only a month away.”
“So? We elope. I don’t want a big wedding—I already did that. And you don’t strike me as a man who really wants to get dressed up and profess his love for me in front of everyone we know.”
He shuddered. “You want to just…elope?”
“Well, the girls would have to be there. And Dad. Well…okay, the family would have to be there. But nothing big. Nothing fancy. Just all of us and a promise.”
“And love.”
She rose onto her toes to kiss him, but he stopped her. “Wait a second. Did you just…ruin my proposal?” he asked in mock horror.
“I didn’t ruin it. It was your idea. I just…enhanced it.”
He laughed, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Sounds about right.” When she tried to kiss him again, he stopped her.
She scowled at him, but he only smiled. “Wait right here.”
“Wait for what?”
But he didn’t answer her. He disappeared upstairs. When he returned he held a velvet box.
“You have a ring.” He had a ring. Somehow that made it crystalize. What she was doing. What she was promising. All she wanted, and how lucky she was to be able to reach out for it.
“Sit down.”
“But—”
He gave her what she liked to call his cop look. Authoritative. He didn’t bring it out very often, but it was very effective. She sat down.
He got down on one knee in front of her. “I can’t have people saying you proposed to me now, can I?” He took her hand. “I love you. You saved me from the dark place I’d grown accustomed to. I want you by my side, forever. So, Penelope, will you marry me? Apparently in one month.”
She laughed. She cried. She slid off the chair and grabbed on to him. For a few seconds she didn’t even look at the ring, she just held on to him. Grateful for him. For the life she’d been given. “You saved me too, you know. Maybe not as dramatically. But you’ve always made it easy to lean on you, when I don’t think it’s easy to lean on anyone. You gave me that. So, yes, I’ll marry you. In one month.”
He pulled away and slid the ring onto her finger. He looked at it for a second. “I never thought I’d be able to make this kind of promise to anyone. I think I could only ever make it to you.” He lifted his eyes up to the ceiling. “And them.”
She took his face in her hands. “I love you.” Because love was a promise. Love was hope.
And no matter what a person lost, love could give and give and give.
Forever.
The End
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Thanks for reading Christmas for the Deputy by Nicole Helm!
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The Bad Boys of Last Stand series
Book 1: Homecoming for the Cowboy
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Homecoming for the Cowboy
Nicole Helm
Book 1 in The Bad Boys of Last Stand series
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“I know we need help, but we do not need his help. If you’d just give me the books, actually let me in, I could handle this without him.”
Fritz Martin sat in his oversized chair behind his giant desk that took up most of his office. Behind him, a long rectangle window looked out over the rolling green of their land. Martin land for generations. He made an imposing figure: big man, big furniture, gorgeous backdrop.
Not just an imposing man, but an impressive one. A man Sadie loved with her whole heart.
Still, she wasn’t at all surprised he was currently determined to ruin her life.
Sadie wouldn’t get her way on this, but knowing she would lose didn’t mean she’d ever known when to give up. Not when it came to what she loved.
Fritz was a big bull of a man, and even when she wanted to pound some sense into him with her fists, she loved her father with a fierceness that hit her at the oddest times. Like right now, when he was suggesting they partner with one of the most annoying men in her life.
Still watching him sit in that big chair, mouth twitching upward, her heart swelled with love, admiration, and gratitude. After his health scare last year, and losing her mother at such a young age, she knew how precarious life could be.
She could be furious with him and still love him. Argue with him and still think he was the best man she knew.
“What do you have against Colt Vance?” Dad asked, mouth serious, eyes twinkling.
Everything, Sadie thought with a scowl. But she focused on business. Because business was what this was all about. “I don’t like the way he talks down to me. I don’t like his arrogant rudeness. I think the way he got his money is sleazy, and what he’s doing with it is even sleazier.” It was all exaggerated, but exaggerating suited her mood.
“You don’t like that he’s been right when you’ve been wrong a time or two.”
If it had been anyone else, she would have argued, defended herself against such an unfair assessment. She would have never, ever admitted Colt Vance had been right about anything to anyone else. Ever. But since it was Dad, she wrinkled her nose. “That too.”
He laughed his big booming laugh. A staple of her childhood. Fritz’s laugh and Fritz’s love and his complete and utter inability to see his daughters as independent, autonomous people.
“Go let him in, Sadie. We’ll discuss all this later.”
It was a dismissal, and Sadie tried not to let it burn. She turned on a heel and strode out of her father’s office.
Dad might not trust her with the full financial picture of Martin Family Farm, but regardless, Sadie refused to let the farm fall apart under her watch. She stalked out to the living room where Dad said Colt would be waiting.
Colt sat—no that wasn’t an accurate word—he sprawled on a leather couch, cowboy hat pulled low. He wore battered jeans, even more battered boots, and a crisp-looking blazer over a T-shirt. He should look ridiculous. He was ridiculous.
He’d had one insane stroke of luck at a casino with the money her father had given him for his twenty-first birthday, and then turned that small fortune into a larger one by buying and selling land and houses across Texas. He took advantage of people who had to sell, and then even more advantage of people who had money to burn.
If she told herself all that, worked on her outrage and ire, she didn’t have to pay attention to all the ways Colt made her feel off-kilter and strange. Uncomfortable. Sadie hated to be uncomfortable.
So, she detested him. Plain and simple.
“Dad will see you now,” she said, trying to keep the venom out of her voice and failing miserably.
Colt took his time looking up, nudging the brim of his
hat back. Then he flashed that lethal grin and slowly stood, unfolding his long, lean body as graceful as a dancer might. He was gorgeous, and knew it. Chiseled jaw, sensuous mouth. His eyes were the color of bluebonnets and his cowboy hat covered what she knew to be hair that glinted gold.
“How’s it going, squirt?” he greeted.
Oh, she downright hated Colt Vance. “I see you haven’t changed, Colt,” she managed without sounding like the words escaped from gritted teeth.
“Now, why would I go and do a silly thing like that? Way I hear tell, I’m perfect just the way I am.”
“Hearing voices again?” She smiled sweetly up at him. Because he was six foot three to her five five. Her smile died into a frown. “Do you have to be so tall?”
“Do you have to be so short?” He gave a strand of her hair a casual tug before she slapped his hand away, irritated by the way physical contact with Colt always caused an off-putting buzzing sensation along her skin.
He moved past her and toward Dad’s office. He knew the house well enough, having spent more time than Sadie cared to remember working for Dad and Martin Family Farm before he’d jaunted off to build his business of land and house flipping here, there and everywhere. And still Dad considered him family.
It shouldn’t eat at her the way it did, considering Mom had brought the bad boys of Last Stand under Fritz’s roof all those years ago, and only a promise to a dying woman had kept Fritz invested in them.
But somewhere along the line, maybe about the time all his daughters had hit puberty, Dad had decided Colt Vance, Ethan Thompson and Bracken Jones were the sons he’d never had.
Dad boomed a welcome at Colt that echoed into the hall, and Sadie heaved out a sigh before following Colt into Dad’s office.
Colt moved around Dad’s imposing desk and they exchanged one of those man handshakes that turned into a sideways back pat they’d never admit was actually a hug.