by Poppy Parkes
“And I,” he said passionately, “will not act like I always have.”
“I know.” Ruth smiled up at him. “I already see you doing just that. Changing. Becoming the beautiful man that you always were, deep down, beneath all the hurt.”
“How do you do that?” He leaned down, whispered the words in her ear, the tickle of his breath against her downy curls, the tendriling of her ear, making her shiver. “How do you see the best of me when I've shown you so much of the worst?”
“Because you showed me how,” she murmured in reply, kissing down his neck, delighting at how she was now the one to make him tremble. Then she pulled back, looping her arms around his neck, fixing him with a playful gaze, raising a suggestive eyebrow. “I can't wait for you to show me more – more of myself, and more of you.”
Derek arched his own eyebrows. “Mmm,” he said in approval. “That sounds thrilling. I think that I am the luckiest man alive.”
“You are,” Ruth said with a wide grin, crinkling the bridge of her nose. “I am, after all, a hell of a woman.”
As she spoke the words, she felt them resonate more deeply within her than they ever had. The truth of them rumbled down through her skin and synapses and sinews, rending the shroud of insecurities and fears that had kept her locked in a contracted sort of living, and penetrating into the sticky, holy dark of her soul, into the core of the core of the core of her being.
And she knew, as she leaned into Derek's intoxicating warmth as they wandered back toward the spectacular sunbathed arch, his arm draped both gentle and strong across her shoulders, that she had found her truest home.
Want more of Ruth and Derek? Enjoy this preview from Finding Me and You, the sequel to The Light Between Us:
The coffee shop smelled of cinnamon. Hunched over a table strewn with papers, Ruth drew a deep breath, eyes closing for a moment as she savored the spiced scent. She could practically taste as it mingled on her tongue with the lingering bitter of the coffee she’d finished half an hour ago.
Fingers traveling over back of her neck, kneading and massaging, she sighed, surveying the array of papers before her. She’d been here all morning, and still the words refused to come. Even simply arranging numbers and facts seemed beyond her. For all the novels and short stories that she’d penned in her life, these few words were, to her grim surprise, presenting the greatest challenge.
New fingers, not her own, crept over her shoulders, squeezing, and she smiled.
“Hello, lover,” she said, tipping her head back to meet her fiancé’s blue eyes crinkling down at her.
Derek grinned. “That “You always know it’s me, don’t you?”
“Always,” Ruth said, twisting in her seat and turning her face up to receive the kiss he met her with.
“How goes the war?” he asked, sliding into a chair and nodding to the chaos spread over the table.
The golden feeling that had begun bubbling up within her chest at Derek’s arrival evaporated. She groaned. “Horribly.”
His lips thinned into a frown. “Seriously? But . . . this is what you do. You’re a writer.”
“Exactly,” Ruth said, raking her fingers through her brown curls. “I’m a writer. Not a wedding-invitation-creator.”
A single eyebrow arched at her over a small smile. “Wedding-invitation-creator? Is that a technical term.”
“Don’t tease.” She poked an extended finger into his forearm, stabbing gently. “This is really hard. I’ve never written wedding invitations before.”
“I should hope not,” Derek said, his words twisting into a parody of offense. “Because if there’s something you need to tell me . . .”
Now Ruth’s frustration balled into a scowl. “I said don’t tease.” She slid one of the too-many drafts of invitation wording attempts past her empty coffee mug toward Derek.
“’You are cordially invited to join Ruth Hunter and Derek Stone as they exchange wedding vows,’” he read. Now it was his turn to scowl. “What’s wrong with this? I think it’s fine.”
“Well, for one thing, it sounds totally stilted.”
Derek couldn’t quite bite back the small smile that curled over his lips. “It’s a wedding invitation, it’s supposed to be stilted. It’s practically required.”
“Fine.” She made a face. “But it also says nothing about our parents.”
“What do our parents have to do with it?”
Ruth shrugged. “It’s what people do, how they usually word their wedding invites, with it saying that the parents are hosting, or giving the bride away or whatever.”
“Yes, but —” Derek began, but she rushed on.
“And I know we already talked about this, and decided that we’re going to give ourselves away to each other, but I know that my parents are really not going to like this.”
“It’s okay if they don’t like it. They got to do things their way at their wedding. This is our turn.”
“But —”
He shook his head, folding his hands over hers. “Nope. No but’s. We really do get to do this wedding our way — because it’s ours.”
Ruth gazed at her fiancé steadily for a long moment, then shook her head. “Fine. I mean, good. I know you’re right. It’s just my parents —”
“We’ll figure them out when we need to,” Derek reassured her, squeezing her hands. “Until then, try not to worry about it?”
She nodded with a sigh. Slipping her hands out from beneath Derek’s, she swept the papers into her messenger bag, then gave herself a tiny little shake, like a horse shuddering off a fly. “Okay, stilted and potentially parent-inciting invitations it is. Tell me something about you? Preferably something not annoying.”
“I’m not wearing any underwear.”
Ruth snorted, caught by surprise. “I don’t believe you,” she said, taking in his tailored gray suit and cobalt shirt with its open top button.
He spread his hands wide, as if showing off his innocence. “Would I lie about something so gravely important as undergarments?”
“Maybe,” said Ruth, a sly grin spreading across her face, “if you wanted me to get in your pants.”
Derek shrugged. “From where I’m sitting, there’s only one way to prove the veracity of my claim.”
“You’re such a lawyer,” and the way her lips formed the words, they were anything but a criticism.
“That I am,” said Derek, returning a grin of his own, making her heart stutter. “So, since I’m on my official lawyer lunch break, how do you propose going about solving our little problem?”
A laugh erupted from Ruth as she hooked her arm through his. “Do you have time for a little, um, lunchtime investigation at home?”
“My dear,” Derek said, pulling out his attempt at a Clark Gable expression which ended up sounding more like John Wayne, “if I only have time for one thing more today, that would be it.”
Standing, Ruth slung her bag across her shoulders, wedding invitation frustration forgotten. “Well, what are you waiting for, Mr. Stone?” she said, hands lighting on her waist, hip stuck out at a sassy angle. “Come and sweep me off my feet.”
* * *
Ruth brushed her nose against the tender skin of Derek’s neck just below his ear as she rested her bare chest against his, the rumpled bedsheets twining around them. “Well,” she said with a wicked grin, “that was nice. I’ll consider myself swept.”
“Excellent.” He returned the smile, fingers trailing over the small of her back. “And I’d like to point out that I was telling the truth.”
A frown tugged at her lips. “The truth? About what?”
“My underwear. Or really, my lack of it.”
“I honestly hadn’t noticed. I was kind of preoccupied, you know?”
“Oh really,” Derek said, arching an eyebrow. “With what?”
“Loving you, of course.” Reaching up, Ruth kissed his smile gently.
“And here I was hoping for an ego-stroking assessment of certain physiological p
roportions.”
She snorted. “Well, there certainly was stroking, wouldn’t you say?”
Now it was Derek’s turn to laugh. “You are on a roll with the sassy comments. Invitations forgotten then?”
Ruth groaned, rolling off him onto her back. “Until now.” She raked her fingers through her dark curls. “I hate wedding planning.”
“I hadn’t noticed,” Derek said blandly, earning himself a swat on the arm.
“Fine, you do the invitations then.”
He slipped out of bed and began to reassemble his clothing. “Okay,” he said with a shrug, tugging his pants on. “As long as you’re okay with how I do it.”
Ruth eyed her soon-to-be husband. “And how would you do it?”
“I don’t know, I’ll figure it out as I go along. Like the invitations, I’d just leave them as is. So if you’re not tied to any particular things being a part of our wedding, then leave it to me.”
She sat up, hugging her knees to her chest. “The offer is tempting . . .”
“But?” he prompted, voice teasing.
Rolling her eyes at herself, Ruth groaned again. “But of course I’m too opinionated about certain things and I have to do them myself.”
Derek nodded, as if confirming his suspicions.
“We’ve had this conversation before, haven’t we?” Ruth wrinkled her nose.
“In various iterations, yes.”
She buried her face in her hands. “We’ve been engaged for barely six months, and I’ve only just started on planning our wedding and I’m already turning into a bridezilla.”
Shrugging his suit jacket on, Derek traveled to her side of the bed and kissed the top of her head. “And I love you, bridezilla of mine.”
“Shut up,” she said, swatting at him again, missing.
“Look,” said Derek, sitting on the edge of the mattress, pulling her to him, “this is why we waited to start planning the wedding. Remember? We wanted a longer engagement, to enjoy each other. And you are not a bridezilla.”
“Really?”
“Really. At least, not yet,” he said, eyes lighting with mischief.
“You’re horrible,” said Ruth, flopping backward onto the bed.
“But you love me.” He leaned close to kiss her once more, this time on the forehead.
“I do,” she sighed, letting her jaw unclench and her lips bend into a smile.
Striding to the bedroom door of their shared apartment, he turned and tossed her a wink before disappearing from view, his voice wafting behind him. “Goodbye, lover.”
“Bye,” she said to the ceiling, listening to Derek grabbing his keys and wallet from the kitchen. The front door closed and the lock turned, and he was gone.
She sighed again, rolling to her side and gazing at the hard afternoon light glaring in through her window. No, she corrected herself, our window. They’d moved in together not long after their engagement, choosing a new apartment in Cambridge not far from Harvard Square instead of choosing one of their old places to live in. A fresh start, Derek had said, and she’d liked the sound of that.
It had been interesting trying to merge their two styles — her casual boho chic with his tendency toward a more austere man cave — into a single living space, especially trying to squeeze it in between Derek’s demanding law firm and her own hectic elementary school schedule, not to mention the delights of new love and their rather unique engagement.
But they’d managed, and somehow it worked. Like the bedroom, lacy curtains offset by steely fixtures. Unexpected, unconventional — just like their relationship.
Ruth breathed deep, a small smile playing over her lips as she pulled the blankets up to her chin, snuggly back into the bed. It felt so odd, to be here, home, naked — her smile widened — in the middle of a weekday. She and Derek had gotten engaged in the autumn, and here it was, fall again, a full year later, and so much had changed. She was living with her fiance, in a new home, planning their wedding, and unemployed. The previous school year had been her last teaching first (???) grade. With Derek’s more than adequate paycheck, she’d left the world of die-cut letters and parent-teacher conferences and trailing shoelaces to pursue her dream of being a writer.
And she was doing it. Spending her days writing. Over the summer she’d finished the romance novel she’d been working on, and now she was a few chapters into a new story. When she wasn’t planning the wedding, anyway.
She shivered, still thrilling in wonder of the gorgeous life she found herself living.
A dissonant buzzing sound fractured the bedroom’s quiet. Ruth glared at her cell phone vibrating to life on the nightstand then, with a groan, rolled over and grabbed it, glancing at the screen. She brightened when she saw that it was Padme and not her father calling with more wedding planning advice.
“Hey,” she said, answering.
“Hey? That’s all you’ve got for one of your very dearest friends? Your phone etiquette is seriously lacking, Miss Hunter.”
Ruth shrugged. “What can I say, I’m a rebel.”
“Or a slacker. I blame your life of leisure.”
“Life of leisure?” Ruth repeated, wrinkling her nose. “You make it sound like I sit on the couch all day watching soap operas and eating bon bons.”
“Wait, that’s not what you do?” Padme teased.
“So you just called to heckle me, then?”
“No, I called to offer moral support during your time of travail.”
“You mean planning the wedding.” Ruth felt her shoulders begin to knot up again.
“Exactly, m’dear. How’s it going?”
“The invitations are kicking my ass.”
Padme paused. “In what way?”
“You know my parents, they’re so . . . proper.” Ruth said the word as if it tasted sour. “They’re going to want to give me away and everything, and my dad has already called me about a billion times telling me all the ways they’re going to help. But you know that just means they want to take over and do everything their way.”
“And this has what to do with the invitations exactly?”
“Traditionally the invitations say that the parents are giving away the couple or whatever.”
Padme snorted. “Because so far your relationship with Derek has been so traditional.”
“I know. I don’t care about all that, but my parents so do. And I haven’t even met his parents yet, so who knows what new kind of crazy they’re going to bring to the table.”
“And he hasn’t met yours, either,” her friend pointed out.
Ruth flopped back onto the bed with a groan. “I know. Because of the crazy.”
“You can’t avoid the parental meeting forever. It’s a time-honored awkward tradition. And you don’t want it to happen at your wedding, do you?”
“I was kind of hoping to delay it as long as possible.”
“Well, maybe you should do it sooner than that. Get their crazy out of the way so that on the big day, all you have to deal with is your crazy.”
“Thanks,” Ruth said, voice dry.
She could practically hear Padme roll her eyes. “You know what I mean. If just the invitations are stressing you out this much, you need to deal with your parents, and his, as soon as possible. And then plan the wedding that you want, untraditional invitation wording and all.”
Ruth knew her friend was right, but her stomach began tying and retying itself into intricate knots just as the thought of she and Derek meeting each other’s parents. How much worse would the actual event be?
“You never know,” Padme said, “Derek’s family might be really cool. And maybe Derek will be able to stand between you and your parents’ intensity, kind of filter it out a little.”
“Maybe,” said Ruth, a little more optimistically. She’d never thought of it that way.
A ringing came over the phone, and Ruth recognized it as the school bell. Padme still worked at the same school Ruth had so recently left, teaching third grade.
“If by ‘bon bons’ you mean ‘penning a novel’ and ‘planning a wedding,’ then you would be right.” Ruth glanced at her clothes, still crumpled in a heap on the floor where she’d shed them. “I don’t know what it is about coffee shops, but I work so much better there. I’d better get back, too.”
“Get back? Wait, where are you?”
Ruth couldn’t suppress her grin. “In bed.”
“In bed? You minx. I can’t even.” Padme sounded severe but Ruth knew her friend approved.
“Bye, teacher lady.”
“Farewell,” said her friend airily. “Oh, and don’t let your sex-addled brain forget Maddie’s performance tomorrow night.” Then the line went dead. Ruth stared at the phone for a moment, wondering if she should snark-text in protest of Padme calling her sex-addled, then shrugged it off, since it could very possibly be true. Addled by sexy love and wedding stress, anyway, she thought.
Throwing the covers back and standing with a stretch, Ruth retrieved her clothing and began to slip into it, mind working on what Padme had suggested. Should she just bite the bullet and do the whole meet the parents thing? She had to admit, it probably was a good idea to get it over with before the wedding. But she couldn’t imagine it’d be much fun. She’d talk it over with Derek that evening, see what he thought.
Clothing now fully reassembled, she slipped her shoes on and strode for the kitchen, relishing the purposeful sound of her heels meeting the tile floor. She’d had enough of the blasted invitations for one day.
Making sure that her laptop was in her bag, she swung it over her shoulder, slipping her phone inside, and grabbed her keys and headed out the door, locking it behind her. She set the invitations firmly out of her mind and trained her focus on her novel-in-progress. As she began her walk along the Cambridge sidewalks to a new cafe, the characters bloomed into vivid color and dimensionality in her mind’s eye and, gratefully, she lost herself in their lives.