Chapter Twenty-Three

All day Wednesday I felt like singing “Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead.” Well, she wasn’t exactly dead, but Dad said last night while we talked on the porch that he was filing for a legal separation, which was just as good, in my mind. Was it awful that I would love to be there when he told Josephine, to capture the look on her collagenized face? It was going to be even better after Dad told her that he and the girls went to the sheriff’s office to file a report. Per the girls, Dad was on the warpath.

It was about time.

The only damper to it all was, I knew this would hurt Sawyer. He thought our parents were happy and that his brother was a good guy. I guess, in turn, it hurt me too, because I knew my chances with him now were zilch, nada, nothing. Even if I did have the heavenliest of angels watching over me. I’m telling you, my last name meant business. Maybe I should take Dad up on his offer to become a Carrington, but after what he said last night about Anders, I didn’t know if I could. It was all I had of Anders, even if it really had been a crap parting gift on his part. It was the gift that kept on giving. But Anders was a good man, even if he had left me Loveless.

With Josephine on her way out, I decided I better get on my Lady of Carrington Ranch duties and get the anniversary gift baskets out for July. I couldn’t have Mom blaming herself for anyone’s breakup. I pulled out her chocolate truffle recipe. Her thumbprint smudge could still be seen on it. It was weird how much I treasured seeing it each time I pulled it out.

While I was finely chopping the chocolate and singing loudly to the Backstreet Boys, my doorbell rang. I popped a piece of chocolate in my mouth and headed for the door. I peeked through the blinds on the door to see who was interrupting my groove. Oh crap. I swallowed the chocolate the wrong way and started to splutter. What was he doing here? He was probably getting his stuff, so why did he ring the doorbell?

Sawyer pounded on the door. “I know you’re in there, Em. I can hear you. By the way, put your arms up.”

Dang him. I put my arms up and stopped coughing enough to say, “Take your stuff and leave my key.”

“Emma, please let me in.”

“Go away, Sawyer.”

“You forgot something in there that belongs with me,” he yelled.

Of course I did. “Well, it must not be that important if you’ve lived without it for several days. If I find it, I’ll mail it to you,” I shouted back.

“Em,” his voice turned low, “she’s the most important thing to me and I don’t want to live without her anymore.”

I leaned my forehead against the door and breathed in and out several times.

“It’s you, by the way, if you didn’t catch on to that,” he said when I didn’t respond.

“How can you say that? You can’t even stand the thought of kissing me.”

“Are you crazy? All I’ve wanted to do for the last year is kiss you.”

“Friday morning in my bed, when you touched my stomach, it grossed you out so much you didn’t kiss me.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. That morning in your bed, all I thought was how warm and soft you were and how I wanted to touch every part of you. I knew if I kissed you, I wouldn’t want to stop, and I didn’t want you to think that’s the only reason I wanted you because it’s not even close to the truth.”

Whoa. Whoa. I felt like I was going to internally combust. Was he saying what I thought he was saying? “You want to have sex with me?”

“When the time is right, I want to make love to you, Em, all day, every day.”

“We would take snack breaks and naps, right? I mean, that could get exhausting and you know how much I love food. And we both have jobs.”

“Em,” he chuckled, “will you please open the door?”

I rubbed the door taking in deep breaths and letting them out. “Sawyer, you didn’t believe me,” I choked out.

He paused. “I’m sorry. I’ve been waiting so long to tell you how I feel about you, but between you grieving your mother and our parents doing their thing, it seemed like I was never going to get my chance. I kept waiting for you to come to terms with our family situation because I was afraid you wouldn’t give us a shot until you did. So, when everything blew up last weekend, I thought I would never get my chance. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to believe those things about my family. But I’ve always believed in you, Em.”

I clasped my hands together and prayed this was all true. “How do you feel about me?”

“Open the door and find out.”

The internal struggle was real. More than anything, I wanted to whip that door open, but I had been here before—just when I thought things would work out, the curse of my last name struck. I was afraid if I opened the door I’d have an aneurysm, or maybe a plane would fall out of the sky and land on my house. Or worse, Sawyer would hold out his hand and be like, psych, we’re only friends. But he did say someday he wanted to make love to me.

“Open the door!” That was my mother, not Sawyer.

I looked up and smiled. You’re so pushy.

I took a deep breath and unlocked the door. Before I could open it all the way, Sawyer pushed his way in and picked me up. His lips crushed mine before I knew what was happening. I caught on real quick as I savored the feel of his warm lips. I wrapped my arms around his neck and my legs around his body, drawing myself as close to him as I could. His tongue parted my lips while he backed me up against my wall, knocking a picture down. Amid the crashing glass he groaned hungrily as his tongue delved deeper and his hands ran through my hair. He tasted every bit as good as I thought he would—sweet and savory, my favorite combination.

“Em,” he breathed out my name, exciting me. He began trailing kisses down my neck. His warm, sensuous lips made me gasp. He kissed the hollow of my neck before making his way back up where he kissed the corner of my mouth. He paused to peer into my eyes while brushing away some of the happy tears gliding down my cheek. “You’re so beautiful. I love you.”

I could hardly believe my ears. “Well, that escalated quickly.”

He chuckled before kissing my nose. “I was hoping for a different response.”

“Oh. Did I forget to mention that I love you? So much.” I could hardly say it without choking up.

“I’m glad to hear you say that, because you’ve never told me how to walk on water.”

“I thought you forgot.”

He rested his warm hand on my cheek and I leaned into it. “Never. I was only waiting for the right moment to ask you out again.”

“Is this the right moment?”

His thumb glided across my cheek. “Will you please go on a date with me?”

I couldn’t keep from smiling. “When?”

“Now.” He brushed back my hair.

I nodded. “What do you have in mind?”

“Food will definitely be involved.”

“You speak my love language.” I kissed him, realizing I could and how amazing that was. “So food. What else?”

“Definitely more of this.” He leaned in and pressed his lips against mine. His tongue danced across my lips, making me shiver. “I’m sorry I didn’t ask you if you wanted to touch my papillae before I shoved my tongue in your mouth.”

I laughed at him. “I told you, that would have been a mood killer.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Would it have really?”

I touched his cheeks and ran my hands through his hair, all because I could. “Coming from you, no.”

He was staring at me as if he was amazed by all this too. “Let’s go to dinner. I want to look across the table at you and know you’re finally mine and that we’ll share more than our food.”

“I think that is the most attractive thing anyone has ever said to me. You know, besides the whole I love you thing.” I grinned.

He gently set me down. “Are you ready to go?”

“Just a second. I need to grab something and call in a favor.”

“I’ll be waiting.” He flashed me his beautiful smile.

I dashed upstairs, excited about everything. I had been anxiously waiting to show him how to walk on water. I wanted it to be a surprise, so I grabbed a bandanna to act as a blindfold for when the time came tonight. While I was shoving it in my bag, I swore I heard my mom say, I told you so. I was happy to let her take full credit.

After my quick phone call to an old family friend to make sure the place I needed tonight would be available, I rushed back down to be with my man. That’s right, he was all mine. Walking out my door together felt entirely different than it ever had, though we had done it dozens of times before. It probably had something to do with the way he held my hand and ran his thumb across it, or maybe when he kissed me deeply before opening the door to his crappy old truck. Or maybe it was the way I sat in the middle like we were from Shelby’s neck of the woods and we couldn’t keep our hands off each other.

Or perhaps it was the way he stared at me contentedly from across the table at dinner where we shared smothered burritos and pollo loco, as if this was the way it was always meant to be.

Sawyer grinned at me. “You know, Shelby is a huge fan of yours.”

“Is that so?”

“Not so much of me anymore. She threatened to have me fired unless I came to my senses and took the best girl ever off the market, as she put it. She said if firing my butt didn’t work, she would bring out the big guns. Whatever that means.”

I laughed. “You know, I think the Southern Belle isn’t all that bad.”

Sawyer chuckled before reaching across the table and taking my hands. “You have another fan too. I talked to my dad last night.”

Funny. I talked to my dad last night too, but I didn’t mention it since it involved leaving his mother. That was a weird bridge we would have to cross when the time came. That one and the one where my dad was trying to get his brother’s butt thrown in jail. Oh, yeah, and the disgusting one of his brother sleeping with both of my sisters. For now, though, I was going to stay off all those bridges and savor this first date with my Sawyer.

“How did that go?” I gave his hand a squeeze for support.

He stretched his neck from side to side. “I’m not going to lie, it was tough.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry. My dad said I was a fool for taking so long to let you know how I feel about you. He was right. He said some other things, too, that I didn’t want to hear.”

“About your mom?” I bit my lip.

Sawyer nodded.

“You don’t have to tell me.”

“I want to tell you everything.”

“Then I’m here to listen.”

He lifted my hand to his lips. “I love you. I can’t say that enough.”

“I’m not going to stop you.” I couldn’t quit smiling.

He held my hand tight as if he needed the strength. “After talking to my dad, I’ve been thinking a lot about how anger can skew your memories of the past. How it creates tunnel vision. Now I’m angry at both my parents and myself for not believing what was before my eyes when I was growing up.”

“I don’t think you should be too hard on yourself. Every kid wants to believe their family is happy and it’s difficult when you know it’s not. I know I can’t completely relate to you, but I do understand how that feels. I find it helps to have someone to help you work through it. Someone who loves you and wants more than anything for you to be happy.”

“Em, I’m never happier than when I’m with you.”

“The feeling is mutual. You’ve helped me more than you know this past year, even if I was in love with you and thinking the entire time that you only wanted to be my friend, but I totally forgive you for that.” I grinned.

He leaned over the table and kissed me. The back of his hand ran down my cheek. “Had I known that’s how you felt I wouldn’t have wasted a second.” He sat back down. “You know what? Let’s not waste any more time talking about our parents right now because I’m not going to let their decisions affect mine anymore. I don’t care who they marry or don’t marry; they aren’t going to keep me from you.”

“Well, then I think we should get out of here.” I pulled the bandanna out of my bag. “You’re going to need to wear this.”

His mouth dropped. It took him a second to compose himself. “I always knew dating you was going to be a lot of fun.”

I tossed him the blindfold. “We’re not going to have that kind of fun . . . yet.”

“Em, I meant what I said earlier. You and me, this is a forever kind of thing for me, and I want to do it right.”

Every butterfly in the world took off in my stomach. The one he didn’t find repulsive at all. It felt like a dream, but I knew I was awake because as good as my dreams of him had been over the last year, this was better than I could have ever imagined. “I better keep my promise to you then.”

I drove us in his truck all the way out to Carrington Cove. I would have loved to do this in Shannon’s Meadow, but we would have had to wait until winter for that to happen and I was done waiting. My life with Sawyer began now.

I helped my blindfolded man out of his truck.

“Where are we?” he asked.

“You’ll see. Hold on tight to me.”

“Your wish is my command.” He pulled me closer.

We entered the establishment of one of my favorite places growing up. The owner, Marvin, was there waiting for us at the door to unlock it since they had been closed for a few hours.

“Emma.” Marvin grinned at me with his old, stained teeth. “Who do you have with you?”

“This is . . . my boyfriend, Sawyer.” Holy crap, I loved saying that.

Sawyer held out his hand even though he had no idea that Marvin was nowhere near him. “Nice to meet you.”

Marvin shook his head at us and laughed. “I’m not even going to ask what you’re going to do, but the place is all yours. I’ll be in my office not listening to or watching a thing; just let me know when you leave.”

I had a feeling there were going to be some kinky rumors about us going around Carrington Cove very soon, the least of those being that we were stepsiblings. Though hopefully not for long.

“Thanks, Marvin,” I called out to his retreating figure.

“It’s kind of cold. Where have you taken me?”

“Don’t worry, I plan to warm you up very soon.”

Sawyer groaned. “If I haven’t mentioned it before, I really love you.”

“Good, because I really love you. Now take my hand and be prepared to learn my ways.”

“Now that you’ve officially introduced me as your boyfriend, will you change your Facebook relationship status?”

“There’s totally room on there for you with all my other loves. I’ll even put you above Poppin’ Fresh.”

“What about Betty?”

“We’ll see how good you are tonight and then I’ll decide.”

“Consider it a done deal then.”

Dang, he was sexy. I shivered, and not because it was chilly.

“It’s getting colder.” Sawyer pulled me closer.

“Be careful.” I led him around the benches to one of the entrances. “Are you ready for this?”

“Yes, but I’m still not sure how anyone can walk on water.”

“You have good balance, so it will be easy, I promise.”

“Okay,” he sounded skeptical.

“Are you ready?” I reached up to take off his blindfold. When it dropped, he looked around at the small ice-skating rink and started to laugh.

I pulled him onto the ice with me. “Look at you walking on frozen water.”

He wrapped me up in his arms. “Very clever, Em.”

I snuggled into his chest and breathed in his clean scent. “I’ve been waiting for this moment.”

He stroked my hair and kissed the top of my head. “Me too, Em. Me too.”