Chapter Twenty
“How do you want your bills?” I asked Mrs. O’Hara. An adorable elderly lady who wore wigs in a different shade of red every time I saw her. “Are twenties okay, or do you want them smaller?”
“Twenties are fine, sweetheart,” she said, patting my hand. “I’m not going to a strip club or anything.”
I laughed, realizing how good it felt to do that. I hadn’t done much of it in a while.
“Well, you never know.”
Mrs. O’Hara chuckled. “Your aunt was so proud of you,” she said. “Every time we played Bunko, she bragged about how good her Lanie was doing.”
“Aunt Ruby played Bunko?” I asked. “Blind?”
“We had to tell her the rolls, but she managed,” Mrs. O’Hara said, shrugging.
“And it stayed honest?”
She shrugged. “Mostly.”
I chuckled and shook my head. I was coming back. Coming back to me again. Slowly but surely, one baby step at a time my broken heart was healing. Like normal. I wasn’t my mother.
I’d fallen with all my heart, and it was amazing, and then it was gone, and I was broken for a bit. But not beaten. Like all the other normal people in the world who didn’t avoid love, I got hurt, and probably did the hurting as well. I know I hurt Nick, and thinking that he felt like I did killed me. But neither of us would curl up in a ball and quit. Heartbreak was part of life; it meant you’d been blessed enough to feel something.
I was good with that.
I was good with a lot of things. Like never getting on that plane to California, for one. I got up to get in line and walked the other way instead. Right out of the airport. Back to Charmed, to my house, to my dog, to my friend, to my lame-ass bank job, with people so non-lame that they still took me out to lunch after I told them I wasn’t going (back) to California. That I’d decided to stay.
Stay in the town that hadn’t always been kind to me but then again I hadn’t always stroked it nicely, either. It was time to change that.
Aunt Ruby was less ornery too. I’d only had one thing come up missing in the past week, and that was my favorite sunglasses. They’d been hers, too, so I liked to think maybe she was wearing them up there, sporting a little fashion, Barrett style.
I was okay.
And then I heard it.
That distinctive, incredibly familiar voice, low and commanding at the same time. It wasn’t possible, and yet all my spidey-senses turned on full blast. Mrs. O’Hara left, and another lady took her place. The bank lobby was pretty full for a Wednesday afternoon, and all the bodies I could see were not what went with the voice. I craned my neck to see who my cohorts might be talking to, but I couldn’t see.
Then there it was again. A chuckle and a full sentence about a deposit. My stomach felt like jet fighters were zooming around in there. I had to be imagining it.
“Ma’am?” said the lady in front of me.
I jerked back to reality, staring at the young woman in front of me.
“I’m sorry,” I said, shaking my head free of the insanity.
I was crazy after all. I’d just comforted myself with the thought that I wasn’t. I was a loon. Certifiable, I believe he once called me. Yep. That was the case, because now I was hearing his—
The two people in the next line cleared away, and all coherent thought went out the door.
Nick.
Two lines down.
He was here. In my town. In my bank. In my line of vision. Talking to Tracey, the new teller that was transferred over. He—he was here. And he couldn’t even come to my kiosk? Then he looked my way, and our eyes locked, and I was pretty sure I was having a stroke.
“Ma’am?” the young woman repeated, louder.
“One moment,” I mumbled.
I got to my feet without stumbling, miraculously, so okay maybe no stroke, but what I was doing definitely qualified as not in my right mind. I pulled my badge from the keyboard reader, left the back of my area, and walked straight to Tracey’s, not giving him a single look.
“Trade with me,” I said.
She looked up from typing. “What?”
“Trade places with me,” I repeated. “Go take care of my customer. I’ll finish here.”
She looked at me like I was nuts. I was. Certifiable.
“I—We can’t,” she said. “You know that. I’m logged in. I can’t—”
I pulled out her card and handed it to her. “You aren’t anymore.”
“Hey!” she said. “I was in the middle of the transaction.”
“So he’ll have to start over,” I said, seeing too many shades of red for any of this to make sense. “Oh well. Please go take care of my customer, she’s waiting.”
“Lanie,” Nick said.
I gripped the cold marble that made up our workstations, willing the icy cold to chill what his saying my name just did to me.
“It’s her husband,” Lynn whispered from the next kiosk. “It’s okay.”
“Even less so,” Tracey argued. “We aren’t supposed to handle family—”
“Tracey,” I said, feeling the edge coming on. As in the edge of the cliff that I was about to tumble over. “Please.”
Something in my voice finally made an impression, thank God, because Tracey finally huffed over to my area.
And then I had to look at him.
Balls.
Shock, gut kick, and exhaustion emanated off him.
“Why are you here?” I managed, blinking away from the dark eyes that I was trying to forget.
“Why are you?”
I met his gaze again. “I work here.”
“You’re supposed to be in California?” he said. “I’m pretty sure that was the plan—”
“The plan?” I said, laughing bitterly. “How would you know anything about any plan? You didn’t stick around long enough to know of one.”
He inhaled like he was counting. “Okay. I’m the devil here, I get it. I was trying to get out of your way, Lanie.”
“My—” My air left me in a big rush. I shook my head. “My way? Don’t fool yourself. I’d just told you I couldn’t imagine life without you, and then I get blindsided with my aunt’s shit and you just couldn’t give me a minute. You had to make the decision for me, and leave me before I might leave you.”
The physical reaction in his face couldn’t have been more real if I’d slapped him myself. He gave me a long look and then picked up his wallet, moved out of the way of another customer, and walked out.
Again.
“Shit,” I breathed, feeling the burn take over my chest, my eyes, my everything.
“I’ll take you over here, ma’am,” Lynn said to the customer, nodding for me to go.
Go where? After him? No.
I refused.
To the bathroom? No, it would just get worse.
Home to wallow?
Hell no.
I got up and went to the breakroom fridge before pulling out a water bottle and downing most of it at once. I laid the cold bottle against the back of my neck and let it cool my blood. I had three hours left of my shift, and I wasn’t going to bail on it because of a man. Not even that man. I was okay ten minutes ago, and I’d be okay again.
I blew out a slow breath.
I’d be okay again.
* * *
It was the longest three hours ever, in the history of time.
I went through the motions, dealing with customers, concentrating really hard on monetary transactions, but all that kept playing on long loop was that Nick was back.
Or—maybe. The look on his face when he left didn’t give much reason to think he’d stay. He might have bolted again. I didn’t know and I shouldn’t care. But I was also human and female and still married and heart-clenchingly in love with the guy, so I figured I could cut myself a little slack on the independent female I am woman mantra.
I felt like I’d done one of those events where you run a marathon and then ride a bike and then swim an ocean or something. I was drained. I just wanted to get home, curl up on the couch with Ralph, and watch something brainless that didn’t require thought. With ice cream.
The little tingle on the back of my neck when I rounded the corner wasn’t fast enough. I’d already seen it. Nick’s truck in my driveway.
My heart slammed against my ribs and just fell down. Spent. I didn’t have the energy to even get excited that he was there. Not if he was just going to give me some spiel about things working out as they should have or that he was moving back to town and we could coexist peacefully. Or if he came to serve me papers.
My stomach lurched. All things that I’d thought of all afternoon. All possibilities. Now he was here and—on my porch, I noticed when I got out. On my porch, with my dog. Sitting back in a rocker like it was the most normal thing in the world.
Ralph bounded down the steps to me, jumping up for his afternoon love-fest.
“I see how you are,” I said under my breath as I scratched his chest. “Traitor.”
When I could get my breathing stable, I stood back up.
“It’s been a day, Nick,” I said. “I don’t have the energy to fight with you. So whatever you came here to tell me, can you just do it and go?”
“What happened with California?” he asked.
I closed my eyes and blew out a breath. “I didn’t go.”
“Why? It’s what you wanted.”
“Well, I changed my mind,” I said. “It didn’t feel right. I just—” I shook my head, wanting him to understand without me explaining it.
Kind of like wanting him to know I loved him without me saying it. Jesus.
“You were right,” he said.
I crossed my arms protectively. “About what?”
“About leaving before you could,” he said.
I nodded. “Okay. I knew that.”
“I didn’t.” He got up and held onto the railing. “I never saw it that way. But that’s exactly what I did. What we both did.”
I frowned. “I didn’t go anywhere.”
“Yeah, you did,” he said, walking down the steps. “You and I both are terrified of being victims. Mine’s trust. Yours is love. You will walk this whole earth alone if it keeps you from doing what your mother did, and I refuse to let another person walk out on me like my brother did. Like Tara did. I’m always looking twenty steps ahead, and you just avoid completely.”
I blinked and held my arms crossed tighter, lifting my chin.
“Well, there you go,” I said. “Baggage met baggage. We sunk. Game, set, match.” My voice caught on the end, and I swallowed hard to stem it.
“I was wrong, Lanie,” he said, his voice low, his eyes piercing me.
Oh fuck.
“What?”
“You heard me,” he said, stepping closer. “This thing we stepped into—”
“A pile of crap?” I said.
Amusement pulled at his lips. “A pile of crap that we flipped. We did this. We made this crazy thing work. We made it real.”
“And I got scared,” I breathed, wanting to cross the feet between us so badly it hurt.
“I know.”
“I wanted to say things,” I said, hearing the wobble in my voice, feeling the burn that would bring the tears I hated. “They were there, in my head, and I couldn’t say them out loud.”
“And so I walked away,” he said, taking a step closer. “Before you could.”
“I wasn’t going to,” I said, two hot tears streaming down my cheeks. “I couldn’t imagine—I was going to ask you to come with me, because I couldn’t not have you in my life.” The sobs turned on the words like a faucet and I couldn’t stop. “But then you were just—gone, and you wouldn’t take my calls or my texts and—” I pressed my hands to my heart. “I went to your house and it was vacant.”
“You went to my house?”
“I was beside myself, Nick,” I said, laughing through the sobs. “I was so afraid to become my mother, that I ruined us and was still becoming her. I was miserable without you. I mean, I’m pulling things together now—” I held up my hands. “Not that I really look like it at the moment.”
“You look beautiful,” he said.
“That’s such a load of shit.”
“No shit,” he said, one step closer again, so close I could feel him. Smell him. Touch him if I wanted to.
God, I wanted to.
“You gave up on us,” I whispered through my tears. “You gave your bike away. I knew then that you weren’t coming back for me. And I still couldn’t file the fucking papers.” Heavy sobs shook my body. “How could I sign a paper saying I wanted a divorce from the man I love? The person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with?”
Through my tears, I saw his. I’d never seen him cry. Never seen him even well up.
“What did you say?”
“I said I don’t want a divorce.”
“I don’t, either,” he said, his voice rough. “But you know that’s not what I’m talking about.”
My fingers found the bottom of his shirt and his hands moved up my arms.
“The man I love,” I whispered through a hiccup.
I felt the rush of air from his exhale as his hands went into my hair.
“Lanie.”
He tilted my head.
“I love you, Nick.”
When his mouth covered mine, there was nothing better. Nothing sweeter, not a better fit in the world than this one man’s body against mine. His kiss mingled with mine. The way our arms fit around each other, the easy way my legs wrapped around him when he lifted me. It was perfect. Diving into his mouth, my fingers tangled in his hair as he palmed my ass—it was perfect.
I have no idea how we made it up the porch steps and all the way up the stairs like that without bodily injury, but when he laid me on my bed and looked into my eyes with no walls, no barriers—I knew I was home for real.
“Thank you for coming home, Nick,” I said, his face in my hands. “I love you so much.”
He kissed my lips, my eyes, and worked his way down to the sensitive spot below my ear.
“You are my home, Lanie McKane.”
* * *
I’d never felt so thoroughly sexed in my life. Every inch and muscle in my entire body whined with exhaustion and yet felt so incredibly loved. I stretched like a cat, spooning in his arms, loving the feel of his limbs entangled with mine.
I craned around to see him blinking awake and smiling at me.
“We fell asleep,” I said.
“We earned it,” he said, sliding his hand up from my belly to palm a breast, and he sighed happily against my shoulder. “I love these so much.”
I giggled.
“I’m glad I can provide.”
“We should probably eat something. What time is it?” he asked, leaning forward to see, stopping as he did.
“What?” I asked, looking at him and then following his gaze.
His wedding ring still sat on my nightstand. Not the letter. I’d put that away, unable to keep reading it, but his ring—that meant something to me. Even though it stood for an arranged marriage and not for love, it had turned out that way and I kept it sitting there by the clock.
I guess I hadn’t totally moved on, after all.
“Yeah,” I said.
Nick looked down at me with a look so full of everything I couldn’t have responded if I tried. Thank God I wasn’t expected to.
He pushed up and off the bed, and I instantly missed him.
“Where are you going?”
“To take care of something that I should have already done,” he said, retrieving his jeans and digging in the pockets. Satisfied with whatever he was looking for, he walked back to the edge of the bed. “Sit up please.”
“Sit up? What are we—”
He lowered to one knee. Completely naked. Dear God in Heaven.
“What—” There was no sound to the word. More like a slow exhalation around the thought of it.
“Lanie Barrett McKane,” he began.
Oh. My. God.
I pulled my pillow into my arms and pressed fingers to my mouth so I couldn’t squeal or say something completely wrong or inadequate like I was prone to do. Don’t mess this up, Lanie.
“I was going to plan this out for some big night, but—you and I don’t work that way. Our best moments have been unexpected.”
Understatement of the century.
“I never expected you,” he said, emotion catching his voice. “But God tossed you right in the middle of a jacked-up day and said ‘This is a gift, boy. It’s up to you to realize that.’”
Tears filled my eyes for the ninety-ninth time that day.
“I love you,” he said. “I love the way you mess things up without even trying.”
A laugh bubbled up through my fingers.
“I love how your favorite time of day is getting up and stumbling to the coffeepot when you could just sleep longer,” he said. “I love how you hide behind a pillow and peek out and cry during sad movies, and how your laugh can turn my day around.”
He pulled my hand from my lips and held it.
“Most of all, I love the way you look at me, the way you touch me, the way you can walk in a room and take my breath away and not even know it,” he said, his voice so full of fire it made my breath catch in my chest. “The way you fight to the death to protect what’s yours.” One corner of his lips tugged upward. “Using any means necessary.”
“A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do,” I said.
“I never expected you,” he repeated. “I never saw you coming. But I’m damn glad you did.” He opened his other hand, and sparkles caught the light, making me suck in a breath. Holy mother of bling. He bought me a ring. He bought me a ring! “I put a fake ring on your finger the first time,” he said. “But that isn’t us anymore. We deserve the real deal.”
Nick slipped it onto my finger, and my throat felt like it would close up.
“Oops,” he said, starting to slide it back off. “I forgot to ask first.”
“You take that off, Mr. McKane, and you’ll be pooping it out tomorrow,” I said through happy tears, making him laugh.
“So you’d marry me again?” he asked.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him to me.
“I’d marry you a hundred times over, Nick,” I said, my lips against his.
“I only need one more,” he whispered.
“Did you hear that?” I called, casting my eyes upward to Heaven. “You can relax now!”
Ralph barked downstairs as if on cue, getting progressively louder.
Nick dragged his lips from mine. “That dog needs to learn timing.”
“He doesn’t bark at much,” I said.
“I know, that’s why I’m not ignoring it,” he said, pushing to his feet and bringing me with him. “Throw something on.”
“I’ll blind them with my ring,” I said, grabbing my white fluffy robe. He pulled on his jeans commando again. Good God, my husband was hot. “When did you buy a ring?”
“Today,” he said. “When I left the bank.” He dropped a kiss on my nose. “There was no question. Now stay here, please.”
“What?”
“You heard me,” he said, pointing before he headed down the hall.
“Mm-hmm, they get bossy when they put a ring on it.”
I heard a chuckle over Ralph’s hullabaloo, and I sank back onto the bed, wrapping the robe and the covers around me. Life had a way of flipping on a dime lately. Good one second, bad the next. Phenomenal the next.
I was riding the phenomenal wave at the moment, and really really hoping it was a long one. Nothing had ever felt this good or this right, and while that feelings thing scared the shit out of me, I was learning. It was worth it. Nick was worth it.
I held my new bling up and just stared.
“I wish you could see this, Aunt Ruby,” I said softly. “I wish you could see me. I’m happy,” I whispered to the ceiling.
“Lanie, come here, babe,” Nick called up, his tone sounding odd.
“Oh balls.” I swung my legs down. “Here we go.” The downhill slide. “Who’s here this time? All your ex-girlfriends?”
Ralph was still making a ruckus when I landed on the bottom step, but not at the front door. I rounded the stairs and headed toward the noise when I smelled it. Baked apples.
Baked friggin apples.
“Oh my God,” I said, my hand on my chest as the aroma brought tears to my eyes. “Do you smell that? Did I ever tell you—”
I stopped short.
There under the shelf holding the wooden spools, where Nick stood holding a cabinet door open and Ralph was now turning in circles in lieu of barking, was a collection of things. Our things. Even from a few feet away, I knew exactly what things they were.
Goose bumps covered my body as my gaze rested on neat stacks of shoes, shirts, a couple pairs of socks I’d blamed on Ralph, my favorite sunglasses, and Nick’s ratty black ball cap.
“Sweet Jesus,” I whispered, walking close enough to touch them. “My phone charger?”
“I thought you threw my hat away,” Nick said.
I picked up one of his shirts and held it to my nose. It still smelled like him.
She was baking apples.
She was happy.
Because I was.
“I love you,” I said.
He did a double take. “Your house just upped the spook factor by a mile and that’s where your head goes?”
I nodded. “That’s what it’s about.”
Nick shook his head and pulled me in for a hug. “Will I ever understand you?”
“Do you need to?” I asked. “Because that could get boring.”
He laughed. “True,” he said against my hair. “And I have the feeling that life with you will never be that.”
“You have feelings?” I asked, tilting my head in a tease.
Nick’s chuckle vibrated against the sensitive skin of my neck as he slipped the robe from my shoulders.
“Let me show you one of them.”