21

THE PROPOSAL

(Fifteen and a Half Months Ago, Christmas Eve)

I knew what Grant was going to say as soon as he appeared in the kitchen.

“Oh no,” I blurted. I didn’t bother to hide my disappointment; my shoulders slumped, and a groan escaped my lips. I was pretending to help Myrna roll out cookie dough on the counters, my main contribution to eat the scraps that fell off the sides of her snowman-shaped cutters. “Are you kidding me right now?”

Myrna didn’t look up from her work. It was almost impossible to get that woman up from her chair, but once she was, it was one hundred percent focus and action. I bet she made a killer nurse. “What’s that, dear?”

“Grant has to leave,” I said and mustered up a smile for his benefit. “I’m guessing he just got the call. Sterling Simon needs him.”

He returned my smile with a slight upturn of the lips, guilt and gratitude in equal proportions. “I knew you were too smart for your own good.”

“Alas, we all have our crosses to bear,” I said.

Myrna brushed her stomach, leaving a trail of floury fingerprints across the frilled red apron that covered her robe. “I can’t say I’m surprised,” she said. “Criminals never seem to take federal holidays off to be with their families.”

I couldn’t help but meet Grant’s eyes at that, but if he passed judgment, he did a much better job of hiding it this time.

“I’ll just, ah, leave you two alone for a moment?” Myrna said. She didn’t wait for a response, but she reached up to place an affectionate kiss on Grant’s cheek before she bustled out of the kitchen. There was an equal chance she was going to collapse on the couch while the cookies magically baked themselves or head out to plow the entire street using only a shovel and pickax. She was capable of either one.

“It gets worse,” Grant apologized as soon as the door closed behind her. “I’m booked on the next flight out.”

“Does this mean you’re asking me for a ride to the airport?”

“Yes, unfortunately. It also means you’ll have to drive back on your own to return the rental. It’s terrible timing, I know. I’m sure this isn’t how you pictured spending your holidays.”

I paused a beat too long. He noticed.

“If it helps, Simon’s even more upset than I am,” Grant said. “He loves Christmas.”

“He does?” I had a hard time picturing uptight Simon spreading cheer and getting tipsy on eggnog. I assumed he went around handing out lumps of coal.

“He’s a regular jolly old soul.”

I could tell Grant wanted me to say something more, either fly out in anger or reassure him that spending eight hours in the car by myself on Christmas was my favorite thing to do, but I was never that kind of liar—the ordinary, white-lie kind.

“Well, I won’t pretend I’m not disappointed, but I understand. The job comes first.”

“The job doesn’t—” He grimaced and shook himself off. “No, you’re right. It does come first. In our line of work, it has to.”

I appreciated that he wasn’t the white-lie kind, either—and that he used the term our. It placed us on equal footing. We were just two people, dedicated to work, sacrificing human relationships for the sake of reaching our goals. No biggie.

Equals we might have been, but I was still hesitant to get out the next part. I rolled a piece of cookie dough between my fingers, worrying it into a ball before popping it in my mouth. Mrs. Emerson made fantastic cookies. “If it’s okay with you and your mom, I’ll stay here for the rest of the weekend rather than drive back right away.”

He didn’t respond, once again staring at me in that surprised, penetrating way of his, making me wonder if I was about to make the biggest mistake of my lifetime. Again.

“I don’t want to be a burden or anything,” I rushed on. I wasn’t a woman given to fits of self-consciousness, as my life story attested, but there was something about commandeering someone’s mother that put me at a disadvantage. “But since she canceled her whole vacation for our visit, it seems cruel for us both to abandon her. If she wants the company, I’m happy to stick around. I like her.”

There was no immediate end to my agony. I tried not to let it upset me—after all, overstepping boundaries was an everyday affair with me—but it was hard. Large, intently staring men are more difficult to shrug off than you think.

Then Grant’s face broke into a smile, lighting up the room and flooding my body with warmth. That wasn’t just relief I felt, let me tell you. There were feelings that would have frightened the little snowman cookies.

“You want to stay here with my mom?” he asked.

“Only if she wants me to,” I added hastily. “I know some people prefer their solitude to a strange houseguest.”

“She’ll love it,” he said.

“Maybe you should ask her first.”

“She’ll love it,” he repeated.

“You don’t know that.”

“I do know it.” He crossed the room and grabbed me, the expression in his eyes so tender, I almost couldn’t look at him head-on. “She’ll love it because I love it.”

Not wanting to be alone on Christmas seemed like a strange reason to be moved to the extremes of passion, but that was the exact effect it had on Grant. Even though we were vertical—always so damnably vertical—he showed me exactly how he felt about my offer. Hard and strong and determined to suffocate me.

But then, who needed air at a time like this? I’d have gladly given up my lungs altogether if he held me like that forever.

“You never cease to surprise me, you know that?” he said.

I squirmed under the intensity of his regard. “Maybe I only want to stay here without you so I can keep snooping through your stuff.”

He just smiled.

“Or maybe I want to rob the place,” I added. “You know what they say. While the cat’s away…”

“…the mouse is welcome to do whatever she wants,” Grant finished. “The cat likes her too much to care.”

Damn. My stomach and heart merged into one.

Grant touched my mouth, one fingertip where his lips had just been, and I felt the rest of my organs give way. He had to know how that undid me, the pressure of his hands against the sensitive and swollen skin that belonged to him alone.

“I should probably warn you, though,” he said.

I knew there had to be a catch. There was always a catch. “Uh-oh. What is it?”

“When you get back to New York, I’m going to ask you to marry me.”

The edges of my vision went black, and the only thing that kept me standing was Grant’s arm around my waist.

“I just wanted to get that clear, right from the start.” He echoed the words from our first-ever real date, unconcerned that he held what amounted to a limp rag doll. “If you have any objections to that plan, for any reason whatsoever, now’s a good time to let me know. There’s no telling what I’ll do once this thing gets underway.”

I blinked up at him, waiting for the punch line, but it didn’t come. Apparently, he was done using his mouth for words.

And I, unable to form any of my own, didn’t bother fighting it.