Shay…
Warm sunshine kissed my face, the free kind above grass and trees, connected to parks and forests, as far as my running legs and wild imagination could take me.
Eighteen months, to the day.
How long I’d bargained for.
The deal I’d struck.
The sacrifice I’d been willing to make for them all—for Ben.
And I would’ve done so much more.
Blinding glare off a chrome bumper made me shield my eyes as I searched for Kiki’s Prius.
But instead of a silent electronic car, there at the edge of the parking lot rumbled a fern-green classic truck.
And a gorgeous dangerous man leaned against its back fender.
Ben.
My heart leapt at the sight of him.
Dammit. I thought I’d locked my emotions for him down tight.
With a deep scowl, at him and me, I strode right on past him.
But by my next full breath, he appeared beside me.
I slowed my pace.
He matched me, step for step.
“Shay, please.”
I ignored him and kept walking. I figured it’d take me a few hours at a solid clip, but my own two feet would bring me back home to Glenhaven by nightfall.
“Shay,” he kept at it.
Clenching my jaw to prevent my mouth from blurting out any number of things, I focused on a pair of blue-and-white tree swallows that swept through the sky.
“I never should’ve questioned you. Not whether or not you stole the bracelet—whether or not it mattered.” He cleared his throat. “It didn’t matter. And idiot me should’ve said that, right then, without hesitation.”
My chest began to burn at his words. But I kept walking, lasered my attention straight ahead, at the treetops in the near distance.
A heavy sigh sounded out beside me. “I fucked up. Big time. But I got the sense, still feel it now” —he pulled ahead and stared hard at me— “that you wanted me to fuck up.”
Tears misted my eyes at the truth of it. That he got me after all.
“I know you.” He weighted the words with conviction.
I stopped dead in my tracks.
He moved right in front of me, locked gazes with mine. “Still standing here. Not going anywhere.”
My breaths grew ragged. He looked incredible: black hair windblown over his forehead, dark scruff of beard edging his jawline, charcoal eyes doing that penetrating-stare thing.
“Why?” I didn’t get it. Anyone with sense would’ve written me off, run far far away.
“You know why.”
I couldn’t reply, didn’t find the words because I couldn’t think straight, had to suck in great lungfuls of air because I found it hard to breathe. I hadn’t expected him to be there. Didn’t want to face the why of it. Wasn’t ready to admit to what I’d been ignoring. Denial had served me well while I’d done my time. Dealing with him in my first seconds of freedom? Overwhelming.
Prison itself had had a nice set of rules. So had the female inmates who ran the joint. Those who survived in that environment understood them: You have no control. Trust no one.
But I’d already learned those rules years ago.
And yet, Ben had taught me something in one short week. It was okay to count on someone else, sometimes. That I didn’t have to be strong all the time.
Maybe I don’t have to be alone, fighting for everything.
He took a step closer, leaving an inch or so between us as he searched my eyes. “It’s also one of the reasons why I did Mickey D’s every Tuesday with your crew, my crew now too.”
You did? You took care of my family? Your family now too?
My lower lip began to quiver; I bit it into submission.
He slowly raised his hand, brushed gentle fingers over my cheek, into my hair. “Because I love you.”
In the middle of my next shaky breath, he leaned forward that last inch and kissed me, soft and tender, filled with warmth and passion.
And I shut down my protesting brain and kissed him back, wrapped my arms around his neck, and held on to a man I never saw coming and couldn’t believe still stood there.
As the kiss wound down, when the salt of my tears mingled into our mouths, I pulled back. “I love you too,” I whispered without doubt...uncertain only about admitting it.
His eyes glistened with moisture.
I narrowed mine, stepped back, then dropped my hands onto my hips.
Ben was the man who held the carefully knotted corners of my rug...who’d yanked it out from under me—twice.
Take control. “But that doesn’t mean anything. I’m not snapping right back into us again.”
He blinked in surprise.
My heart sank at my own gut-instinct words too. Because as much as the idea of trusting Ben again scared me, it kinda gave me something to work toward, something to hold on to.
Besides, he’d made an accurate point. I had wanted him to fuck up. I’d needed him to throw believable distance between us for him to buy my inevitable exit—in order to save him.
What I’d been trying to convince my doubting self of for eighteen months.
That I’d made the right move by cutting him out of the decision-making process.
But standing in front of him after all those months, seventy-eight long weeks...five hundred forty-eight lonely nights...I wasn’t so sure.
Still... “I’m not goin’ down that easy.”
He gusted out a held breath, chuckled low, then swept an open arm back toward his truck. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
The next moments all unfolded in a surreal blur, him opening his sticking passenger door, me getting inside, him running around the front hood with a hopeful grin like an eager high school kid on his first date—like we’d done a year and a half ago, but as if it was yesterday.
He gripped the steering wheel, then glanced my way. “Where to?”
“Everywhere.” My brain jammed with a billion thoughts at once.
He gave me a stellar Duh! look. One I’d seen on Trin a thousand times. “Where to first?”
My mind blanked again. Everything I’d missed for so long fought for dominance.
But the most important one? I already had, whether or not I let my stubborn-ass self admit it: Ben. By my side. A good foot of safe distance spanned between his body and mine on the truck’s bench seat. But his nearness after all that time apart still charged the air between us. And some elemental part of me ached to move closer, hover exploring fingers over his tribal tattoo, inhale the earthy scent of him, taste the saltiness of his...
His face lit up. “I’ve got an idea.” He put the truck in gear and we rumbled off.
I almost laughed at my near-naughtiness to his oblivious innocence. Instead, I just let go, and let him take control, for a while anyway. I emptied my mind of every ounce of worry and basked in sensations: the crisp wind through my open window as it danced across my face, the brilliant colors of nature and textures of architecture, the metallic scents of the city mixing with the sweetness of her parks, horns honking, birds singing.
After twenty minutes of driving and one pit stop, where we ended up was on a favorite park bench that sat beside a beloved rock outcropping. The white rolled-down bags of three quarter-pounder-with-cheese meals sat between us—one for him, two for me.
After we polished off our food and drink, I made him scrabble up the boulder outcropping with me. I pointed toward the far tree line. “That’s my forest, the place I grew up.”
A place I’d missed terribly. My home. Where I got grounded. Where I became charged.
“Wanna show me?” He arched a brow.
Yeah. Somehow my fears of trusting him began to melt away, little by little. And I wanted him to get to know me again, know more of me than I’d been willing to share before. The most vulnerable part of me sensed it was safe with Ben. Always had been.
“Race ya!” I scrabbled down without waiting for his reply.
Another beautiful chuckle reverberated somewhere above me.
And we ran, together, me taking the lead, him chasing me down, laughing as we both darted around trees, lungs burning, skin tingling.
Through blackberry thickets, hidden by overgrown ferns, past one mossy boulder, then another, I brought him into my secret sunbeam-filled clearing. Eyes falling closed, I drew in a ritual breath of the pure air of my forest that was scented of earth and rain and dreams and possibilities.
Then I glanced at Ben, who instinctively did the same while he wore an expression of childlike wonder.
You get it.
Maybe he’d been one of us, like me and Trin—the dreamers, the adventurers, the heroes willing to risk everything for what we believed in—all along.
“Watch!” I called out as I bounded up my boulder staircase. At the top, I launched into the air and howled my low ahhhwwwhhhooo.
When I landed onto the spongy leaf pile, crumbled bits went flying. I marveled at that; it was spring. Which meant Trin had to have stocked our leaf pile just for her...or for me too—for a freshly sprung jailbird.
I lifted my head.
Ben just stood there, arms folded, watching me exactly like I’d asked.
“Aren’t you gonna take a turn?”
“No.” His dark gaze glittered with fierce emotion. “Be free. I’ll be right here, waiting for you.”
In a wonderful cloud of leaf bits, I jumped up, kissed him, then ran and climbed my staircase and leapt, three more times.
A good hour later, and after a thorough dusting of my hair, T-shirt, and jeans, we were back in his truck again. “Where we goin’?” He’d made some mysterious phone call before we’d gotten back into the truck, where he’d told whoever was on the other end, “Thirty minutes.”
“It’s a surprise. Consider it a belated birthday present. And maybe a little bit more.”
MORE.
That triggering word echoed in my brain to become an important thing I wanted him to know. “There’s something I kept from you that I have to explain.”
He arched a brow at me, amusement sparkling in his eyes. “Just one something?”
I narrowed my eyes. “Listening?”
His expression humbled and he gave a firm nod. “Intently.”
“Before Heart burned the drive, she unlocked hidden evidence that proved your father had committed more crimes: insider trading, conspiracy, fraud. On a much larger scale. And that evidence gave me an opportunity to help you, to help so many others.” Made me have to want you to fuck up. “I hope you understand what I did and why I did it.”
He glanced at me, made a left turn at the light, then nodded. “I do understand. Something to do with that spotlight article, right?”
“Yeah. Some young girl reporter hassled Lando months prior. I lured her away, showed her that the real story wasn’t one homeless guy who guarded a record store, got her to see that an entire parallel city of homeless struggled right in the middle of one of the most celebrated places in our nation. But the reporter felt like that story wasn’t enough for her editors, that they would want more.”
“And in your lap, fell my criminal father.”
“Yep. Everything I’d done, all that I’d stolen and given away to help others was only part of the story. Hardworking folks, most barely making ends meet, were only one step away from suffering an unfortunate incident or becoming victim to a criminal act. They’re the next in line. And your father’s greed could’ve sent any number of them there.”
“Good story.”
“Almost. Providing evidence of the greater crimes was the clincher. With that, the Feds took down an entire ring, some of the Who’s Who of Wall Street. And providing them that info gave me what I needed to cut a deal.”
“But why cut a deal at all? That’s what I still don’t understand. Why did you turn yourself in?”
I nudged his shoulder. “For you, silly. I didn’t want the crime you’d committed to hang over you, risk Loading Zone. With me, they got the only perpetrator they know about. To protect you, I told them I stole it from your father’s study. No point in going after anyone else if I’m all there was. I turned myself in, because I needed to give you a clean slate. It gave me one too.”
“You gave us one.”
My muscles tensed at the us part. Even though we’d eaten on a bench and run wild through my forest, played in my hidden clearing, I hadn’t let myself get too much in my head about it. For the last year and a half, I hadn’t planned on seeing him again. And with all the visitation-meetings Kiki and I had had to run our thriving naughty-shirt business, if she had known that he’d planned to pick me up, she’d kept it from me.
“We’ll see. For sure you. And me.”
“Sounds like there’s an us in there somewhere.”
“Don’t know, Bishop. ‘Us’ sounds complicated.”
He gave a hard nod. “Takes a lot of trust to make an us.”
“It’s like you’re making my non-us argument for me.”
“Just sayin’, we could work on it. Commit to work toward the us.”
My brain still couldn’t process the idea. I began to believe my past had programed me to distrust the future with someone, no matter how tempting. But oh, how my heart wanted to say yes. A familiar compromise hit me. “Maybe, we could give it a week. And see.” A week seemed small, safe.
He arched another amused brow at me.
“That one week we shared got me through the last eighteen months,” I mumbled, more to myself than him.
Whenever things got rough, every time my spirits dragged, I relived every heart-stopping moment of our golf-scrambling, movie-watching, and train-jumping. And when my heart ached, I replayed every amazing sensual moment: our clock-struck-midnight first time, the rock-beats-paper wakeup call...our sizzling locker-room shower.
Something else important had gotten me through those endless nights, though: another wrong I’d made sure to right. “One other part of the deal I’d struck? That the authorities investigate my father and mother. Interrogate my sister. Charge them to the fullest extent of the law.” Make sure the infant who slept in that new crib didn’t suffer, remained innocent.
“Wow.” He glanced at me with wide eyes, pride in his expression. “Good for you. That’s huge.”
I nodded. “Yeah, it was. I made it clear that I had to remain out of it, though. They had to make that case all on their own, and I didn’t need to know the outcome.” I wanted no part of that mess. I’d already moved on. Why I’d had Kiki toss the backpack. Only way to live in the present is to let go of the past.
All of a sudden, my attention got drawn outside of the cab. He’d turned down Maple Lane.
We slowed to a coast and all of my beautiful houses paraded by us. I leaned out, whispering hello to the white storybook cottage with its whimsical flowers and curvy metal-capped chimney.
Toward the end, he eased around the lane’s gentle bend, pulled up to the curb, then cut the engine—right in front of our favorite house.
Only...the property no longer looked sad and decrepit.
Vibrant flowers and fresh sod gleamed under the warmth of the sun. A new brick pathway stretched forth like a red carpet, even and straight. Porch steps and roof eaves had been replaced and painted. It had a bright white railing, unblemished windows, and righted shutters.
The house looked glorious, shining there in a happy shade of yellow and trimmed in green.
His words from when we’d first walked by together echoed in my mind. It’s been neglected for too long. ’Bout time someone paid attention to it.
After he opened my truck door, then led me to the yard’s front walkway, I finally stared up at him. “Someone sold it to you?”
“Not exactly.”
He nodded toward the opening front door and waved for someone to come outside.
A little old woman took a few tentative steps but stopped at the threshold of the porch, remained in the shade.
Ben slipped his hand into mine and led me up the freshly bricked path until we stood at its end, right below the new porch steps.
He gave my hand a light squeeze. “This is Helen.”
A brightness sparkled in the elderly woman’s silvery blue eyes. Her slender white eyebrows raised, her expression growing hopeful. “I’m a decent cook. And I keep a tidy house.” She glanced back through the open front door, voice beginning to tremble. “Too many years it’s been just tired ol’ me breathin’ between those walls. Be nice to have youth and excitement in there again.”
“The place inside isn’t half bad either. Helen’s been letting me sneak upstairs, strengthen the floorboards a bit to handle the traffic of a couple of ‘young’uns’ trudging around up there. Well, we’re a couple, anyway.”
“A couple?”
He turned toward me, searched my eyes deeper than ever before, as if for some new answer he hadn’t yet found. “What if it isn’t just that one week for us. What if we had more?”
My brow furrowed, total confusion jumbling my brain with that last word. “More?”
“What if you didn’t have to be alone? Didn’t need one single week of memories to get you through the dark nights? What if we make new memories for all the nights?”
“More…traffic.” My brain tried to connect the floorboard-strengthening to the more.
Helen’s head dipped down a fraction, and her expression hardened into stone-cold serious. “More excitement too.”
I blinked, finally understanding their meaning—that tempting us he’d been talking about. An us with Ben was something I wanted, and could have, if I was brave enough to take the leap with my heart. My mind flashed to a young runaway in the woods, to a girl over the years who’d provided for others, to Wonder Woman who leapt first, offering her heart to countless others, without fear or concern for herself.
Then I straightened my shoulders. And got honest with myself. No more denial.
I love Ben.
And I wanted to make him happy. Which meant I needed to face my fear of betrayal.
So, I did what he’d suggested one night long ago...
Touch your electrical lines, Shay. You’re braver than you know.
I leapt.
Mind made up, I gave a brave heartfelt smile toward Ben, then glanced at our new friend. “Are you okay with that, Helen? Him shacking up with me...in your house?”
“Yeah, about that.” He tugged something out from inside of his T-shirt collar. A necklace? He reached behind his neck, unfastened it, then bent down on one knee. “What if we made this thing real? Made it legal?”
I stared down at a sparkling diamond ring held in his hand, a platinum chain hanging from it. “You want to marry me?”
“I do. No more running away to protect you, or me. Only holding on.”
I just stared at him in disbelief.
“Wear it around your neck for a week, if you want. I’ve been wearing it around mine for eighteen months.” He drew in a deep breath. “You and me, Shay. Your way, my way, there’s no difference to me anymore. It’s our way and the only life I can imagine living.”
Ben...for more than a week. Him being my family, my home...forever. All I’ve ever wanted.
Tears blurred my vision, then dripped down my cheeks as I nodded. “Yes,” I whispered as I tugged on his other hand, completely honest with both of us as I invited him into my arms, “I want all of that too.”
“Well, thank the sweet Lord for that!” Helen clapped her hands once. “I didn’t have to fake a livin’-in-sin conniption.” Helen walked up to us, put a gentle hand on each of our forearms, and focused her bright blue gaze on me. “And it’s our house now. Your man here bought half ownership, and with no heirs, I’m giving the rest to you as a wedding present” —she winked— “after I’m dead and gone, of course.”
“Well, it’s about time, James Bond!”
I turned to see Trin standing at the curb behind us, hands megaphoning her mouth.
Kiki hooked an arm around her neck. “I knew my fairy godmothering would land you the prince.”
Ben gazed down at me, then gave me a tender kiss. “And we’ll live happily ever after.”
I arched a brow, easing back a bit. “Even if the prince is bright, boring, a total rule-follower and she’s dark, edgy, will probably break at least one law a day?”
“Even if. Because a wise and generous-hearted woman once told the prince he needed a little more danger to rough up his edges—make his seriousness less fatal.”
“A very wise woman. Life is meant to be lived,” I repeated, remembering.
“And your prince is looking forward to spending every wild, crazy, and sometimes lawbreaking moment of it...with you.”