A Risk Worth Taking (29 page)
I
blinked back tears, scared and uncertain and overjoyed all at once. “Ford …”
“Please,
Summer. If it takes forever, I’d like a chance to make it up you. Actually, I’d
like it to take forever. That is, if you’ll have me.” He reached up and gently
cupped my cheeks with calloused hands, lifting my face to his. “I love you,
Summer Stafford.”
I
love you too.
The words were swallowed up by the lump in my
throat. It took me a moment to find my voice. When I did, what came out instead
were his own words from months ago. “I thought you said love is a risk,” I
whispered, another tear escaping the edge of my eye.
Ford
caught it with his fingers and wiped it away before pressing a lingering kiss
against the corner of my mouth. “It’s a risk worth taking.”
Ford
“When the thought of achieving
your dream makes you want to throw up, that’s how you know it’s big enough.”
-Unknown
Naked
branches bent and swayed in the breeze as I led Summer up what had become a
well-worn path. Good thing I’d had her wear a jacket. The calendar might say
spring, but the bite in the afternoon air said otherwise.
“Are
we almost there?” she called from behind me.
I
looked back and grinned. “Almost. And no peeking,” I added when her free hand
came up to adjust the blindfold I’d tied on before we left. Using our interlocked
hands, I guided her around a stump before continuing on.
A
few minutes later we emerged from the wooded path into the open air of the
hillside. Our hillside. Without the trees to block it, the wind intensified. It
cut across my cheeks and along my neck, raising goose bumps. Or maybe those
were a result of the anticipation.
I’d
spent months planning this moment. I didn’t want to screw it up. Or give it
away too quickly. Not when I’d gone to such great lengths to surprise her. Even
her family was in on it, a fact that I hoped wouldn’t piss her off. I knew
Summer hated being the last to know something, but in this case, I hoped her
excitement would trump everything else. I hoped her feelings for me would trump
it all.
I’d
spent the last five months making up for the first five. Or at least that’s
what I told Summer. Anytime I said that, she’d just laugh and say, “There is no
making up left to do. Those first five were magical. So is every day since.”
I
had to agree, but I still wanted to prove to her that I would never change my
mind about her. Leaving wasn’t even something that crossed my mind. Unless it
meant we’d do it together. I’d mentioned flying out to see my parents after
this year’s harvest season ended. Summer seemed to like that idea. My parents
were chomping at the bit to meet the girl who’d made me stay. I couldn’t wait
to show her off. And to tell my dad in person that he’d been right all along.
It’d
been a hard thing to admit, but it was true. Dreams changed. You had to change
with them or risk losing it all. It was essentially what Casey had been telling
me before I left. Even Dean had been able to see it. I’d just been too stubborn
to listen at the time. Thankfully, I’d come around.
And
now I was standing in the best spot I’d found across thirteen states, in
Grayson County with the girl of my dreams—with a question on my tongue that
made my knees rattle.
“Now?”
she asked as we came to a standstill.
With
a hand on each of her shoulders, I made sure she faced the angle with the best
view.
“Okay,
now,” I said.
I
watched as she reached up and slid the blindfold down her face, letting it rest
around her throat like a scarf. She blinked against the sunlight and looked
around, first in wonder and then in confusion. “Ford,” she said, her brows
wrinkling as she took in the familiar skyline with even more familiar landmarks
dotting the distance. “Sorry to be such a downer, but this isn’t much of a
surprise. We’ve been here a million times.”
“True,”
I said, finding it harder and harder to bite back the grin that threatened to
give away my secret. “But you’re seeing it from a new angle today.”
She
turned in a circle, inspecting all directions. “Which angle is that?”
“The
angle of our future bedroom window.”
“Our
future …? What are you talking about?”
I
opened my mouth, ready to give her the speech I’d rehearsed in my mind, but at
the sight of her standing there my mind went suddenly blank. What the hell
would I do if she said no? I couldn’t walk away from her again. Nothing in the
past few months had given me reason to doubt her feelings, but suddenly, I was
scared out of my head. Did proposals normally do that? I supposed when you
loved someone this much…
“Um.”
“Yes?”
she prompted.
Nerves
hit me like a freight train, and I swallowed back a bout of nausea. How did
men, century after century, get through something like this? I toed the dirt as
I finally answered, “I checked it out a while back. This hill we’re standing on
is city owned, you know.”
“I
think you told me that once. What does that have to do with a window?”
I
would’ve swallowed but my throat wouldn’t cooperate. I forced myself to meet
her gaze. Something in the way she looked at me—with the tiniest of smiles—gave
me the courage to forge on. I slipped my hand into my pocket and wrapped my fingers
around the velvet box I’d hidden there. “I made some calls. It’s not officially
listed for sale but everything is available for the right price.” I paused and
then gave her the punch line. “I bought the hill.”
She
stared at me, mouth ajar, clearly dumbstruck. “You bought the hill?” she
repeated.
“Your
mom helped.”
“My
mom … You’re serious.”
“Yeah.
We close in sixty days.”
“You
… You’re going to build a house?” Clearly, she’d not been expecting this. That
made me grin. I’d made a plan—a ginormous monster of a plan—and I’d taken her
off-guard. Seeing her speechless made all the preparations and nerves worth it.
“No.
We’re
going to build a house,” I corrected.
“What—?”
“Summer,
shut up for a second,” I said, stepping close to her with a grin wide enough to
chase away all the panic I’d felt a moment ago. This was Summer. This was my
girl. No question. No doubts.
She
closed her mouth and gave me a wry look, one brow raised. I loved that
sarcastic expression of hers. Something deep inside my chest did a flip. I
pressed on, talking faster. “These last months with you have been amazing.
You’re amazing. Every single day I’m blown away by you—your beauty and passion
and the way you see the world. You make me happy. And I want to spend the rest
of my life right here making you happy too.”
“The
rest of your life is a long time,” she said.
“Not
if he pisses you off enough.”
At
the sound of Casey’s voice, Summer whirled. One by one, Casey, Dean, Cathy, and
Mazie appeared from the trailhead. Summer turned back to me slowly, eyes wide.
“Ford … what exactly are you saying?”
I
pulled the velvet box from my pocket and began to lower myself to one knee in
the dirt in front of her. “I’m asking you to marry—”
“Yes!”
I
was halfway between standing and kneeling when she threw her arms around me.
Her momentum knocked me backwards, and I barely managed to hang on to her as I
tumbled to my back with her above me.
Summer
laughed and looked down at me, her eyes shining with joy so bright my breath
caught.
“You
didn’t even let me finish asking the question,” I said.
“You’ve
been asking the question since the day we met,” she said. “My answer’s always
been the same.”
Our
lips locked to the sound of her family hooting and cheering behind us. In that
moment, risk didn’t exist. Doubt and fear and uncertainty were no longer part
of my vocabulary. I had found my new dream. And I was living it.
Heather
Hildenbrand
was born and raised in a small town in northern Virginia where
she was homeschooled through high school. She now lives in coastal VA, a few
miles from the Atlantic Ocean, with her two adorable children. She works from
home, part time, as a property manager and when she's not furiously pounding at
the keyboard, or staring off into space whilst plotting a new story, she's
lying on the beach, soaking in those delicious, pre-cancerous rays.
Heather
loves Mexican food and motorcycles, hates socks with sandals, and if her house
was on fire, the one thing she'd grab is her DVR player.
You
can find out more about her and her books at
www.heatherhildenbrand.blogspot.com
Other titles by Heather Hildenbrand:
Dirty Blood (book 1, the Dirty Blood series)
Cold Blood (book 2, Dirty Blood series)
Blood Bond (book 3, Dirty Blood series)
Blood Rule, (book 4, Dirty Blood series)
Whisper
Across the Galaxy
Imitation (book 1, Clone Chronicles)
DreamKiller: The Complete Saga (a novella)
Or stalk her here:
And now a sneak peek at
For Real
(Rules
of Love, Book One) coming November 14 from New York Times Bestselling author,
Chelsea M. Cameron!
Two people. One fake relationship. What could
go wrong?
When virgin Shannon Travers gets fed up
with her friends demanding that she find a boyfriend, she enlists the help of
tattooed, mohawk-rocking graphic design student Jett. He’s more than happy to
play along with their Fake Relationship, including the Ten Rules of Fake Dating
that control-freak Shannon comes up with. Even if he likes to violate them.
Repeatedly.
But what happens when Fake Dating starts to
feel… not fake anymore? Will Shannon be willing to let go and embrace the first
thing in her life that’s ever felt REAL?
One
“I’m sorry to bother you, but
can you watch my computer?”
“What?” I pulled my earbuds out
and looked up to meet a pair of astonishingly golden-brown eyes set in a
chiseled face under a head of black hair that was shaved short on the sides and
left long on top and gelled to one side like a wave. From the top of his shirt
peeked several tattoos and his arms were covered, but I didn’t have a chance to
see what they were, as my eyes were draw back to his eyes and I was left
momentarily without words.
I fished for some in my brain
and came up with two.
“Yeah, sure.”
He flashed me a quick smile and
got out his cell phone and dashed out of the cafe. I’d been so immersed in
working on my paper that I hadn’t even seen him come in, but a quick scan
around showed me that he was sitting at a table right behind me.
A quick glance toward the front
door showed me that he was strolling up and down the sidewalk in front of the
cafe, still talking on his phone. I turned in my chair and glanced at his
laptop, which was open to Facebook. I was too far away to see anything, but I
knew the page layout well enough. He also had a stack of books and a notebook
open with some scribbles in it. A cup of what looked like black coffee steamed next
to the computer. I turned back around quickly so he wouldn’t catch me being a
total creeper. Plus, I needed to get back to work. I couldn’t get distracted
now.
I was just starting the second
semester of my junior year, and I could almost taste my degree. It tasted like
victory and thick paper. In less than two years I would have a bachelor’s of
science degree in business and be well on my way to an MBA. It made me shiver
inside just thinking about having my own office at the top of a glassy
skyscraper, sitting at my mahogany desk and crossing my nylon-clad legs as I
signed a corporate merger with a pen that probably cost more than the car I
currently drove.
Shut it down, Shannon. Shut it
down and focus. I breathed three times, in and out, closing my eyes and
emptying my mind. Everything drained out and I locked my eyes back on the
document. My paper wasn’t due until next week, but I had never waited until the
last minute to do a paper like everyone else. You never got anywhere by
procrastinating, as had been proven by both my parents and my older brother,
Cole by the dizzying array of semi-failed jobs and careers they’d had.
Sometimes I was convinced I was adopted because even though I looked like the
rest of my family, with brown hair and blue eyes, I didn’t act like a single
one of them. I’d heard my parents wonder more than once if I was possessed.
They were joking, of course, but it still stung when they pointed out what I
was already painfully aware of. That I didn’t fit in.
“Thanks.” The laptop guy was
back. He put his hands on my table and leaned down so his face was close to
mine. Dude, invade my personal bubble much? “I don’t normally trust strangers
with my stuff, but you look…” his eyes skimmed their way up and down my body,
and I shifted under his scrutiny. “Trustworthy,” he finally said.
Well, I probably did. I had to
go to work in the operations department of a local bank later, so I had a black
pencil skirt with a white blouse tucked into it and my cute-but-comfortable tan
pumps on. In contrast, his shirt had some sort of video game robot or something
splashed across the front and his jeans were skinny, but not to the point of
being way too tight. It would be clear to anyone looking at us side-by-side
that we had next to nothing in common.
“I think that’s a compliment,”
I said as he stood up and started moving back toward his table.
“That’s up to you,” he said,
walking backwards and finally sitting back down. I turned back around, shaking
my head. Whatever.
I started putting my earbuds
in, but stopped when someone tapped me on the shoulder.
“For your trouble,” he said, as
I slowly turned around to see him standing right behind my chair, holding a
plate out to me with a scone on it. “Raspberry scone?”
“Uh, no. Thank you. I’m good.”
I’d just polished off a blueberry muffin and was on my second cup of black tea.
“You sure? This is a really
good scone. You could do what my mom does and wrap it up and take it home with
you. I swear, she put a steak in her bag once.” He waved the plate in front of
me, as if that was supposed to entice me.
“No, thanks.” I turned around
again and hoped he would go away.
“Fine, then I guess I’ll just
owe you one.”
I turned my music back on and
ignored him. Saint-Sens filled my ears and drowned out the rest of the noise in
the cafe as I pulled my focus back to my paper.
An hour later, I typed the
finishing touches on my paper and started packing my things up. The guy was
gone, but I’d been too absorbed to notice when he’d left. My chances of seeing
him ever again were slim, since Central Maine University had nearly ten
thousand students, and most of them were commuters.
I said a quick prayer before I
turned the key on my Crown Victoria, hoping it would start. Thankfully, the
engine engaged with a minimum of sputtering and I drove from downtown Hartford
to the next town over, Deermont, where my job was. I parked near the back of
the building and swiped my card in the door. I had just enough time to get to
my desk, turn my computer on and clock in. Barring a death or dismemberment, I
had never been late.
My cubicle was near the back of
the building, in the “farm” as everyone called it. I said hello to a few of my
coworkers, most of whom were fellow students. My favorite coworker, Amelia,
wasn’t working today, which was a bummer. Nearly everyone else’s cubicles just
had a few papers or photographs, but hers was covered in her drawings and
positive notes and pictures of butterflies. Amelia was literally the sunniest
person I’d ever met. Sometimes she was too much, but during those dark times
when you got down, she always was a breath of fresh air and things never seemed
too bad when she was around.
I had a stack of loan files
that needed to be scanned, so I started with removing the staples from all the
pages. Yes, it was as boring as it sounded, but at least I could listen to my
music. I put my earbuds back in and got to work. This was what I needed to do
to get where I wanted to be. Everyone had to start somewhere. I had to pay my
dues, even if that meant removing staples from a two hundred page appraisal.
***
Three hours later I was ready
to go back to my apartment and get back to work on my homework. I was fishing
in my purse for my keys when my hand closed on something. It was a paper crane
folded out of notebook paper. What the heck? I didn’t know where it had come
from, but the only explanation I could think of was that the laptop guy had
dropped it in there, either by accident or on purpose. It was a weird thing to
do, so I hoped it was by accident. He was Asian, so maybe it was just a thing
that he did to celebrate his culture. God, was that racist?
Maybe he did it all the time
without thinking about it.
I turned it over in my hand as
I walked to my car. They were supposed to be good luck or something, so I set
it on my dashboard. I didn’t really believe in superstition, but you could
never be too careful. I didn’t want to risk any bad mojo.
“I’m back,” I said as I
unlocked the front door to my craptastic apartment. I shucked off my heels and
sighed in relief. There was nothing quite as nice as taking your heels off at
the end of a long day. Men could just never understand that.
“How was work?” My roommate,
Hazel was hovering over a pot of something in our microscopic kitchen. This
could be bad.
“Fine. What are you making?” I
said, setting my bag down and trying to avoid going into the kitchen, in case
this turned out to be one of her experiments.
“Relax, it’s from a box.” She
held up an empty box of mac and cheese. I didn’t breathe easier, because she’d
definitely messed that up more than once. “And I bought a pre-made salad and
there is ice cream. So we’re good.” Only then did I let out a breath. She held
the spoon out and I took a bite. Phew.
“I swear, every time I cook you
act like I’m feeding you poison.” Hazel and I had become friends two years ago
when we’d lived next door to each other in the dorms. She’d had issues with her
roommate, I’d had issues with mine and we ended up moving in together halfway
through the year and we’d been living together ever since. We were both poor as
all get out, but we’d managed to find an apartment in Deermont and it hadn’t
fallen apart yet, although it was held together with duct tape and staples.
As much as we got along, Hazel
and I were visual opposites. Her skin was gorgeous and dark and she got a tan
within twenty seconds of standing in the sun. Her hair was long and curled in
perfect rings, unlike mine that tended to do it’s own thing and be curly on
some days and not so curly on other days. She was tall and had the kind of
figure that made guys eyes pop when she danced. I would hate her for it, but
she was always saying how jealous she was of my body and my “cute and perky”
boobs. She had some delusion that her butt was flat, but at least hers was in
proportion to the rest of her body. There was a reason I wore a lot of black on
my bottom half.
“You going to work?” Hazel had
gotten herself a job as a bartender a few nights a week at the campus bar. It
was a little bit classier than some of the college establishments, but the tips
sucked, so it was a trade off.
“Yeah, in an hour. Remind me
why I didn’t sell my organs online to pay for my education?” I grabbed a fork
and started stealing bites of mac and cheese from the pot. I was starving.
“Because it’s illegal?”
“Right. That. They might frown
upon that at law school, yes?”
I nodded and she got a fork
too. We often ate dinner like this. Less dishes to wash.
“Usually.”
We finished off the pot and
then shared the salad from the plastic container as we sat on the couch and
worked on our various never-ending homework assignments.
“So it’s going to happen
tonight,” Hazel said as she put on the tight shirt she always wore to work. It
showed a lot more cleavage than she was comfortable with, but she got better
tips that way. I didn’t hate the player, I hated the game in that instance.
“What’s going to happen?” I
already knew the answer.
“I am going to find a nice
young man to pop that cherry of yours.” She jabbed her fork at me and I backed
up so she didn’t stab me with it. There it was again. The reminder that I was a
card-carrying member of the Virginity Club. I wish I had some good reason, that
I was like, saving myself for Jesus, or my parents had put the fear in me, or
told me that if I had sex with a boy that my ears would fall off and I’d gain forty
pounds, but I had no such excuse.
The truth was, boys were gross.
Part of me was still semi-convinced they had cooties. I’d sort of dated, but
every time I thought about getting physical, or close to a guy, he smelled
weird, or had hair on his knuckles, or burped or did something else to
completely turn me off.
I’d been on a few dates here
and there, but usually I’d have to send out an emergency call to one of my
friends. Sooner or later, rumors went around my high school that I was a
lesbian, and I went ahead and let them spread. Of course, then girls started
hitting on me, but they were easier to fend off.
I thought that in college, I
would have the chance to maybe meet someone. Someone who wore a tie every day
and expensive cologne and had a 401K. Yum. But, here I was, well into my junior
year and that fellow hadn’t shown up yet. Sure, there were plenty of guys on
campus, but a lot of them were taken. Or gay. Or taken and gay. Or total and
complete douchebags. Or budding alcoholics. Or gay, taken douchebag alcoholics.
Since my friends had always
struck out when it came to setting me up with a boy in order to make him my
boyfriend, they’d lowered their expectations to just getting me laid. I didn’t
exactly advertise my virginity, but it always seemed to come up when people
were drinking and swapping stories and I got red-faced and ran away to the
bathroom when everyone started talking about their first times.
“How many times have I told
you, I’m set. It will happen when it’s supposed to happen.”
“Don’t give me that fairy
godmother, dreams come true shit. We don’t need to find your prince charming.
Just a non-skeezy guy to do you a service. Think of him as… a plumber. For your
vagina.” She scraped the bottom of the container for the last few croutons.
“A plumber? Have you ever seen
a sexy plumber? Outside of a porno?” One of the other things my friends had
done to try and make me want to have sex was make me watch it. I’d only lasted
about five minutes when I had to run away and beg them to shut it off. Seeing
other people… doing things like that? I didn’t understand how anyone could find
that sexy. Plus, the girls were like, unbelievably flexible. No way I could
contort myself like that.
I’d been branded as a prude
from then on.