“You didn’t seem so scared in there.” He jerked his thumb back toward the house.
“I know, right? I was awesome,” she cried, and he smiled and the night became her paradise. Her heaven. All she needed was this man, her family in that house somewhere behind her, and a future with all of them. “You deserve to have someone fight for you,” she whispered, her fingertips finding his sleeve, the edge of his dark jacket. The fabric was so soft, very fine. He’d probably spent more money on this one suit than on his entire wardrobe for a year. For her. And she’d almost blown it.
“I need you, Eli, for the days when I’m not brave. For when I’m feeling guilty for something I have no business blaming myself for.” She felt as if the box inside of her where she kept all of her needs, all of the demands she was scared to make of people, was being torn apart and she couldn’t shut up. “I need you to keep me from worrying. To keep me from coddling Jacob. I need you to make me laugh and to show me swans and to make me feel sexy and beautiful. And I need to do that for you—I need to show you how wonderful you are, how honorable and smart and generous. So generous, Eli. You are a miracle in my life. In everyone’s life. I need to see you with my son and feel my heart grow too big for my chest.” She put her hand over her stomach, suddenly wishing she was pregnant. Suddenly wanting it so bad she could barely breathe.
“Tori—” He reached for her, as if he was scared she was going to fall over, and she grabbed his hands, put them around her waist, held him there so he couldn’t leave.
“I’m a mess, I know it. But you have a home with me, wherever I am. You said you only give people shit, but that’s not true. You bring me so much happiness. So much peace. You make me proud, Eli. Proud to know
you. Proud to call you mine. Because I need you to be mine. And I need to be yours.”
This stoic, silent cowboy stared down at her, unreadable. Now she was getting unnerved.
“Please,” she whispered. “Please say something.”
“I like that.”
“What?”
“That part about being yours. And you being mine.”
The relief was like losing her body, like lifting right on out of herself, out of her clothes and skin. And climbing right inside of his.
“I love you,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around his neck. “I love you so much.”
“I didn’t …” He stopped and she pulled away, watching tears fill his beautiful green eyes. “I didn’t know I could be this happy.”
“It’s only going to get better.” She wrapped her arms around his chest, pulling him flush against her body so she could feel his heart beat against hers. The two of them in perfect rhythm.
“How do you know?” he whispered against her hair. She leaned back.
“Didn’t you see me in there?” she asked. “I’m a force to be reckoned with. If I say we’re happy, we’re happy.”
His quiet chuckle warmed the night, seeped into her skin, and curled through her, filling her with an almost unbearable sense of
right
.
“This was meant to be,” he said, as if he’d read her heart. And maybe he had.
“Sure as hell took a long time.” She kissed his jaw, following a path of her choosing to his lips.
“You were worth the wait,” he said and sealed her lips with his.
epilogue
“Don’t be scared,”
Eli said, crouching down in front of Jacob. He loosened the silly tie Victoria had insisted the boy wear.
“I’m not scared.” Eli was still getting used to the trust in the boy’s eyes. The hero worship. Truth was, he lived in fear of betraying it somehow. Of not being the man Jacob saw. Turnbull men were good at that.
But Victoria kept telling him to relax, that Jacob loved Eli for Eli, just like she did. But that was all a first for him, so everyone had to be patient.
And they were. Victoria and Jacob were so good to him. A gift he tried to repay every day.
“All right,” he said, pushing back a curl that had fallen over the boy’s eyes. “That’s good.”
“I’m scared,” Eli whispered to Victoria over Jacob’s head. “I’m totally freaking out.”
“It will be okay.” She kissed his lips, patted his cheek, and then linked her arm through his, reaching out her hand for Jacob’s and somehow managing to propel them all across the sun-baked asphalt toward the front door of The Elms. “Come on, we’ve made it this far.”
He’d wanted to wait until they were married before bringing them here. Somehow being able to call Victoria his wife when he introduced her to the old man seemed important.
And she’d wanted to wait to get married until after
she’d made it through the first trimester, so she wouldn’t throw up on her way down the aisle.
And then their little ceremony had just kept growing. Celeste kept making lists. Gavin had to build a gazebo. Eli had to have a long talk with his uncle before deciding whether or not to invite him. In the end, Uncle John was there and Amy had been too, and she stood in the front row beaming with happiness. Victoria’s brother, Luc, gave her away, and Celeste and Tara Jean were two of the most beautiful bridesmaids ever to carry a bouquet.
Jacob had stood between Eli and Victoria during the ceremony, holding their hands as the minister made them a family before God and witnesses.
So, here they were, freshly married, four months pregnant, and he was about to introduce his new family to his old family.
“Hi, Caitlyn!” Jacob cried as they walked through the front door of The Elms.
“Hi, guys.” Caitlyn looked up from the front desk and smiled, that peaceful, reassuring smile that made her such an asset. Such a friend.
“He’s been a bit restless,” she said and winced.
Eli stopped, but Victoria pushed him forward. “We’ve put this off long enough.”
The hallway leading down to his dad’s room was the longest it had ever been. The lights were too bright and his boots were too loud and he wanted to stop. He wanted to turn back. This was unnecessary—at best, his father wouldn’t even know what was happening and at worst, well, he didn’t want to have to think of the orderlies holding his father down mid-fit while Jacob and Victoria watched.
“No backing down now, cowboy,” Victoria muttered, pushing him forward.
Right. No backing down. Not with this woman at his back.
Though last week he had needed to force her out of bed for an interview with Madelyn Cornish.
That was marriage, he guessed. Partnership. The support went both ways.
The door to his father’s room was cracked and it opened without a sound under his hand. He peeked his head around to see the old man sleeping. His pajamas were twisted up around his body, and the sheets were sliding off the bed.
“Give me a second,” he whispered to Jacob and Victoria, and he ducked inside to straighten the sheets and the pajamas.
“Behave yourself,” he whispered in his father’s ear, and then stepped over to open the door. “Come … ah, come on in.”
The room was crowded as Victoria and Jacob filed in, and Eli wiped his suddenly very wet hands down his jeans to dry them off.
“Is he dead?” Jacob whispered, his eyes wide with horror.
“No,” Eli laughed. “Just sleeping. He sleeps a lot.”
“Can he hear us?” Jacob asked.
“Caitlyn says he can.”
“Oh.” Jacob scratched his nose and then took one quick step over to the bed. “Hey, Grandpa,” he shouted and then jumped back.
Eli breathed deep through his mouth, blinking to get the sting out of his eyes.
“Hello, Mark,” Victoria said, leaning down toward the bed. “I’m Victoria, your son’s wife.”
Mark stirred on the bed and Eli held his breath, but after a moment the old man settled.
“I think he farted,” Jacob whispered. Victoria’s look was so quelling Eli snorted back a laugh, unwilling to get his own share of her wrath, but when Victoria wasn’t looking he winked at Jacob.
“Hey, Dad,” Eli whispered, standing where he usually did, his legs pressed against the collapsed metal railings of the bed. He pulled Mark’s pajama collar away from where it was gathered at his neck. “I want you to meet my family. Victoria, and our boy.” He glanced over, smiling at the two of them standing on the other side of the bed. “His name is Jacob. He’s got a good hand with the horses. You’d like him. And Victoria … well, she’d terrify you. But she’s a strong woman. The strongest.”
Mark kept sleeping, his chest rising and falling in shallow arcs. Eli took a deep breath. “And we’re having a baby. In October. Victoria thinks it’s a girl, something about having an ugly pregnancy, but that’s a lie. She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
If this were a movie Mark would have opened his eyes. Or squeezed Eli’s hand, but he just lay there, silent. Sleeping.
“I’m happy, Dad. And I don’t know if you ever felt this way, but I hope you did. I wish …” He stopped right there, because there was no sense in wishing on the past. It was over.
And his future was right here, right now, and he’d never seen anything more perfect.
“I’ll see you next week, Dad,” he said.
“We’ll all see you next week,” Victoria said, and then Eli gathered his family up, pulling his wife under his arm, his son against his hip, and walked out, into the bright day waiting for him.
For Pam Hopkins,
who had faith and confidence
when all I had were dirty diapers.
Thank you so much.
Did Billy’s run-in with Madelyn Cornish
intrigue you?
You won’t want to miss the story of how
this one-time couple is thrown together
by unexpected circumstances
.
Read on for a sneak peek of
This Can’t Be Love!
Billy Wilkins sat
on the bench bone-dry. He might as well have been wearing slippers. A freaking robe. All he could do was sit there and watch the second-rate team he’d been traded to give away their shot at the playoffs.
If the coaches weren’t going to play him, the skates, the pads, the stick in his hand—all of it—was totally useless. Worthless. Just like him.
“Yank Leserd!” he shouted over the screaming in the Bendor arena. “He’s done. That’s the fourth goal he’s let in in five minutes.”
But Coach Hornsby wasn’t listening. He never listened to what Billy yelled during the games, whether the advice was good or not, didn’t matter. Hornsby wouldn’t even look at him, much less reply.
But that was Coach Hornsby. Stubborn, righteous, and probably deaf.
Billy waved off the water bottle one of the trainers held up. No need to hydrate. He hadn’t even broken a sweat tonight.
And what was worse, worse than the dry pads, the clear visor, the body he’d recuperated back into prime shape only to have it sit unused on the bench, was that he didn’t care. He didn’t care that the coach
didn’t hear him. Didn’t care that the kid in the net was totally overwhelmed and the Mavericks’ rally to get into the playoffs was going to die a pitiful death right here. Right now.
“If you stopped being an asshole, he might listen to you,” Jan Fforde, their injured first-string goalie said, his consonants blunted by his Swedish accent.
“Not much chance of that.” Whether Billy was talking about being an asshole or their coach listening to him, he wasn’t sure. Being an asshole was his way of life, it’s why hockey teams for over fifteen years had been paying his way. The sport needed assholes and Billy was the best. Used to be anyway.
Until he landed in Dallas, with a coach who preached respect and integrity.
Someone should have told Hornsby that respect and integrity didn’t win games. Didn’t turn momentum. A good fight did that. Let Billy get out there and drop gloves with that big Renegade center, Churo, and then the game would turn around. The crowd that booed them would cheer.
The Renegades, who were
killing
the Mavericks on their own ice, would have blood on their faces and they’d know the Mavericks went down swinging.
The Mavericks’ top line—O’Neill, Blake, and Grotosky—surged back into Renegade ice, skating their hearts out. Blake wound up and hammered a slap shot that ricocheted off the post. A mob in front of the goal scrambled for the puck and everyone on the bench stood, screaming. A goal right now would tie up the game and they’d have a shot in overtime.
“Come on!” Billy whispered, willing his fight into
those young guys out there with the fast legs and the strong arms and barely managed talent, “come—”
The buzzer silenced the crowd for a moment and then the few Boston Renegades fans in the arena roared.
The Mavericks were out.
Disheartened, silent, the team skated back toward the bench, knocking fists, defeat riding their young shoulders. This team had fought longer and harder than anyone expected, keeping the playoff dream alive for a community that barely cared. Despite losing tonight, they’d fought like demons.
Hornsby was silent. Billy could think of a thousand better coaches. His grandma for one. And she was dead.
“Good effort, guys,” Billy said, slapping shoulders. His teammates grunted, unsmiling.
Blake, their captain, finally led the team into center ice to shake hands. Billy stood at the end, the only guy besides Fforde without ice time. Without the sweat and blood and heaving lungs of battle. For a second the grief nearly took out his knees, that his career was going to end this way was such a sucker punch, he could barely breathe through the pain.
As he shook hands with the other team, about to go into the first round of the playoffs and get slaughtered by the defending champions, not a single Renegade looked in his face. It was salt in the wound.
Billy Wilkins, second-round draft pick fifteen years ago, was a non-fucking-issue.
Might as well be dead.
Bullshit
, he thought and his temper roared through
him in a brush fire, burning lesser emotions into dust. Everything about this was bullshit.
Churo, the freakish Russian giant, was the last guy in line. As he skated past, barely touching Billy’s outstretched hand, Billy—a good foot shorter and thirty pounds lighter, but blessed with a temper that leveled every playing field—coldcocked him. Snapped the big man’s head back so hard Billy could see his third-world dental work.