Here to Stay (51 page)

He shoved to his feet and strode over to the door. By his calculations, it was Quincy’s turn to come tonight. As Zach drew the door open, he said, “If you brought another green smoothie, you’re going to be wearing it when you leave.”

Shock coursed through him when he saw Mandy standing on his porch. She was alarmingly frail. Her face was so pale that her hazel eyes looked gigantic. Zach stared at her stupidly for several seconds before he found the presence of mind to invite her in.

She stepped over the threshold and moved aside so he could shut the door.

He gestured at the table. “Have a seat.”

She wore a lightweight summer blouse the color of a watermelon rind without the streaks, and a pair of white capris. Both garments swallowed her. Luke hadn’t exaggerated: She’d lost a shitload of weight.

She took a chair. Zach saw her gaze shift to the bottle of tequila. Then she flicked a questioning look at him.

He shrugged. “I’m three sheets to the wind. So shoot me. I lost the love of my life a month and a half ago, and I’m drowning my sorrow in booze.” When she said nothing, he joined her at the table and refilled his tumbler, bypassing ice. He would have shot the damned stuff straight into his vein if that had been an option. “I pretty much gave up drinking for you,” he told her as he took a slug. “You tossed me aside like so much garbage anyway. So what’s the frigging point? Abstaining sucks.”

She leaned across the table and took the glass from his hand. “You haven’t lost me,” she told him, her voice tremulous. “I took your advice and started seeing a counselor.”

Zach’s heart jerked. “And?”

“The sessions haven’t brought about a magical cure, but I am working through my problems.”

“That’s nice.” Great answer.
Careful, Zach. She’s broken your heart once. Don’t open yourself up to it again
. “So where does that leave us, Mandy, still on hold?”

Her eyes clung to his. “I came here tonight to ask a favor. It’ll probably sound stupid.”

“What kind of favor?”

“To please not give up on me.” Her eyes went bright with tears. “I’ve been so worried that you’ll find someone else that I can’t sleep at night. I’m still not ready to get married yet, but I think I will be eventually. I just need to know you’re willing to wait.”

Zach sank back in the chair. She was worried that he’d find someone else? If it hadn’t been so sad, he would have laughed. He’d looked high and low for the right lady, and Mandy was it for him. “Mandy, please don’t take this wrong, but where the hell were you when I told you how much I love you? There’ll never be anyone else.”

“Truly?”

Zach’s stomach was in knots and his hands had started to shake. He grabbed the tequila bottle and took three big swallows. Wiping his mouth, he whacked the jug back down on the table. “I seldom say things I don’t mean.” He passed a hand over his eyes. “I love you. So much I can’t think of a way to describe it. I’ll happily wait if you’re going to counseling and seriously trying to get your act together.”

“Oh, yes, I am seriously trying. It—” She broke off and smoothed the palm of her hand over the tabletop. “It isn’t easy. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone to a session and wished you were there. I’m discovering—and this isn’t easy to admit��that I’m a lot more mixed-up than I realized.” She tapped her nails against the waxed walnut surface. “I’ve almost called you so many times. Just to talk, you know. To tell you about the day’s session and what I got out of it. Sometimes I’d get your number almost dialed and then lose my nerve at the last second.”

Zach swallowed hard. That last line sounded all too familiar. He’d been doing the same thing. “I wish you had kept dialing. I didn’t know you were going to counseling. These last few weeks would have been a lot easier if I’d known that.”

“I . . . I went today, too. It was . . . I think ... sort of a turning point. So I had to come and tell you about it.”

“I’m listening.” Zach propped his crossed his arms on the tabletop. “Shoot.”

She looked him directly in the eye. “I wanted to tell you that I realized I’ve been a total fool. That without your support, I don’t think I can do this. That I need you as a sounding board. That I need to hear your take on my feelings. And I needed to come here tonight and tell you personally, not over the phone, but straight to your face, that I’m sorry for what I said to you that last morning. It was a horrible thing to say, and you didn’t—” She gulped. “You didn’t deserve that. I wish I could take it back, but I can’t. Just please know I didn’t mean it to hurt you. I didn’t even mean it at all. It just popped out. I was feeling trapped and scared to death that I’d . . . that I’d lose you if I didn’t agree to your terms, and I said it without thinking. I don’t believe you’d ever do
anything
to hurt me, and I know you’d never be dictatorial. It was a stupid thing to say, and I hope . . . well, someday I hope you’ll find it in your heart to forgive me.”

Zach stood up and opened his arms. “Come here, sweetheart.”

She leaped up, circled the table, and launched herself at him with such force that she knocked him straight back into the wall. He didn’t care. Tightening his embrace, he buried his face in her hair. “Over the years when we quarrel, both of us are going to say things occasionally that we’ll wish later we hadn’t said. I’ll forgive you for what you said to me that morning if you’ll promise to give me a pass in the future when I stick my foot in my mouth. I have an unfortunate talent for it. Do we have a deal?”

She laughed softly, the sound wet and smothered. “That strikes me as being a great deal.”

“I didn’t think I’d ever hold you like this again,” he whispered. “It feels so damned good to have you in my arms.”

She hugged his neck. “It feels good to be here. Right, Zach, perfectly and absolutely right.”

He swayed with her, wondering as he did if he wasn’t a little more toasted than he’d thought. “If you really need my support to get through this, Mandy, how would you feel about it if I went to the counseling sessions with you?”

She leaned back to search his expression. “You’d do that for me?”

Zach couldn’t help but smile. “Mandy, I’d cut off my right arm for you.”

“The sessions are boring. The counselor goes over and over stuff with me. You’d probably go brain-dead.”

“I doubt it. Nothing about you bores me. And being there, hearing how you feel and why you feel that way, might help me to understand you better. I think that might be a very good thing. Counseling can take you only so far. Then you’ll have to do the rest. It only makes sense for us to tackle your problems as a couple. Don’t you agree?”

She smiled. “I’d love to have you go with me. That would be awesome.”

Zach didn’t want to let go of her, but he felt her try to pull away and forced his arms to his sides.

“Well,” she said softly. “I, um ... As soon as I get my next appointment scheduled, I’ll give you a call. Maybe we can meet at the clinic. Would that work?”

Zach realized she meant to leave. “No, that won’t work.”

She looked startled. “It won’t?”

“No. If we’re going to tackle your problems as a couple, then we should
be
a couple. You’ve got two choices. I can move back to your place, or you and Luke can move in here. I vote for the latter. This house is larger. Luke can be with Rosebud almost full-time. My home office will be a better working environment for you, and I’ll leave less of a carbon imprint if I’m not driving back and forth.”

“But I’m not ready for marriage yet, and you said—”

“I know what I said, but that was when you’d ruled out the possibility of marriage. Now you’re working on that. It’s a whole different kettle of fish. So, you choose, your place or mine?”

She ran back into his arms. “I don’t care where I live, Zach. All I care about is being with you. You could pitch a tent and I’d be happy.”

He chuckled. “I think I can do a little better than that.” He held her close, reveling in the feel of her against him. “There is one thing. My dad is old-fashioned. For the sake of Harrigan family harmony, would it bother you to wear an engagement ring? It can be a real engagement—or not. I won’t push you on that. But it will be easier for my dad to accept us living together if he believes our intent is to get married soon.”

She slipped her slender arms around his neck and leaned back to smile up at him. “I’d love to have an engagement ring. And it won’t be a fake engagement, Zach. My intent truly is to marry you. I’m just taking the long way around. But I love you, I want you, and I want terribly to spend my life with you.”

Those were, without question, the most wonderful words Zach had ever heard. She truly did mean to marry him. He didn’t care how long it took them to get there. Mandy was worth the wait.

“Ring shopping tomorrow. We’ll celebrate over lunch. Sound good?”

“It sounds divine.”

Zach kissed her then. The instant their mouths met, desire flared through his veins. He bent to catch her behind the knees, lifted her into his arms, and carried her up the stairs to the master suite. Clothes, boots, and shoes went flying. They fell on the bed, so hungry for each other that their lovemaking was almost frantic. Zach tried to hold himself in check and wait, but it had been too long. His body screamed for release.

“I’m sorry,” he told her.

“Need you,” she whispered. “Need you, need you, need you.”

Zach thrust deeply into her. She arched to meet him. As her wet heat enveloped him, he felt as if he’d been lost and had finally found his way home.

“Don’t
ever
leave me again,” she murmured against his shoulder. “Don’t ever, Zach. I don’t think I could bear it.”

Zach struggled to slow his pace, wanting to make this as pleasurable for her as it was for him. But when she said that and he heard the sincerity in her voice, he lost it. His body clenched. He pushed in deep. She cried out and met him with an eager tilt of her hips. They clung to each other as a galvanic climax rocked them to the core.

Afterward when they lay wrapped in each other’s arms and Zach had caught his breath, he pressed a kiss to her forehead and told her, “Never worry that I’ll leave you again, Mandy mine. This time around I’m here to stay.”

Epilogue

Six months later

M
andy stood in the vestibule of St. Catherine’s, so nervous her knees were knocking. She plucked at her wedding gown, readjusted her veil, and turned frantically to Luke, who was going to give her away. “Please tell me I didn’t just mess up my hair.”

The moment she spoke, Mandy realized how stupid that was. Her brother couldn’t see her, but he was managing so well on his own now that she occasionally forgot. He smiled slightly. “You didn’t. Your hair looks perfect, and so do you. When I smell beautiful, I know it, and you’re beautiful today, Mands. Absolutely beautiful.”

Mandy giggled. “You’re looking pretty darned good yourself.” Zach had chosen to wear a Western-style tux, insisting that all males in the wedding party follow suit. She straightened Luke’s bolo tie, a gift from Zach that sported a chunk of amber that glinted in the light coming through the windows. “You make a very handsome cowboy.”

Her brother grinned. “I hope Laurie thinks so.”

Luke and Laurie had been dating hot and heavy. She had her own car and was out at the ranch so often that Mandy was coming to think of her as a member of the family. Because Luke and Laurie were so young, Mandy doubted the relationship would last, but Frank Harrigan, whom she now called Dad, assured her that twenty-year-old kids could and did fall in love and stay together. He and his first wife, Emily, had married young. He claimed that first loves were the truest and ran the deepest.

Mandy took that to be a good omen for her and Zach. He was her very first true love, and he often told her that she was his.

“You okay?” Luke asked. “Don’t do a runaway-bride thing on me. I can’t see to chase you down.”

Mandy hooked arms with him. “I am perfectly fine. I’m ready for this, Luke. I truly am. The last thing I want to do is run.”

And she meant that from the bottom of her heart. As promised, Zach had gone to counseling with her, never missing a single session, and afterward they’d spent hours talking about her feelings. Zach had also spent a lot of hours wanting to break into the prison and bludgeon her father, but for Mandy, even Zach’s anger had been healing. She knew now, deep within, that Zach would never be like her dad. He was funny, sexy, sweet, and always her rock, no matter how crazily her emotions oscillated.

Mandy couldn’t remember ever being so happy. Zach had built her a gorgeous greenhouse at the ranch where she could dabble with her plants, and he insisted that she start college as soon as possible to get a degree in horticulture so she could open her own nursery in town. Mandy had already quit her job and hoped to enroll at the university for the spring quarter.

Her life had become exciting, wonderful, and filled with promise.

She leaned over in front of Luke to pat Rosebud on the head. “Are you ready, sweetheart? Don’t let all those people in there make you feel nervous.”

“They won’t make her nervous,” Luke said. “She likes crowds. Her only problem today will be that you’re suddenly getting all the attention. She’s used to the spotlight.”

Mandy laughed. “Too bad, Rosebud. This is
my
day to shine.”

The mini had completed her training and, as Zach had predicted months before, she was an amazing guide animal. She had become Luke’s constant companion. Recently Zach had received notification that the agency in charge of the Americans with Disabilities Act had voted to ban many species as service animals, and horses of all sizes were on the list. Fortunately, the ruling hadn’t yet come into effect, and Zach had the financial support of his entire family to launch a campaign to get the ruling reversed. He vowed to take it clear to the Supreme Court, if necessary.

Mandy could only pray that the decision would be overturned. Rosebud would be with Luke until he was almost fifty, unless something unexpected happened. With Carly Coulter’s help, Luke now managed to get around quite well with a cane, but Rosebud gave him increased confidence, allowing him access to places where he might have hesitated to go without her. And she was such a little lady, perfectly mannered and calm, regardless of what went on around her. If she was banned as an assistance animal, Luke would keep her, utilizing her services in places where her status didn’t matter. But ideally, he should be able to have Rosebud accompany him to college. He was enrolled for the winter term, and the mini would make it a lot easier for him to find his way around.