For The Love Of Nick

16

“HELLO, TED,” Danielle said as he walked toward her.

The man she’d once looked at with her heart in her eyes lifted an envelope. “Your records. From Laura Lyn.”

Danielle’s stomach clenched at yet another betrayal. “I see.”

“I doubt it.” He stopped a good five feet back from Sadie, who hadn’t moved but had started a low, very unhappy growl. “Gail Winters helped me out. You remember her, don’t you?”

Knowing, as sure as she was of her next breath, that Nick was close by and wouldn’t let anything happen to either her or Sadie allowed her to speak calmly. “She always did find you charming.”

“You used to.”

“Used to being the operative words here.”

His eyes darkened, not with a sexual heat as Nick’s did when he looked at her, but with a dangerous, edgy expression that made her thankful she wasn’t really alone.

Odd, but being alone suddenly didn’t hold the same appeal anymore. It might never again.

She was safe, even staring down Ted. She felt it to the very depth of her soul. Even more devastating, was the sudden realization that she hadn’t felt safe often in her life. But whenever she’d been with Nick, then and now, she’d felt it. She was safe with him and had been since the beginning.

“You’re looking well,” Ted said silkily.

He was not. She’d always thought of the tall, lean, handsome Ted as cool, captivating and sophisticated. Now, with his wrinkled shirt, dirty pants and muddy shoes, he just seemed like a man who got ugly when he didn’t get his way. “I’m not afraid of you,” she said, and out of the corner of her eyes saw someone shift their weight on the deck.

Nick.

She knew he’d back her up because he cared. Because he wanted her.

Because he loved her.

She waited for the angst over that, for the mistrust, the fear…but it didn’t come. In its place was a yearning she was beginning to recognize and understand.

“You should be afraid,” Ted told her. “You’re in some heavy legal trouble if you don’t do as I want. And what I want is for you to come home. To me.”

“To be the trophy girlfriend.”

“The wife. I want Sadie, too.”

“It won’t work, Ted. We’re too different. I’m not what you want. You’re not what I want. Please, let go. Just let go.”

“Letting go isn’t an option.” His eyes were a little wild, and…desperate? “You and Sadie belong with me.”

“I won’t marry you.” It took every ounce of strength not to shrink away from the burst of rage in his gaze. “I’m not coming back.” She put her hand on Sadie’s large head. Felt Sadie drool on her foot. “Sadie isn’t coming back, either. I know it was you who left the threatening e-mail. Who took all the money out of my account. Who’s been spying on us. The police are interested in those things.”

“You stole from me.”

“I think they’ll understand why I did when I explain it all. I should never have run, Ted. I should have faced this, and you, from the beginning.”

His eyes narrowed and his mouth tightened. Signs she now recognized as his uncontrollable temper raising its ugly head. When he stepped forward, she stood, and would have moved in front of Sadie but the dog pressed in front of her instead and faced Ted with her teeth bared.

Ted glared down at her. “Have you forgotten who feeds you, dog?”

“I do,” Danielle said quietly, her hand still on Sadie. “Let her go. Let’s not fight over her, it’s not right.”

“What’s not right is the way you’re not listening. Let’s go home,” he said in an abrupt change of tactic. “We’ll talk. Work this out.”

“Another dog would be cheaper, Ted.”

He shook his head and took another step toward her. “It’s not about the dog. It’s about you.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“It’s true.” Ted closed the gap between them and put a hand on her arm.

Just as Sadie put her mouth around his ankle and chomped down.

With a howl, Ted kicked out.

Danielle reacted without thinking. All she knew was that Ted had aimed toward Sadie’s belly, the belly that possibly held puppies. With a fierce shriek, she picked up a potted geranium, stood on the bench for leverage and…dropped it on Ted’s head.

The pot cracked, dirt rained down and by the time Ted howled again, all her backup forces had arrived: Clint, Maureen and Nick. And all reached for Ted.

“She attacked me,” he yelled, shrinking back. “With a plant! She’s crazy, she’s going to jail, she’s-”

“She’s this man’s fiancée,” Maureen said calmly, standing back while Nick easily restrained him.

“She’s a thief! She’s a liar!” He fought Nick. “Without me she’s nothing but a common slut-”

A clod of dirt found its way into Ted’s mouth. “Oops,” Nick said mildly, as he held Ted down. “Hate it when that happens.”

Spitting dirt, Ted screamed obscenities. Everyone ignored him.

The police came.

The neighbors came.

Maureen served tea and chatted cheerfully, talking up her B &B.

Clint clapped Nick on the back. “A keeper,” he said, nodding toward Danielle. “Welcome to the family,” he said to Danielle with a kiss on the cheek.

“But…” she started, only to have him walk away to join his sister, Maureen.

“I’ll tell them everything in the morning,” Nick said quietly, staring down into the mug of tea Maureen had forced on him. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I do worry about it,” she said, her voice trembling. “Because…” With surprise she looked down at her hands, which were shaking. “God. I’m more nervous right now than I was facing Ted.”

Nick’s coolness vanished, and in a heartbeat he was right there, stroking her jaw, reaching for her hand, fury and worry battling for first place in his eyes but not his voice, which remained gentle. “Probably delayed shock. Let’s go. I’m taking you inside.”

“No, that’s not what I meant.” She tried to smile. “I’m nervous because I want to tell you…that is…I need to mention…” She closed her eyes, felt his hands slip around her waist and forced them open again. No more weakness. She wanted to be strong, take a stand for this. “Nick, I don’t want you to tell them we’re not a couple. That we’re not in a relationship.”

“You don’t think they’ll understand? Danielle, I never should have told them that lie, I-”

“No, you don’t understand. It came to me earlier, I just had to chew on it.”

“Chew on what?”

“Don’t you see? I don’t want it to all be a lie. I want to be tied to you. I want to hear you tell me you love me again. I want to wear your ring, be your wife.”

He went very still, then sank to a chair as if his legs would no longer hold him. “Now I’m shaking.” He drew in a careful breath. “Did you just propose to me?”

“Yes,” she said through a lump in her throat. “Yes, I’m proposing. I love you, Nick Cooper. I want to be your wife, through thick and thin, through your travels and my schooling, through puppies and babies.”

He opened his mouth but when nothing came out, he shut it again.

“Forever,” she added, thinking maybe he didn’t quite understand.

He nodded. “Forever.”

“Nick?”

“I’m just…I thought you’d want to take off, that maybe we’d see each other once in a while if I asked you just right. I thought-I never imagined…”

“I was that bad? Oh, Nick.” She hugged him hard. “I’m sorry I was so slow.”

“No, it’s okay.” His eyes looked suspiciously damp in the light of the moon as he buried his face in her hair.

She squeezed him close, this big, tough, wonderful man who was all hers. “I love you, Nick. I mean it.”

“You’d better. I love you back. God, I love you back.”

So relieved she could hardly breathe, she pulled back and gave him a stupid grin. “And the rest? How do you feel about the rest?”

“Oh yeah, I want the thick and thin, the travels and schooling, the puppies. The babies. Especially the babies.” He kissed her, long and hard. “I want it all. With you.”

Sadie pushed between them and whined.

Danielle ran a hand over her huge head. “What’s the matter?”

“I think she’s lonely,” Nick said. “She needs love, too. We’ll have to find just the right dog, just for her.”

Danielle curled her arms back around Nick, with Sadie pressed between them. “Yes,” she murmured, pressing her lips to his. “No one should be alone. Not when they can have this. A mate for life.”

“A mate for life,” Nick agreed and turned her toward the inn. “Let’s go home.”

“Where’s home?”

“Wherever you are. You’re going back to school, right?”

“I’d like to.”

“Then we’ll go to where the school is. After that…” He lifted a shoulder. “Big city, back here, somewhere new…doesn’t matter. As long as I’m with you, I’m open.”

“It just happens that so am I.” She smiled. “As long as I’m with you.”