Nora Roberts Land (42 page)

The standoff had already begun. Tanner sat crossly on his bed while Meredith smiled back at him. The trip to New York had clearly agreed with her.

Catching sight of the new Nora Roberts hardcover sticking out of Meredith’s handbag, Jill executed a twirl as she left the room.

Love did conquer all. Just like Nora always said.

Now, she needed to find her own Nora Roberts Land.

She linked her arm with Brian’s and hesitantly settled her body closer to his.

Chapter 58

A
bout time you got back,” Tanner barked again when the door closed behind Jill and Brian.

His sour mood couldn’t ruin her happiness. She was thrilled to see him again. Even though her family had given her progress reports, his improving health soothed all the worry from her gut. She floated over to him and kissed his cheek. “Someone’s grouchy. Shoulder hurting?”

He slanted her a look. “Yeah, but that’s not why I’m pissed. Why the hell did you take off and tackle Sommerville by yourself while I was stuck here?”

She folded herself into the chair next to his bed. “I needed to handle things myself.”

“I got a text from your ex,” he growled. “He said he wishes us well, and there are no hard feelings. What the fuck is that all about?”

Her brows winged up. “Oh really?”

He punched the bed with his good arm, rattling the frame. “Yes, really,” he mimicked in a nasty tone, not looking at her.

“He did bring us together.”

Tanner snorted. “That’s rich. Like that makes what he did okay.”

“Mhmm.”

“I wanted to handle Sommerville myself.”

She cleared her throat until he finally met her eyes. “Well, I had the means, so I did it. Just like a heroine in one of my Nora Roberts novels, which I totally need to tell you about later.”

His scowl accentuated his scar.

“After you offered your life for mine, I thought one good turn deserved another.”

“I hate that phrase,” he snarled. “That’s not why I did it.”

Her heart warmed. God, she wanted to touch him, but she needed to know one more thing. “I know. Besides, I didn’t want this whole blackmail thing to be between us for another moment.”

He grew silent, fiddling with his IV.

“Your face is still bruised.” The colorful patchwork quilt of pain made her heart beat tightly in her chest.

He ran his hand across his jaw. “Yeah, and I need a shave too.”

She folded her arms. “You should have told me about the blackmail.”

The monitors droned on in the silence.

“I didn’t think I could at first. Then, I thought it would be better to wait until we solved the case.” He shook his head. “It all comes down to one damn reason though. No, two.” He kicked at the sheet that covered him.

Her pulse stopped. “And those are?”

His chocolate brown eyes gleamed at her. “I didn’t want to fucking lose you. Or see you hurt.”

Inside she was glowing, but he wasn’t getting off that easy. “Quite a gambit. Crushing me to bits in one move, thinking I would come back in the end.”

His jaw clenched. “I’m sorry. I hated doing it, but I couldn’t think of another way to protect you. After Peg…I couldn’t fucking risk you! I was willing to lose you if it meant keeping you safe.”

She had to take a moment to clear her throat. His raw emotion triggered her own. How could she have ever thought badly of him?

“You were willing to die to keep me safe.” She leaned closer, gripping the hand rails of his bed.

His scowl seemed more menacing under his thick stubble. God, he must have looked like a badass with a full beard.

“I was going to find a way to get out of it! I don’t have a fucking death wish, and it’s not that I don’t trust you.” The white straw toppled out of his styrofoam cup when he fiddled with it. “Besides, you’re one to talk.”

“So, we make a good pair.” She rested her chin on her hands. “I went to New York to show you that you can trust me—and that I can handle myself.”

His eyes fired. “I know you can.”

She snorted.

“I do. It’s just that I don’t want you to get hurt if I’m around to stop it. Call it the He-man gene, but I have it. Get over it.”

Her brows rose even as her heart soared. “You are surly.”

He pinned her in place with his gaze. “I was worried you weren’t coming back!” He looked away. Swallowed hard. “That you couldn’t…forgive me,” he whispered.

Her heart pounded in insistent thuds. It took a minute to answer. “I’ve decided my life is here. I told my grandpa and dad that I want to take over the paper.” She finally reached for his hand and threaded their scraped fingers together, careful of the IV. “Tanner.”

He met her gaze, his eyes pinched at the corners. God, he was so beautiful.

“I do forgive you. All the way.” She smiled softly. “I love you.”

His hand squeezed hers in a death grip. “Thank God. I wasn’t…I hoped…I love you too. I meant what I said on the mountain. Dammit, I’m not doing this right. These damn drugs.”

She scooted closer, wanting to crawl up next to him on the bed. “It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not. I hurt you, and I want to make it better.” He snorted. “Shit, I sound like Keith. I have something for you.” When he leaned over to the side table, wincing, she leapt up.

“Let me get that, you macho ape.”

It was a pale cream box tied up in a moss green ribbon.

“There’s no way you tied this,” she commented drolly.

He sputtered out a laugh, holding a rib. “Maybe I have hidden ribbon-tying talents.”

“And pigs fly.” She undid it slowly, goosebumps dancing across her skin. “You also didn’t buy this present yourself, since you’ve been in the hospital.”

“Maybe I ordered it online?”

“Right.”

“Oh, shut up and open it. You’re driving me crazy.”

“Ditto.”

“Jill and Peg helped after I told them what I wanted. Then your grandpa threw in a hand. Could have blown me over if I hadn’t already been flat on my ass.”

When she parted the tissue, she pursed her mouth. A cotton tank in pale pink lay artfully folded, monogrammed with MW.

MW?

Jeez, he really was zonked out on drugs. She tucked her tongue in her cheek, wondering if Jill had told him she used to wear cotton. God knows Jill would have zero compunction about talking about her underwear.

He wiggled closer to the rail. “What’s the matter? Don’t you like it?”

“It’s lovely.”

“But…”

She rolled her eyes. “Fine. Since we’re all Truth or Dare now, I hate to tell you this, but you got my initials wrong.”

His scowl made his bruises shift. “Dammit, I told them to put it on top. Keep looking.”

When she lifted the tank, her mind went blank.

Her grandmother’s ring winked at her. She picked it up, remembering how she used to twist it and make a wish when she was a little girl. Her grandma had told her it was a special ring. It had brought her true love. She’d hoped to inherit it and wear it for her marriage with Richard, but her grandpa hadn’t said a word. His disapproval had been clear from the start.

Tears burned her eyes as she clutched the ring to her chest. “My grandpa gave you this?”

Tanner cleared his throat. “It was his way of showing me he wasn’t going to kick my ass…and letting me know your family approves of me sticking around and persuading you to marry me.”

Her breath rushed out. A bunch of messy emotions jogged up her throat, making her fear she’d do something girly and bawl. She reined it in. She was not going to bawl while her hero asked her to marry him.

“I see,” she rasped.

He gestured with his good arm. “I want something different now. I want to settle down with you. Have a few kids like Keith, who’ll paper our refrigerator with their drawings.” He pointed to a paper card decorated with a lopsided heart and Keith’s name in a blue crayon.

“Is that what you’re suggesting?” she squeaked out when she could finally speak through her suddenly dry mouth.

She hadn’t expected this. No, not at all.

He snapped down the rail separating them. “Yes, and I’m doing a damn poor job of it. Look, I know your divorce wasn’t that long ago, but I love you.”

The intensity of his expression made a tear slide free.

“I want to marry you. I want kids with you. The whole she-bang.” His mouth turned up in a nervous smile as he took a deep breath. “I know you’ll need time to start trusting me again, but I want you to know that I’m in this for the long haul. I’m going to extend my teaching position, and if you’re okay with it, I want to help out at the paper. Your grandpa has a desk waiting for me.”

Oh, her sweet gramps. She fingered the cotton tank, soft as a baby’s skin. God, he’d mentioned wanting babies. Her mind skyrocketed with possibilities.

“Why the tank?”

His ears turned a pleasant red. “Well, you said you wore cotton before, so I thought you might consider a new alter ego.”

When she lifted her eyes to his, his mouth turned up. “Married Woman.”

She pressed her hands to his rough face. “You’re too funny. I bought my first cotton underwear since the divorce in New York. While I’ll bring the La Perla out every once in a while, I don’t need it to show me who I am anymore.”

“Who you are is beautiful.” He grabbed her hand and raised it to his lips, kissing it like an old-world gentleman. “I love you.”

Her whole body relaxed. “I love you, too.”

“I won’t rush you, I promise. I know you like to take your time.”

She thrust the ring toward him. “Some things don’t need more time. I thought I was going to lose you, Tanner.”

He shuttered out a sigh. “Me too.”

When she looked into his eyes, she saw herself. It really was true. You could see yourself in someone else’s eyes.

“I don’t want to wait.”

He pulled her against him with one arm, and she carefully wrapped her arms around him.

“God, I love you,” he whispered. “So much.”

His kiss gave her the punch, followed by the liquid tide of love, lust, and longing she had only found with him.

He pulled back and slid the ring onto her finger. “I would have followed you to New York.”

Oh that wicked gleam in his eyes. It was good to see it again.

“I’m where I belong. I just have one more article to write. Then I’ll be done.”

He drew her onto the bed beside him. “What’s it going to say?”

She traced his lips and settled her body against his.

“I’m going to write about how we found our happily ever after.”

Epilogue

“Nora Roberts Proven Correct: Happily Ever After Does Exist”

By Meredith Hale

If you read Nora Roberts, you are probably thinking, duh, of course Nora’s right, but honestly, I went through over a year feeling less than sure. Some people wouldn’t make a federal case out of it, but to me this topic was deeply personal. For the past four months, I was on assignment to debunk my ex-husband’s assertion that Nora Roberts’s novels ruined our marriage and led to our divorce. I dedicated myself to proving happily ever after existed. Trust me, it’s harder than it sounds.

Let’s back up a minute. Like many of you, I love (present tense) Nora’s books. There wasn’t a paperback or hardcover I hadn’t read. I spent hours enthralled by delicious romances with strong, sassy heroines and hot, dependable heroes. They bantered throughout the books while “finding” themselves, being encouraged and challenged by family, and sometimes even catching the bad guys. Regardless of the plot, you knew where you were going.

My mother picked up Nora’s first book in 1981. She used to tell my father she was heading to Nora Roberts Land when she’d steal away from laundry to read a new release. This land held magic and love.

When I came of age, she gave one to me. Like its title, Sea Swept swept me away.

With over two hundred books in print—a record in publishing—Nora has influenced an entire generation of women. I’m part of that generation. She’s shaped the way I want love, sex, and relationships to work. I’ve always felt better about life after reading a Nora Roberts book. They made me believe in happily ever after.

I believed in it when I said my vows and when my husband and I started our life together. Things didn’t work out as I’d expected. He had his faults. I had mine.

However, instead of letting bygones be bygones, my ex zinged me with the notion that Nora’s books were pure fiction. Love didn’t exist in the real world like that, he said. Reading Nora had given me artificial expectations about what a real relationship entailed.

We got divorced. I stopped reading Nora (and J.D. Robb too—don’t hate me). Worse, I suspected my ex might have been right.

A year after I signed the divorce papers, I made a decision. I was not going to pooh-pooh Santa Claus anymore—okay, in this case, Nora Roberts Land. It was time to start believing in happily ever after again. Even more, it was time to find it.

I’m a journalist, so I investigate. I journeyed to my small hometown like one of Nora’s characters, broken down, but ready to rebuild my life, surrounded by my loving family. I went back to work at our family newspaper in the Rocky Mountains to give my dad some time off after his heart attack, telling no one of my real plans except my sister—because you can trust your sister, right? I made a list of all the available Nora Roberts heroes in our town. These included a firefighter, a forest ranger, a doctor, a college professor. Well, you get the drift.

Newly divorced as an early thirtysomething, my quest became a public amusement. The whole town thought I was on a Man Bender. But my heart wasn’t in it. Every date was about looking for negatives. Some guys made this super easy by not being particularly nice or by being downright boring.

Beyond the fact that my heart wasn’t in it, I’d lost my confidence. I felt like a failure and wondered what was wrong with me. Does any of this sound familiar to those of you who’ve been dumped? I even invented a superhero alter ego named Divorcée Woman to regain my courage. Armored in La Perla’s exquisite lingerie every day—bought with my alimony, thank you—I channeled sexiness, confidence, and female power. And you know what? It helped—for a while. So if you need a pick-me-up to help you regain what you’ve lost, find something. Once you’ve got your groove back, that crutch can slide away. Mine did.