Prince Charming Can Wait (Ever After) (32 page)

He idled the engine as he drifted past Emma's cabin, letting the boat coast, unable to drag himself away—

He suddenly noticed a motorboat cutting in close to her dock. The driver killed the engine and pulled up to her dock, a tall shadowed figure at the wheel. Frowning, Harlan circled around, watching closely as the driver tied up to her dock. Who would be at her place at three in the morning?

The driver got out, and Harlan instantly recognized the build. Preston.
Jesus.
"Hey!" Harlan gunned the engine, turning his boat toward shore as Preston stepped onto the dock. The man staggered slightly as he turned clumsily toward Emma's house. Jesus. The piece of shit was drunk.

The door slammed and Emma came racing onto the dock, the moonlight showing that she was wearing only a skimpy camisole and a pair of white shorts. She stopped instantly, when she saw Preston, but the bastard kept coming.

Harlan shouted again, but no one could hear him over the sound of his engine. Swearing, he gunned the engine as fast as he could safely go while he watched the scene unfolding on the dock. Preston lunged for Emma, and she ducked out of his reach. He grabbed her hair and yanked, jerking her back as his fingers went around her neck.

Fury exploded through Harlan as he slowed the boat. He couldn't afford to crash into the dock and knock Emma into the water. "Hey!" he yelled, standing at the wheel as his boat neared. "Get away from her!"

Preston ignored him, dragging Emma by her hair until she went down on her knees.

"Get the fuck off her!" Harlan was coming in too fast, and he hit reverse, slowing the boat. His reflexes were bellowing in helpless frustration as he coasted in with agonizing slowness. "Emma!" He was frantic now, consumed with fear for her. His boat neared her dock, and Harlan bolted to the bow of the boat. It was still five feet away when he leapt off. He crashed onto the dock with a violent thud and sprinted across it. He grabbed Preston and flung him aside. He didn't even hear the man land as he fell to his knees beside Emma. "Emma, sweetheart, are you okay?"

She was clutching her throat and coughing, but she grabbed for Harlan's hand. He gripped it tightly, his free hand checking her frantically for injuries. "Are you hurt? Tell me what's hurt. Talk to me, sweetheart." He felt like he couldn't breathe. "Emma?"

"I'm okay." Her voice was raspy and thick, and she was still holding onto him.

"You're okay? You're sure?"

She nodded, still coughing, still gripping him as if he were her salvation.
She was okay.
Intense relief cascaded through him.
She was okay.
He closed his eyes and pulled her into his arms, desperately needing to feel her against him, to hold her, to protect her. She melted against him, her body trembling and cold. He kissed her forehead, her cheeks, her nose…and then froze as she lifted her face toward him.

He stared at her mouth, his instincts screaming at him to kiss her, but he went rigid, fighting the urge. He couldn't cross that line. He couldn't. He couldn't do that to her again—

She smiled suddenly. "You're thinking about kissing me."

He ground his jaw even as his arms tightened around her. "I'm not going to—"

She raised her eyebrows. "Just for the record, you do realize that you were so worried about me that it didn't even occur to you to hurt Preston, don't you? Once you got him off me, all you were thinking about was me, not hitting him or killing him. Do you even know where he is?"

Harlan looked over his shoulder in time to see Preston surge to his feet in the shallow water, stumbling as he tried to find his boat. "I guess I threw him off the dock."

"You guess?" Emma started laughing, and she framed his face. "See, Harlan? See what happens when you let yourself really care? You were so focused on making sure I was okay that you forgot to hurt him. Loving me made you think about saving me, not hurting him."

Harlan stared at her, as her words sank in. He looked over his shoulder again as Preston tried to climb over the rim of his boat, and promptly fell back in the water. He waited for the hate, the anger, and the need to kill him, but those urges didn't come. He was too tired of those emotions. It felt like too much effort to want to kill him. He simply didn't have the energy, the focus. He just wanted Emma. He just wanted to hold her, kiss her, and be with her.

Son of a bitch. She was right. The anger...the violence...the need to hurt... it was gone.

He looked back at the woman still in his arms. Her smile had faded, and her brow was furrowed. "Why are you here?" she asked. "Weren't you supposed to be on a plane this morning?"

"I couldn't make myself get on the plane." And now he knew why. "I had to give you something."

"Give me something?" She sat up as Harlan dug his hand into the pocket of his jeans. His fingers closed around the circle of gold that he'd kept in his pocket for weeks.

He held it out to her, and the moonlight glittered on it. "I took two rings from Astrid's that night," he said. "I took the plain one, because I didn't want to make promises. But this is the ring I wanted to give you, the one that I chose for you, the one I didn't dare offer to you." He held it out to her.

She looked at it, but she didn't take it. "What is it?" she asked. "It's too dark to see it clearly."

He knew every detail on the ring. "It's gold," he said. "It has three roses engraved around the outside. Three roses, for you, me, and Mattie." His voice seemed to stick in his throat. "They're all intertwined, so you can't see which leaves or stems go with which rose. They're three separate roses, but at the same time, they're one."

Her face softened in the moonlight. "Why'd you pick it?"

"Because—" Shit. He didn't even know how to say it, but he wanted to. The sound of Preston still splashing around in the water behind him was like this great liberation, a symbol of release from being the man he dreaded.

The words that had floated around inside him for so long...he could finally say them. Breathe them. Live them. And, most importantly,
share
them. "Because I want to be that man for you. I want to create a family with you. I don't want to just save the day and then walk away. I want the aftermath. I want the recovery. I want to be there to pick up the pieces every day, for as long as it takes for them to stop falling."

As Emma stared at him, a look of disbelief on her face, he rose to one knee, holding out the ring. "Emma Larson, I love you. I love your smile. I love your heart. I love how you are so brave, and so vulnerable at the same time. I love that you saw in me what I didn't even see." He grinned. "And I love that you left me that message and said you wouldn't cry for me, because I needed that." His smile faded as the weight of his words settled on him. "I don't know how to be a husband, or a dad, or even the guy who knows how to sit at the same dinner table every night, but I swear that I will love you every second of every day, and I will love our kids, because we're going to adopt both of them no matter how much red tape we have to get through, and I will never, ever walk away again, not even for one damn night."

Emma smiled, a slowly-growing beautiful smile that seemed to light up the night, the earth, his world. "So what are you saying?"

"I'm saying that I want to be your husband. Forever." He held out the ring. "Marry me, Emma, marry me for real. Give me one more chance. Please."

The night seemed to pulse in anticipation, and he couldn't take his gaze off Emma's face. He was a man who had never had time for prayer, and he knew he didn't deserve another opportunity, but nevertheless, he found himself whispering a fervent prayer that she grant him that second chance.

"Harlan?"

His heart started to pound. "What?"

"I love you."

He grinned stupidly, his heart leaping in disbelief. "You do?"

"Yes, and I will marry you on one condition."

She was going to marry him again? For real? His grin got wider, a big ass shit-eating grin that felt like it was going to take over his entire face. "What's that?"

"You need to ask your sister to add one more rose to my ring. For Robbie." Then she smiled, a smile that seemed to melt the final pieces of steel still lodged in his heart. "Welcome home, my darling husband."

And home he was.

He took her hand and held up the ring. "We never said our vows before, so here are mine." He met her gaze. "I promise to love you with every bit of my heart for all our days," he said. "I promise that I will always love our children unconditionally. I promise that I will never leave any of you, ever, for any reason. I promise that I will never break your trust in me, and I will never hurt you. I also promise that I will never strike any of you ever, no matter what.
Ever.
"

Emma touched his face. "You don't need to promise not to hit us. I know you'd never do that—"

"I always told myself I would never get married unless I could make that promise and know I spoke the truth." He kissed her hand. "You gave me that truth, Emma, a truth that I thought was impossible, until I met you." He started to slip the ring onto her hand, and she stopped him.

"My turn." She met his gaze, her face so earnest that emotions threatened to overtake him. "I promise to never run away and hide, no matter how hard things get. I promise to always believe in you, and in myself. And I also promise to love you, and our children, with every bit of my heart for all my days."

He grinned, his heart soaring as he took her hand and slid the ring onto her fourth finger. It fit perfectly, glittering in the moonlight, so beautiful. "One more thing before I kiss the bride." He pulled her to her feet. "Come on."

"Where are we going?" Her hand slipped perfectly into his as he led her to the edge of the dock, where his boat was now bumping gently against the reeds a few yards from shore.

"Patience, my dear." Harlan jumped off the dock, landing in water up to his hips. He held up his arms. "Come on."

She didn't hesitate as she tumbled into his arms, trusting him completely. He carried her across the water and then set her in the boat. With nothing but a mysterious grin, he shoved the boat back into deeper water, then hauled himself on board, dripping wet, but neither of them cared. Within minutes, they'd left Preston and her cabin behind, the wind whipping past them just like it had the night of their first boat ride.

As he drove, he pulled Emma in front of him, trapping her between his body and the steering wheel, just like the night they'd gotten married. He drove to the exact spot in the lake that he'd avoided ever since, and cut the engine. "Do you recognize where we are?"

"It's where we were the first time you asked me to marry you." She turned to him, her face glowing. "You're a romantic, aren't you?"

"Turns out, there may be many hidden facets to my personality that can be brought out only by the love of a good woman." He slid his hands through her hair, tangling his fingers in the golden tresses.

Emma smiled. "You can grab my hair if you want. It doesn't scare me anymore." She draped her arms around his neck. "Nothing about you scares me, even giving you my heart."

"That is very good to know," he said, as he bent his head. "But I don't want to do the he-man grab-your-hair thing anymore. It's not my style." Then he kissed her, showing her exactly what his style was now. A kiss that promised forever. A kiss that promised love. A kiss that promised that the floor of his boat was going to get a little bit of action under the moonlit sky.

He might be married. He might soon be a dad. But he was also a man who had waited too damn long to make love to his wife the way he wanted to, and the way she deserved. Tonight, he was going to make her his.

"Harlan," she whispered as he lowered her to the carpet, their kisses becoming more intense and passionate as they both finally lowered the barriers they'd lived with for so long.

"Yeah?"

"Why did you leave me roses the second time?"

He braced himself above her, supporting himself on his hands as he looked down at her. Her hair was tousled, her smile happy, his ring sparkling on her hand. "Because I wanted you to be right about me."

She grinned. "Me, too."

He settled himself on top of her, basking in the feel of her beneath him as he lightly grasped her wrists and stretched her arms above her head.

"Make love to me, Harlan." She grinned suddenly. "The kids probably arrive tomorrow. We won't make love again until we're both sixty."

"Screw that." He let out a low growl that made her giggle. "I'll be claiming you every damn night of our lives, woman. I've got a lifetime to make up."

She smiled. "So do I."

Then he kissed her, and that new lifetime finally began.

"Which way around that buoy?"

Shielding her eyes against the afternoon sun, Emma glanced over her shoulder to look where Robbie was headed. "Stay to the left. That marks a reef in the middle of the lake. You have to stay on the shore side with that one."

"That's Moose Reef?" The youth was wearing sunglasses, and his Red Sox cap on backwards, already faded from the sun. It had been only two months since that day Harlan had arrived with him from California, but he had already come so far. He'd ditched his tee shirt and shoved it under the dash so it didn't blow away, showcasing ribs that were getting less visible and the ragged scar on his side that she was sure would never completely go away. "I gotta learn this lake. I don't want to crack up the boat."

"You're doing great." Smiling at his innate sense of responsibility, Emma leaned against the windshield, playing spotter for Robbie while he drove. Behind the boat, at the end of a thirty-foot rope were Harlan and Mattie, who were scrunched together in the tube that Harlan had come home with two days after Mattie and Robbie had moved in. Her pink princess life jacket was practically around her ears, but her broad smile lit up her face. She waved at Emma, and Emma waved back.