“I love you, Rebecca,” he said softly. “And I wouldn’t change a damn thing about you.”
Warmth exploded in her chest, circling her heart and bringing tears to her eyes. “I love you, too.”
“Finally, she says it. Took you long enough.”
“You deserved to sweat for a bit after your big you’re-not-right-for-me speech.”
Guilt flashed across his face. “I’m sorry about that. I was an idiot.”
“You were, but that’s okay. I forgive you.”
She couldn’t seem to stop smiling, and she knew she must look ridiculously goofy and starry-eyed at the moment. But it was simply impossible to control the sparks of happiness dancing through her body.
“So we’re really going to do this?” she asked, her voice going serious. “We’re going to see where this whole relationship thing leads?”
“No.”
Her mouth fell open. “What do you mean no?”
“Darling, just because I’m willing to amend the qualities I want my perfect woman to have doesn’t mean I’m not a gentleman anymore.” His smile was self-deprecating. “I think I’ll always be that old-fashioned good guy you like to tease me about being. And the good guy in me wants more than an affair from you. He wants to put a ring on your finger.”
“Are you asking me to marry you?”
“Would you say no if I did?”
Rebecca pondered that for a moment, wondering why the idea of getting engaged wasn’t freaking her out in the slightest.
“Don’t worry, it’ll be a long engagement,” Nick assured her. “It’ll take me a while to reintegrate into society. After all, I’ve been living in crumbling fortresses and beach shacks this past year.”
The little grin he gave her was so adorable she almost melted into a puddle at his feet. God, she loved this man. She never would have dreamed that she’d fall in love with someone so sweet and respectable—an old-fashioned gentleman, as he apparently liked to refer to himself.
And yet she’d fallen. Hard. And she had no intention of letting Nick Barrett go.
“Okay, fine, but only if I get to pick out the ring,” she said with shrug.
“I propose to you and you respond with ‘Okay, fine’?” He shook his head in dismay. “What am I going to do with you, Red?”
“Lots of things,” she answered cheerfully. “Trust me, we’re going to have a blast together.”
“I don’t doubt it, Sherlock.”
She met his gorgeous eyes, genuinely touched. “Oh, my gosh. Are you officially agreeing to be my sidekick?”
“Well, I’m thinking we can take turns being Sherlock, but we’ll always be partners. How does that sound?”
Still smiling—because she truly couldn’t stop—Rebecca raised herself up on her tiptoes and kissed him. “It sounds effing awesome.”
Epilogue
One Month Later
“Are you serious? After a year on the run, we’re finally able to return to civilization and you choose to live here?” Sebastian Stone grumbled. “Jeez, the places we stayed in when we were hiding out weren’t half as isolated as this property.”
Captain Robert Tate offered his trademark I-don’t-give-a-damn shrug. “Eva and I like living in the country. Deal with it.”
Tate reached into the cooler and pulled out a couple beers. He handed one to Nick, who twisted off the cap and took a sip. “Thanks, Captain. Man, it’s hot out today. It wasn’t this humid in D.C.”
“Speaking of D.C., is Rebecca planning on covering Ferguson’s impeachment proceedings, or will ABN assign someone else?” Sebastian asked, curious.
“She’s covering it,” Nick replied. “When her new producer suggested that her personal connection to Ferguson and the scandal might affect her ability to remain objective, she almost bit his head off.”
He couldn’t help but chuckle. Rebecca had been covering the scandal since it had broken at the Veterans Gala and Nick knew she’d never give it up now. This was her exclusive, her scoop, and he didn’t blame her one bit for clinging so hard. She’d suffered for this, bled for it, lost her friends and coworkers for it.
His gaze drifted across the backyard. Well, not so much a backyard as a stretch of rugged land lined with trees in full bloom, gentle hills and a narrow creek that he could hear gurgling even all the way from the huge cedar deck behind Tate and Eva’s enormous North Carolina country house.
Rebecca was sitting on the grassy bank near the creek, swinging her bare feet in the water as she laughed at something Julia Davenport had said. Her red hair shone in the afternoon sunlight, and those green eyes were animated as usual. She and Julia had hit it off from the second they’d met, which didn’t really surprise Nick. Julia was as outspoken as Rebecca, and had that same type of sarcastic humor that Rebecca possessed in spades.
The two women had been chatting on the grass for the past hour, and now they were joined by Eva Dolce and her three-year-old son, Rafe, who made a mad dash for the water’s edge.
Rebecca caught the toddler around the waist before he could dive headfirst into the water, and the sight caused a rush of warmth to travel through Nick’s chest. Did it make him a total softie that he liked seeing a child in Rebecca’s arms?
Not that he planned on knocking her up anytime soon. No, children would come in time, way into the future; although if his father had anything to say about it, Rebecca would already be shopping for maternity clothes. Secretary Barrett had a lot on his plate at the moment dealing with the fallout from McAvoy’s and Ferguson’s actions, but that hadn’t stopped him from harassing Nick to make things official with Rebecca. The secretary was absolutely crazy about the woman, and didn’t try to hide it.
Nick was pretty crazy about her, too.
“So you two are staying in D.C., then,” Sebastian said. “Did you accept that job at the DoD yet?”
“No, I’m still considering it.” Nick knew he’d end up taking the gig, though. Returning to the military held no appeal for him anymore.
He glanced at Tate. “What are you up to these days? Are you and Eva still planning on becoming carpenters?”
Tate rolled his eyes. “Get it straight, Nicky. Eva is planning on designing security software. I might dabble in some carpentry. Tomorrow morning I’m going to build a chair.”
Sebastian snickered.
Nick snorted.
Their former commanding officer glared at them and flashed both his middle fingers. “Eff right off.”
“Wait, are you fake-swearing, too, now?” Nick demanded.
Resignation washed over Tate’s moss-green eyes. “That’s what happens when you live with a three-year-old.”
Nick sighed. “I live with a twenty-seven-year-old. I shouldn’t have to censor my language, but that infuriating woman insists on it.”
“You two are already living together?” Sebastian said in surprise.
“Yeah, I moved into Rebecca’s place in Arlington.” He rolled his eyes. “And don’t give me that look, Seb. You and Julia have been joined at the hip for months.”
Tate glanced at the sandy-haired man. “You still heading to Africa at the end of the month?”
Sebastian nodded, and his gray eyes softened as he glanced across the yard at Julia. “The doc’s got a new post, a six-month stint in a village in northern Somalia. I’m tagging along.”
Nick couldn’t help but feel amazed that they were standing around discussing their plans. They’d been living day-by-day this past year, trying to figure out why their unit had been targeted, and now this frustrating ordeal was finally behind them.
And somehow, during that year of hiding, all three had managed to find women who loved them.
Figure that one out.
Nick’s gaze drifted to Rebecca again. At that exact moment, she turned her head and caught him staring, and the smile she gave him was so beautiful, so full of joy and mischief that his heart damn near soared right out of his chest.
He smiled back, then focused on the two men h
e considered his best friends. No, his brothers.
Sebastian raised his beer bottle in the air. “Here’s to not having to look over our shoulders anymore.”
After the three of them clinked their bottles, Tate’s gaze shifted to the raven-haired woman by the creek and he let out a soft laugh. “We made out all right, huh?” he said wryly.
“Yup,” Sebastian concurred, his gray eyes focusing on Julia, whose long brown braid rustled in the afternoon breeze.
Nick’s eyes found their way back to the redhead who’d bulldozed her way into his life. “We made out just fine,” he agreed.
* * * * *
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Chapter 1
Adam Benson sat in his pickup truck parked at the curb and stared at the two-story house out his passenger-side window. It was a nice place, painted pale beige with rust-colored trim. A large tree in the front yard sported all the colors of autumn, with bright red and orange leaves beginning to group at the base.
The Room for Rent sign had been in the front window for a couple of months, and for the past few weeks each time Adam drove by the place, he’d considered the possibility of checking it out.
Shoving a hand into the pocket of his lightweight black jacket, he found the two small plastic chips inside and rubbed them together as he considered his next move.
There was no question that he was in transition. With two months of sobriety behind him and a ranch that no longer felt like his home, he knew it was time to make some significant changes in his life.
With a new decisiveness, he opened the truck door and got out. Great location, he told himself as he looked down Main Street. This house was one of the last on the block that hadn’t been sold and torn down to make room for commercial property. From here he could easily walk the main drag of the small town of Grady Gulch.
He turned back to look at the house. The place had belonged to Olive Brooks for as long as he could remember. The older woman had been a fixture in town, working at the post office and involved in every charity event. Then about a year ago she’d become ill with cancer and her only daughter had come to town from someplace back east to nurse her. Olive had passed away and her daughter had remained in the house.
It was a little strange. Nobody around town that Adam had spoken to seemed to have seen Melanie Brooks since her mother’s death, although he’d heard a few unpleasant rumors about her.
He jingled his sobriety chips once again. He knew personally about gossip and ugly rumors. In the past year he and his family had experienced enough of both to last a lifetime.
He finally sighed, irritated with his own hesitation. “Doesn’t hurt to check it out,” he muttered under his breath as he headed toward the front porch.
Next door to the house the pizza place was in full lunch swing, the scents of robust sauce and spicy sausage filling the air. Adam’s stomach rumbled, and he decided that after checking out the room for rent, he’d head to the Cowboy Café for lunch. Although the pizza smelled great, at noon the place was usually overrun by high school kids grabbing a slice of pizza before their afternoon classes began.
Besides, the Cowboy Café was the place in town to get a hearty meal and a healthy serving of what people were saying and thinking. In the past couple of months it had felt more like home than the ranch where he’d grown up.
As he walked up the stairs to the porch, he noticed that the railing was more than a little wobbly and needed to be replaced. Up close the house paint wasn’t quite as fresh as it appeared from the street. A little TLC was definitely needed, he thought, not that it was his problem. That was one of the luxuries of not owning where you lived: you weren’t responsible for any of the maintenance.
He knocked on the door, and as he waited for a reply, he turned and looked back at the street where his truck was parked. Within an hour everyone in town would know that he’d been here. That was the way things worked in small towns like Grady Gulch. There were few secrets that could be sustained for any length of time.
However, there was one person in town who was keeping a dark, evil secret, a person who had murdered two women in their beds. So far law enforcement and everyone else had no idea who that killer might be and if or when he might strike again. The murders of two women who had worked as waitresses at the popular café had definitely put a gray pall over the town.
He shoved this disturbing thought aside and knocked again, this time hearing a woman’s voice respond for him to hang on. The door finally opened and he got his first look at Melanie Brooks.
Stunning. She was absolutely stunning, with pale blond hair that fell to her shoulders in soft waves and eyes that were bluer than any he’d ever seen before. She was slender and wore a pair of black slacks, a black blouse and an irritated scowl that looked permanently etched onto her face. He couldn’t discern how tall she might be as she sat in a wheelchair.
Adam swept his cowboy hat from his head, quickly raked his fingers through his dark hair and hoped his shock at her condition didn’t show on his face. “Good afternoon. I’m Adam Benson and I’m here about the room for rent.”
She blinked in obvious surprise and there was a long, awkward silence.
“You have a sign in your window? A room for rent?” he prompted.
She used her arms to move herself backward and then gestured for him to step into the foyer. “Adam Benson,” she mused, her eyes narrowed as her gaze held his. “I heard you were a drunk.”
Adam took a step back, stunned by her unexpected words. “I was,” he admitted with painful honesty. “But I’m not drinking anymore. And the rumors I heard about you were that you’re a sour, rude and cranky woman. The verdict is still out on that.”
Her eyes narrowed even more. “You have a big ranch on the edge of town. Why would you need to rent a room?”
“My brother, his new wife and son have all moved into the ranch house and I’m looking for a change of address.” His decision to leave the house where he’d grown up was far more complicated than that, but he figured Melanie didn’t need to know the details. “So, can I see the room?”
“It’s actually more than just a room. Follow me.” She moved out of the foyer and into a large, airy living room with a staircase that led up to the second floor. She stopped at the foot of the staircase, the dainty frown still etched in her forehead.
For somebody who had had a sign hanging in the window for months, she seemed reluctant to allow him to see the space she was renting. Was her reluctance based on the fact that he was a male? Or was it specifically aimed at him personally? Certainly the reputation of all the Benson brothers had taken a beating in the past year, but over the past couple of months things had calmed down.
“Look, Ms. Brooks, I just need a place to hang my hat. I’m not looking for any trouble. I’ll pay the rent on time and be a respectful tenant. Speaking of rent, what are you looking to get each month?”
She told him a figure that seemed a little high and he wondered if she’d done it on purpose to chase him away or if she’d intended to ask for that kind of money from anyone who showed an interest.
“Sounds good,” he replied.
“I’m actually renting the entire second floor. I’m cer
tainly not using any of the rooms upstairs.” A touch of bitterness laced her voice. “Go on up and have a look around.”
Adam nodded, and as he climbed the stairs, he wondered what had put her in the wheelchair. He reminded himself that it—that she—was none of his business. He was simply looking for peace and quiet, for a haven where he could gather himself together and figure out what exactly he wanted to do with the rest of his life.
The upstairs was comprised of three bedrooms and a bathroom. One of the rooms was set up like a sitting room, with a sofa, a television and an overstuffed chair with a reading lamp behind it. Adam could easily visualize himself in that big chair in the evenings, leisurely reading the newspaper or a novel.
The view from the window was of Main Street, and he stood for a moment and looked outside, trying to get a feel for the space.
The bedrooms were decorated in earth tones, making them feel neither masculine nor feminine but simply functional. The larger of the two bedrooms was located next to the sitting room and also had a view of Main Street out the window. Everything was neat and tidy and it all felt oddly right to him.
He wasn’t sure what Melanie might have heard about him or his brothers, and she appeared to be the cranky sort, but surely they wouldn’t have much interaction if he moved in here.
It was just a room, not a relationship, he reminded himself as he walked back down the stairs. Melanie had remained where he’d left her, at the foot of the stairs and she watched him solemnly as he hit the lower landing.
“We’d share kitchen space,” she said. “You’d get the upper cabinets and I use the lower ones. You buy your own food and cook it and clean up the mess afterward.” She said the words resolutely, as if she’d come to some sort of decision about him while he’d been upstairs. “It would be a month-to-month lease. I can get rid of you or you can move out with thirty days’ notice. If you drink, you’re out. If you’re a messy pig, you’re out, and if you think I’m rude or whatever, then you deal with it or move out.”