“And I’ll do it again at our wedding. And maybe again on our first anniversary. And our five-year, ten-year, and twenty-five-year anniversaries. I’m going to say it over and over again so no one, not Cleaver or Sweeney or any of the guys out there waiting with bated breath for me to screw up, thinks they can steal you away from me.”
Her expression turned soft and emotional.
“Don’t you dare cry.”
She put a finger to the corner of each eye. “Then stop saying such sweet things, Chief Romero.”
The name went straight to my chest and down to my dick. I loved it when she said it. Loved it when she screamed it too. I’d thought the best part of being the fire chief was going to be making the changes I’d been itching to put in place for years. But the best part was, hands down, hearing Maisey call me Chief in the privacy of our own bedroom.
“You really are determined to torture me today.”
She winked. “I’ll be sure to reward you for your exemplary patience and control.” She reached over the center console to brush a finger along my cheek. “I have a new book for us to read.”
The situation in my pants took a decidedly dangerous turn. “Well, reward or not, I’ll be delivering some well-earned payback.”
She tapped her lips. “Hmm. Want to make a little wager? See who begs first?”
I stared far too long at her and had to jerk the steering wheel so we didn’t go off the road. Our back end slid slightly on the icy road. “Stopdistracting me.”
She only laughed. The laugh that sounded like bells on the pearly gates.
I wouldn’t change a moment of the life we’d made together. The life we’d made completely and utterly ours.
When we pulled into the ranch, Dad was waiting at the doors of the castle. He was pacing, tipping his cowboy hat forward and then back. Maisey leaped out of the SUV and headed toward him in a hurry, sliding in those spiked heels in the snow. I swore, shoving out of the car and catching up to her in time to keep her from hitting the ground.
She smiled up at me. She did that a lot these days—smiled.
At me. At the menagerie of animals we’d inherited. At her job in the Labor and Delivery Ward. At Fallon and her two kiddos and the one on the way. At her dad, when we went to visit him in the senior living complex he’d moved into a month ago. The repairs on his house were still a work in progress, but he’d been determined to give us the space we needed. So he’d cashed in some of his retirement and jumped ship. Maisey hadn’t been thrilled, but he’d promised he’d be able to right it once the house was renovated and sold.
Maisey hugged my father, tucked her arm in his, and dragged him into the hotel as I followed. She murmured something to him, quiet words to calm him down, as we made our way to the tiny speakeasy in the attic of the hotel.
To get there, you had to enter what had once been an old walk-in safe, through a half-open shelf that concealed the tunnels that crisscrossed behind the walls of the castle, and up a dozen stairs to the room tucked up in one of the spiked towers.
The jazz music filling the room was a perfect complement to the speakeasy. Just as the bar’s dark and moody lighting and the handful of booths made of blue velvet tossed you back in time to the 1930s.
Normally, you had to reserve a spot here weeks in advance, but Andie or Fallon could usually swing something for us when we needed it. And both those ladies would do anything for my dad, so after he’d chosen the location for the meet with Liza, because she loved Gatsby and gangster movies, they’d made sure we had a booth.
We’d barely ordered drinks when my dad let out a breath and said, “I don’t know what I was thinking. Why did I invite her here? It’s been almost fifteen years. If she wanted to forgive me, she would have reached out by now, don’t you think? I don’t blame her. I said unforgivable things. I’m not sure why she even accepted my offer to come. Maybe she just needed a vacation—”
“Dad,” I said, reaching across to grab his hands and cutting himoff mid-ramble. “All you have to do is tell her what you told me this summer.”
His brows furrowed together, thinking back.
“Tell her the truth. That you made a mistake. That you’ve regretted your words to her ever since. That all you really wanted was for her to come back. Tell her she was part of our unit and that when you felt the knots fraying, you didn’t do what needed to be done to tighten them, and you let her slip away because you hadn’t done the job you needed to do to heal yourself.”
Dad scoffed. “Even if I could say all that, why would she believe me?”
Maisey squeezed my thigh under the table and held my gaze. Behind my dad stood a woman, younger than him but not by all that much. Her dark hair had broad stripes of gray that matched her eyes. Nervous eyes above a kind smile.
My heart thudded. Dad hadn’t seen her. And I knew once he did, his tongue would be stuck to the roof of his mouth. So instead of warning him, I prodded him.
“Have you ever once stopped thinking about her since she left?
“Not once.”
“You told me I deserved a love so consuming that all I could think about each day was getting back to that person. Is that how you felt—feel—about Liza.”
He nodded.