I didn’t have the time to introduce Trina to my mom before she threw her arms around Trina’s shoulders and she yanked her from my hold. “Oh, you poor thing! I can’t imagine everything you’ve gone through. Are you okay?”
My shoulder jerked back with the force of my dad’s punch and I lifted a hand to rub the sore spot. “What’s up, old man?”
I looked at Trina to see her eyes wide and amused.
I flashed her a wink and nodded toward my dad.
“Dad, Trina. Trina, this is my old man.”
“Old man, my ass,” he muttered and reached out to take Trina’s hand in his. My mom released Trina from her hug, but she was fussing over Trina like she was her very own long-lost daughter.
Trina’s eyes grew wider when my dad brushed his lips across her cheek, looked back at me, grinning, and said, “She tastes delicious. I can see why you like her.”
Trina’s face paled.
My mom slapped my dad on the back of his head.
He shrugged.
I threw my head back and laughed.
“See?” I pulled Trina into my arms when my dad left to go grab their luggage. “Told you they’d like you.”
“This is absurd,” Trina proclaimed as the door shut behind her. She unwrapped a scarlet scarf from her neck. Outside the door to my house, I could still hear shouts from reporters, and through the window, I could still see the flash of lights.
They’d been camped out for the last forty-eight hours, and if Trina hadn’t insisted that our new life continue as normalmeaning going back to work at the restaurant between visits to the vet to see Boomer, and spending some time with my parents before they left town this morningI would have wanted to just keep her inside the house until the chaos died down.
It didn’t take long at all for Kevin’s death to become national news. The fact that the senator had flown in increased the media that descended on Latham Hills.
Blue and Tyson spoke to us immediately. Blue had pulled Trina off to our bedroom and told her how to handle it, based on what she’d gone through only months before.
The fact that Blue, formerly Gabriella Galecki, was seen in connection with Trina increased the attention on both women.
At least the madness had caused traffic to pick up at the restaurant, even though I knew it would be short-lived. The number of people who flocked to Fireside wanting to see an actual crime scene, even though it’d been cleaned up and the yellow tape had been removed, amazed me.
I was hoping that now that Kevin’s body had been transported back to Kentucky, interest in Trina would begin to die down, despite the speculation about why she’d been shacked up with another man since before Kevin died.
News that Kevin had been abusive had been released, and Senator Morgenson made several public statements denying any knowledge of his son’s behavior, saying that now, so soon after his death, was not the time to look into such matters. And while Trina had initially been maligned in the papers, the senator, surprisingly, had also fervently supported Trina, saying that if this news was true, he was deeply sorry for the way his son mistreated someone so special.
It’d been difficult for anyone to call her horrific names after such a public show of support, and I knew it wouldn’t have happened if Trina hadn’t had the courage to face both the senator and his wife when they showed up in town the night after we took my parents to dinner.
As I’d promised, my parents fell in love with Trina pretty much the moment we met at the airport. My mother continued to shower her with familial affection for their entire visit.
By the time they boarded a plane to Arizona, I figured my mom was already planning a bridal shower and picking out colors for a wedding that hadn’t been planned yet…but it’d happen.
It was only a matter of time.
For now, I still wanted to take care of Trina and get her through the fallout of Kevin’s death with as much ease as possible.
Even it if was three o’clock in the morning and reporters were camped out on my lawn.
“You doing okay?” I asked, and pulled her into my arms once she removed her coat and draped it over the side of my couch.
The last three days had seemed to go on forever. I was exhausted, but as soon as my hands brushed the skin at her back beneath her shirt, everything south of my waist perked up.
“Yeah. I’m good.”
“Kevin’s funeral is tomorrow.” I watched a deep line form between her eyes. A weight compressed my chest. “We can still head down there if you think you need that.”
I’d mentioned it several times and should already have known her answer, but a part of me thought she needed the closure. That maybe she needed to go back to Kentucky and say goodbye, now that she wasn’t fleeing out of fear.
But she still didn’t want to return unless she had to. “I don’t want to go.”
“You’ve been sleeping all night.”
She tilted her head to the side and frowned. “Is that a problem?”
“No. I just figured after the week you’ve had, after you started realizing the truth of everything that’s happened, you might not sleep so well.”
Her downturned lips turn upward. “Not sure how I can go to bed and not feel safe and protected from everything going on when your arms are around me and you’re holding me so tightly I fall asleep listening to your heart beat.”
And there it was.
I’d found a woman who trusted me implicitly, even when she slept. I’d fallen in love with a woman who not only loved me, but loved the life I’d built and the restaurant I wanted to grow. She not only loved it, she jumped right in, loving the work and the long, hard hours, right along with me.
After Mara left, I might not have admitted it, but I sometimes wondered if I’d ever find a womana good womanwho wanted to be with a man who owned a simple, local sports bar.
But just like Trina believed I could keep her safe and protected from everything that could harm her, I’d found a woman who, simply by being herself and all that she wasgood, kind, pure, sexy as hell, and hilarious when she remembered she could tease peoplehad healed the parts of me Mara had wounded, and healed them so well there wasn’t even scar tissue left behind.
Just a fresh newness inside of me that I couldn’t wait to share with her.
Of its own accord, my finger drew a circle around her ring finger. Her tan line was still there, the faded mark of her former ring still visible. I couldn’t wait to cover it up with my own diamond.
It would no doubt be smaller than the one she’d had before, but I knew that she wouldn’t care.
“I know things moved fast for us,” I whispered against the top of her head, pulling her close to me, “and I hope this doesn’t scare the hell out of you, but I can’t wait until I can make you mine.”
Her soft laugh warmed my chest. “I’m already yours, Declan. Everything I am and everything I have is yours.” She tilted her head back, eyes sparkling with honesty and admiration.
I loved this woman.
I silenced her, pressing my lips to hers, and then I picked her up and carried her upstairs and into the bedroom, where I dropped her in the center of our bed. My body fell on top of her and her legs wrapped around my hips as I sank inside her, and I spent the next hour making love to the woman I knew would always be by my side.
We’d already experienced darkness and rough times, and now, hopefully, it would only be smooth sailing from here on out.
Epilogue
Trina
SIX MONTHS LATER
I scanned the full, but not packed, restaurant, and smiled. The lunch rush was over, but it was a Friday afternoon, and in the last several months, there had hardly been an empty table. With spring break starting soon, and the spring air bringing freshness and the hope of new beginnings, the Fireside Grill was doing better than it ever had, according to Declan.
My grin stretched larger as I finished bussing a table and headed back to the kitchen.
Declan was where I always saw him.
At the grill, flipping burgers and barking orders to the other cooks.
There was never a dull moment.
Declan would give me the credit for his increase in business, due to all the hard work I’d put into the advertising and marketing for the restaurant.
Some days, if someone came in and their eyes got slightly hazy when they met me or saw Declan, I still worried that some of the attraction was from what happened in the alley months ago. Most days, when I was able to forget, I believed Declan.
He never lied to me.
He still looked at me as if I was the most important and treasured thing in his life. He was still a bit bossy, he was still overprotective, but I knew his protectiveness came from a place deep within a soft and loving heart.
Needless to say, the last several months had not only been busy, but some of the best in my life.
Shortly after the media attention died down, I had tried one day to think about going forward with my plan to live on my own and move into Blue’s apartment. I knew, based on the look Declan gave me, that he’d let me. He probably would even have encouraged me to do it, because he always seemed to be willing to do whatever made me happy.
But then I’d gone to bed with him, fell asleep with his strong, muscular arms surrounding me, and knew that I was never going to leave. I loved him too much to want to spend a moment away from him. And I realized that I could still grow, I could still be me, and I could do it in Declan’s house, even if moving in with him after the drama we’d had and the way we’d met seemed crazy to some.