Fortune's Proposal (14 page)

The sight of Deanna's hard-sided suitcase sitting open on top of the neatly made bed had him stopping short, though. And the sight of her turning away from the closet, with that sexy pink dress she'd worn the day his father disappeared made everything else inside him seem to stop working, too.

Her gaze shied away from him as she moved to the suitcase. She was wearing that shapeless green sweater and jeans that she'd worn when they'd flown to Red Rock. “I didn't realize you were back.”

He slowly closed the door. “Going somewhere?”

Her head ducked and her glossy red hair swung down to cover her cheek. “It's become quite clear that it's past time.” She pulled the dress off the hanger and folded it inside the suitcase. “How did the search go?”

The only thing he and his brothers had found beyond the accident site were more rocks, more trees and more nothing.

“We didn't find his body,” he said bluntly.

She inhaled sharply and looked at him. Probably for the first time since he'd walked out of their bedroom after “the barn.”

She looked as miserable as he felt. Her eyes were bloodshot, her nose pink. “Is
that
what you hoped to find?”

Had he? Or had he been hoping like hell that they wouldn't, because then maybe he could put a cork into his certainty that his father was never coming back?

“You've been crying.”

Her lashes fell and she turned back to fuss with her suitcase. Moving the zippered case of her cosmetics from one corner to the other, then back again. “No.”

“You're a rotten liar.”

“And yet you chose me to lie about—” she waved her arm encompassing the bedroom and the two of them
“—us.”
Her lips twisted as she flipped the suitcase closed. “Guess that was a mistake on both our parts.” She pushed the old-fashioned latches and they snapped closed with a sharp sound.

“Why now?”

She didn't look at him. “I have a life to get back to.”

Since his father went missing, Drew knew that he'd barely given any consideration to the difficulties in Deanna's life. Not the ones she'd left behind, nor the ones created by her presence in Texas.

And even though he'd spent the better part of the last day reminding himself of all the reasons he was better off without her, the sight of her ready to leave now sent every one of those reasons scattering just as wildly as the rocks that had scattered beneath his hiking
boots while he'd climbed over one ravine after another, hunting for any sign of his father.

“What were you planning to do? Sneak out before I got back?”

She shook her head. “I wouldn't have done that.”

“Looks to me like you were.” He moved into the room and as he did, she moved, too, keeping several feet of space between them.

He bit back a sigh. “I'm not going to jump you, for God's sake.”

Her cheeks went red. “I never assumed that you would,” she assured witheringly. She continued to the opened closet and retrieved her tennis shoes. Then she sat down on the side of the bed and began to pull them on.

Her gaze followed him warily when he dragged the chair from the corner, positioned it in front of her and sat down.

He'd learned, over and over again, that the quickest way to get through Deanna's reserve was to get into her personal space. Considering everything, that had become just as much a curse as a useful tool, though. And now was no exception.

He leaned toward her. “I shouldn't have acted the way I did.”

She jerked the laces of her shoe into a lopsided bow. “I don't know what you mean.”

He just looked at her.

“Fine. You shouldn't have. And I should have known better than to expect otherwise.” Her lips tightened and she looked away. “So, my bad.”

It stung, but he knew he'd given her good reason.

He didn't need his mother to be around to be disappointed in him.

He was disappointed in him all by himself.

“Just because things have turned out the way they have doesn't mean I won't hold up my end of the bargain,” he finished gruffly.

She went white. “I knew you'd get bored with me quickly, but that really
was
fast.”

“Bored!” The word nearly choked him. “God in heaven, Deanna, where the hell'd you get that idea?”

Her arms crossed over her chest. Her ghostly white coloring was being rapidly replaced by a flush. “You obviously can't wait to get rid of me.”

“You're the one who's packing up, sweetheart, remember?” He shoved the suitcase so hard it slid off the bed and crashed crookedly onto the floor.

The latches sprang open and her clothing spilled out.

“Now look what you've done!”

“I'm not bored with you,” he said flatly. He had plenty of emotions where she was concerned. Emotions he hadn't wanted to face, but not a one of them was boredom. “If you want to leave, I've got no reason to make you stay. My father is gone. There's no sign of foul play. No sign of anything. He's gone.” The words tasted bitter and he had to stop. Clear his throat. “Either he chose to go and doesn't want to come back, not for Lily or any of the rest of us, or he's dead.”

And despite the tension between them—tension he knew that he alone was responsible for creating—her expression softened. “Drew. I wish you wouldn't think that way.”

“There's hope, and then there's holding on to a fantasy.”

She looked pained. “And fantasies can't live forever, can they?” She slid past him and crouched in front of her
suitcase, flattening it out on the floor. The thin strappy shirt thing that she wore to sleep in slid out along with a pair of lacy panties, and she tossed both back inside. “It
has
been only a few weeks. If your father is injured somewhere—”

“—we would have heard by now.” He hated the words even as he said them because there was still a part of him that wanted to believe otherwise. It was the same part that had wanted to believe the cancer treatments would save his mother.

“And with Dad gone, there's no need for you to go through with this marriage business. I'll still pay what we agreed,” he assured doggedly. “The bank'll be open Monday. I'll have the money wired into your account as soon as I can arrange it.”

She snatched up the pink dress again and balled it up. “I know I can thank you for prodding my mother into counseling because she never would have done so because of me, though you could have told me yourself that you'd talked with her behind my back. But I don't
want
your money.” Her voice had turned chilly. She pitched the dress into the suitcase. “I never did.”

The back she presented to him might as well have been a gauntlet tossed down in challenge and he spun her around on her knees, grabbing her hand. He pushed his thumb against the diamond ring that she still wore, despite everything. “I didn't intentionally do anything behind your back. And the money's why you agreed to all this.”

She snatched her arm away. “I agreed because you asked for my help.”

He winced. “And because you needed my help with your mother's debt,” he insisted doggedly.

The look she gave him was almost pitying. “I'm not
going to argue with you.” In one sweeping armful, she'd shoved everything haphazardly back into the suitcase and flipped it closed. “If you want to believe I'm all about the Benjamins, then go ahead. At the moment I have more important things to do.” She hit the latches for a second time.

“Like what?”

She pushed to her feet. “Like getting away from you,” she snapped. “Isabella's already offered to drive me to San Antonio.” Her lips twisted. “And don't worry. I told her the truth about us this morning. So
you
won't have to.” She stepped around him, heading for the door, but not quickly enough for him to miss the tears in her eyes.

He shot up and blocked her way. “If it wasn't the money, then
why?
”

“Because I'm in love with you!” She shoved at his chest. “And now that we've got that out of the way, get out of my way so I can get out of yours.”

He felt an ache in the center of his chest that had nothing to do with the surprising strength of her shove. “I don't want you out of my way,” he admitted slowly.

“Of course you do,” she said impatiently. “Nobody knows better than I do that the quickest route out of your life is to make the mistake of falling in love with you.” Her voice went hoarse as she tried to slip around him to reach the door. “So I'm just going to make it easy on all of us and go home where I belong.”

“Dammit, Deanna.” His thoughts were clamoring inside his head as he caught her around the waist, hauling her up against him. “Would you stop for just one minute and listen?”

“Don't worry. I'm sure with a little effort you can
find another assistant who'll be as foolishly agreeable as I've—”

He swore under his breath and shut off her words in the most effective way he could.

With his mouth.

She went rigid.

But he kept his mouth on hers. Until he felt the thin, tight line of her lips start to soften. Until he felt the fists pushing at his shoulders start to relax. Only then did he pull his lips from hers. “Where you belong is with me,” he said quietly, and wondered why in the hell it had taken him so damn long to admit what his heart had been telling him.

“Is that so?” Her voice was still cool. But her mossy-green eyes had gone round.

“Yeah, that's so,” he returned evenly. “And I know because where I belong is with you.”

Her lips parted. She blinked rapidly, but her eyes grew even wetter. A diamond-bright tear clung perilously to her eyelashes before slowly falling to her cheek. “You don't mean that. You're just upset about your father.”

“I am upset about my father,” he agreed. “But if I let you walk out of that door, then I'm living up to every failure he's accused me of.” He moved his unsteady hands to cup her face. “I've been so busy telling myself what you were to me that I missed
seeing
what you were to me.” He caught the teardrop with his thumb. “But I'm not telling anymore.” He drew in a hard breath. “I'm just…feeling,” he finished roughly.

She stared at him. And even though more tears had joined the first, he could still see the uncertainty in her gaze.

Uncertainty that he'd caused.

And he realized even more just what real fear was.

It was losing what you loved most of all without ever having had a chance to show it.

“You said you loved me,” he reminded, and his own eyes were suddenly burning.

Her throat worked. She looked away. Then looked up at him. Her eyes had gone to emerald. “I do. But that doesn't mean I have to always like you,” she whispered.

His knees actually went weak. Maybe it was fear finally leaving him. Maybe it was relief.

But he knew in that moment that he would do everything in his power to never let this woman go.

She'd been his helper. His right hand. His conscience and his comfort. She was exactly what Drew's father had told Drew he'd needed to find.

His Molly.

And she'd been there in front of him all this time.

Drew's Deanna.

He pressed his lips to her forehead. Over her wet eyes. And finally, with more gentleness than he knew he was capable of, on her lips. “Tell me you'll never leave me.”

Deanna sucked in a shuddering breath that tasted of hope and it was strong enough to dispel hopelessness. Her gaze searched Drew's. And all she saw was
him.
The same man he'd always been. The charmer. The loner.

He hadn't pushed people away to keep them out, she realized with startling clarity. He'd done it to protect what was within. The boy whose first love had cheated on him. The man whose beloved mother was stolen by cancer. And now the man whose father had seemingly disappeared from the face of the earth.

She slowly reached up and laid her palm along his
jaw. Her thumb slowly brushed over his cheek, smoothing away the trail of moisture that she'd never expected to see. Her heart stopped climbing up her throat and slowly, peacefully, settled back in her chest. Only this time, it was as wide-open as the heart that she could see in his eyes as he looked back at her.

“I loved you even before I knew I loved you,” she whispered. She pushed up on her toes and pressed her lips to his. “And I will never leave you,” she vowed.

His arms swept behind her back, nearly crushing her to him, he held her so tightly. But she didn't care. She was exactly where she wanted to be.

And she knew at last, with every fiber of her soul, that she was exactly where
he
wanted to be, too.

“H
ey, old timer.” The police officer stepped out of his cruiser and warily approached the bedraggled man slowly shuffling along the side of the highway. He'd gotten a call from a concerned citizen about a possible vagrant hitchhiking on the edge of town. “Where you heading?”

The man slowly turned to look at him. Even when the officer shone the beam of his flashlight over the wanderer, the man's thick hair was too matted with grime to tell the color. There were only a few things that were obvious to the officer.

One, the old man looked like he'd been to hell and back. And the clothes that were in no better shape than the hair smelled like it, as well.

And two, the man's eyes were unfocused and vacant.

The officer sighed. The man reminded him of his own old man, when the Alzheimer's had been getting bad.

He stepped closer, keeping his voice easy. “You look like you could use a sandwich. Maybe a cup of coffee.” He glanced back at his cruiser and wished that he hadn't turned on the beacon. He didn't want the flashing lights spooking the guy. “If you're on your way somewhere, I can give you a lift.”
Straight to a hospital,
he thought.

He glanced back at the old man, surprised to see that he'd begun shuffling his way again along the highway. He looked dead set on leaving behind the last few lights of town, heading on down the dark road. “Hold on there.” He caught up to the wanderer, wrapping his arm around the guy's arm. He felt sturdier than the officer expected, but this time he was prepared. When the wanderer tried to shove him off, he held fast. “We're going to get you some help. It'll be warm. And safe.”

The man looked annoyed. “Leave me alone. I'm in a hurry.” Despite his appearance and his dazed expression, his voice was strong. He looked up suddenly at the sky, his vacant eyes narrowing.

The officer glanced up, too, but all he saw were the blinking lights of a jet high in the sky. He looked back at the man. “I can help you get where you're going if I know where you're heading. Home?”

The man pushed at the officer's hands. “Not home. The baby. I've gotta find the baby.”

The officer slowly tightened his grip. The wanderer was easily as tall as he was, but there'd still be no match between them. He began steering the guy toward the cruiser. “Sure,” he soothed. The guy definitely needed medical attention. “We'll find the baby.”

 

High above the highway, Deanna sprawled on one of the well-cushioned couches inside the private jet that
Drew had somehow managed to procure nearly out of thin air. She still felt breathless from the way he'd rushed her out to the airfield and onto the plane.

She felt even more breathless considering his arms were presently looped around her.

She slowly ran her palms down his forearms, loving the feel of the slightly rough hair against her palms. “We could have waited until morning to return to San Diego,” she told him, not for the first time. Her palms reached his hands and her heart jiggled around when his hands turned so that his palms met hers.

“We're not heading to San Diego.”

She sat upright, and looked over her shoulder at him. “But I thought—”

“I know what you thought.” He threaded his fingers through her hair, slowly tucking it behind one ear. “But even the best assistant in the world doesn't know what the boss is thinking every minute of the day.”

She made a point of looking at her watch. “It's actually the night,” she pointed out drily. Midnight, in fact. And she recognized all too well the glint in his eyes. It was the glint that warned her Drew Fortune was up to something. Something probably brilliant, but still…something. “If we're not going to back to San Diego, then where?” She supposed Los Angeles wasn't out of the question. The headquarters of Fortune Forecasting
was
located there, and by default, both offices had been under his authority since his father disappeared.

“All in due time, Dee.” He tugged her back against him and his lips pressed against the curve of her neck.

Heat streaked through her. They were completely alone in the cabin of the jet. The flight crew, comprised only of the pilot and copilot, were closed behind the
cockpit door. Still, she wasn't entirely sure how she felt when Drew's hands began working their way beneath the hem of her sweater.

But then his hands reached her breasts and she let out a long, shaking breath as his fingers nimbly traced over the lace cups of her bra.

Who was she kidding?

When Drew touched her, she couldn't think of anything but
more.
More of him touching her. More of her touching him.

“That night in the barn was incredible,” he murmured, still dropping kisses along her neck. “You were incredible.”

Deanna's mouth went dry. Her fingers tightened around his forearms. “So were you.” She sucked in a breath when he tugged the cups of her bra aside and his fingers closed around her bare flesh. She felt suddenly steeped in desire.

He shifted slightly and instead of sitting half reclined on the couch, she found herself lying on it with Drew leaning over her. His brown gaze looked like melted chocolate as it roved over her face. “There was just one problem.”

She curved her hands over his shoulders, trying to tug him back down to her. But he didn't move. So she levered herself up until her lips reached his. “What was that?”

“No light.”

Her entire body flushed. “I…didn't mind.” Which had to have been obvious.

He laughed softly. “I didn't mind, either. But even while you were turning me inside out with the way you were seducing me—”

“—seducing
you!
”

“I couldn't help thinking about making love to you like that all over again, with every single light blazing.”

Now her insides felt like melted chocolate.

She glanced again at the closed door to the cockpit. The cabin was by no means brightly lit, but it was also not in the least bit shadowy. And the couch
was
inviting…

His eyes darkened. “I really love the way you think,” he murmured, and slowly pressed his mouth to hers, kissing her so deeply that colors began exploding inside her head. “But not here,” he said huskily when he finally did lift his head.

She just looked at him, uncomprehending. “What?”

“Not here,” he murmured, dropping another much more chaste kiss on her lips. “First we need this.” He worked a hand between them and her adrenaline shot up a few thousand notches.

But he didn't do anything but pull his hand out from between them a moment later.

And when he lifted himself off her altogether and moved off the couch, she frowned, reaching out her arms for him again. “Where are you going?”

“Not far from you.” He smiled faintly. “That's a promise.” He closed his hands around hers and only then did she realize he was holding something else besides her. “This is what I realize we need.” He nudged her ring finger and she stared in shock at the two platinum wedding bands that he slipped over the tip of her finger. The metal felt warm from having been in his pocket.

Hardly daring to breath, she looked from the matching rings to his face. “Drew?”

“Turns out, I find myself in need of a wife.” His expression was uncommonly uncertain as he knelt beside the couch.

“You don't say.” Her voice was faint. Probably because her heart had lodged itself several inches above where it belonged.

“I do.” The corner of his lips kicked up, making her heart swell a little more. “But I also know that not just anyone will do.”

She swallowed, incapable at that moment of a response.

His voice dropped a notch. “It takes a specialized person to make the terms of some deals come together just right.” He slipped the two wedding bands off the tip of her finger, and then held the smaller, narrower of the two up between them.

His hand was shaking.

She didn't even try to stop the moisture collecting behind her eyes from spilling over. “What kind of terms?”

“Nonnegotiable, I'm afraid.” He cleared his throat softly. “As long as we both shall live.”

Her heart seemed to leave her chest altogether. Pure joy was suddenly the organ that pumped blood through her veins. “I think that is acceptable.”

His gaze met hers. “Are you sure, Deanna?”

She lifted the larger, wider ring out of his hand and held it up between them.

Her hand was shaking.

“Nonnegotiable,” she said softly. “I will laugh with you. I will cry with you. And as long as I have breath in my body, I will love you. Is that agreeable to you?”

“More than.” His voice sounded raw. “Too bad my father won't be around to see what he brought about.”

She leaned into him and slowly pressed a kiss to his forehead. Then his lips. “Your father will see. On this earth or not, he'll see.”

He was silent for a moment. “I don't know if I believe that.”

“Then I'll believe it enough for both of us,” she whispered, “until you do.”

His gaze met hers and she knew she was looking into the eyes of a man who knew what it was to love deeply.

To love
her.

“Will you marry me, Deanna?”

Tears slid down her cheeks. “Yes, please.”

His lips slanted. “We'll put this in place, then, until we get it done officially in a few hours.” He slowly slid the wedding band onto her ring finger where it fit perfectly against her beautiful diamond.

“Okay.” Her voice was faint as she pushed his ring onto the hand he held out for her, too.

She had to take a moment just to revel in the breathtaking sight of a wedding band—from her—on his bronzed finger. It was almost unbearably sexy.

Then his words belatedly sank in. “A few
hours?
”

“Flight plan is Las Vegas. I have it all planned out.” He lifted her hand and kissed her finger over the rings, then pressed her palm flat against his chest where she could feel the heavy throb of his heartbeat. “Unless you really do want a wedding with all the frills.” He grimaced a little, still Drew, no matter what. “I suppose for a short while, I can wait.”

She started smiling and wondered if she would ever
stop. “Well, good for you,” she murmured and she slipped her hand behind his neck and slowly drew him to her. “But I can't wait.”

And a few hours later when their plane landed in Las Vegas, they didn't.