It Takes Two (34 page)

“I don’t need anything to remind me of our trip. I remember every minute.”

She turned, bracing herself for wanting to jump on him. She tried to look huffy instead. “Including leaving me in the Black Hills for a week?”

“You know I had to leave.” Her huffy attitude—fake as it was—didn’t seem to even register with him. He looked at her with heat—and something a lot stronger and deeper—in his gaze.

She took a deep breath. “I didn’t want you to. Even though we argued, I wanted you to stay. You knew that.”

“We both needed to come down off the adrenaline and process all the new stuff we learned,” he said.

She almost couldn’t make herself ask the next question. In her gut, she knew the answer. In her head she knew he wouldn’t be here even now if the answer wasn’t yes. But she really needed to hear it. “So now that you’ve processed it, are you still…?”

“You’re going to have to keep letting me in. You have to tell me things, Iz, and then you have to deal with me having an opinion on those things and sometimes worrying and making adjustments.”

She still kind of hated the idea that he had to change things to live with her. But at the same time, it made her feel like the most loved woman in the world. She nodded. “Okay. And you have to sometimes just listen and
not
give me an opinion and sometimes let me figure it out myself.”

He nodded. “Okay.”

Suddenly a pounding erupted on the front door of Trudy’s. “Come on already!” someone hollered from the other side.

Then she heard a familiar voice say, “Just shut the fuck up for a minute.”

She turned wide eyes on Shane. “What was that?”

“I told them I needed a minute without a crowd.”

She smiled. “Shane Kelley
without
a crowd.”

He shrugged. “Sometimes it’s nice to keep things quiet and private.”

Isabelle definitely recognized the sentiment behind his words. “You locked the door?”

“Yep. With Trudy’s blessing, I might add.”

“Who’s out there?”

“Everyone.”

“So that was Conner’s voice I heard telling them to shut up?”

“Yep.”

“He’s not wondering what’s going on in here?”

“The only thing he’s wondering is why this is taking me so long.”

“Why what is taking you so long?”

Shane pulled something out of the duffle bag she just now noticed sitting on top of one of the tables. He pulled out a strange-looking little wooden box. “This.”

“What is—” She gaped at the box. Bits of paper—tiny bits of paper—were glued all over it with the exception of the area covered by a much bigger picture of a frog. The smaller pieces all had words on them, but they were smudged and curling at the edges. “Did you have a niece or nephew decoupage for you?”

He looked completely offended. “
I
did decoupage.” Then he looked at the box sheepishly. “I just haven’t finished it yet.”

“With these tiny pieces it would take forever.”

“Yeah. Knowledge that would have been helpful to me
this morning
,” he said dryly.

She grinned and took it from him. A scrap of paper came loose and fluttered to the floor. She bent to pick it up and read,
April 4
^th
. She looked up at him. “What’s that mean?”

Someone banged on the door again. “Open this damn thing up, we’re dying of thirst.”

“Settle down, dammit!” Conner shouted.

“I’ll tell you the whole story later,” Shane said. “They’re getting restless outside.”

Isabelle racked her brain trying to figure out the significance of the frog. There had to be a reason for it. Shane always had a great, creative reason behind everything. Dammit.

“Come here,” he said, pulling her forward and sitting her in a chair.

He knelt in front of her and took her hand and Isabelle’s heart began to pound. Then he started speaking and she felt stupid. It was way too soon for him to propose. They’d only been dating a few months and they’d found out a bunch of stuff they needed to work on. Still, she liked the picture he made down on one knee.

“Making other people happy makes me feel good,” he started.

The pounding on the door was louder this time, as if two or three people were putting their fists behind it.

Shane grimaced, but went on. “But making
you
happy, makes me feel…right. Complete. Whole. I didn’t even know I felt incomplete or empty. I mean, I always have people around me, noise, lights, laughter. But this past week, I sat in my house, on my couch, alone. For the first time ever. And it felt great. Because I have you. Even when you’re not with me, I have you here—” He thumped his fist against his chest over his heart. “And I realized—I was constantly trying to fill the silence and the emptiness around me with people but deep down, I always knew they would leave, that being alone was always right around the corner. But now, with you, I don’t need all that craziness. I have you and there are no more gaps, no more corners to be afraid of, no more loneliness.”

“Get the fuck away from that door or I’ll make sure Trudy never serves you another drink in your life!” Conner yelled from outside.

Isabelle tried not to, but she snorted.

Shane grinned too. “I guess I can keep going with this stuff at home. I want you to open the box and know that your brother helped me pick out what’s inside.”

Suddenly her hands were shaking. She lifted the box and two more pieces of paper floated to the floor. But she barely noticed. She was staring at the ring with a key stuck through the middle.

Her thoughts swirled. She’d been expecting the key. At the same time, she’d made a copy of hers and had brought it to give to him if he didn’t bring the subject up tonight. Conner knew about this? The key or the ring? Both?

“What do you think?” Shane asked after several seconds of silence.

She looked from the box to him. “I think that if you say something smart ass about this being a key ring, I’m never bringing Kahlua to your house ever again.”

His grin was wide and warm. “I plan to keep plenty of Kahlua stocked in
our
house from now on. And I wish I’d thought of the key ring thing…that’s pretty funny.”

She shook her head and set the box on the table. “You have to ask me, you know.”

“I am asking you.”

“You handed me a box. And that’s sweet. I love the box. But you still have to ask.”

“If you two are having sex in there while we’re out here hungry and thirsty, I’ll never forgive either of you!” Conner shouted through the door.

Ah, now he was getting anxious to get inside too.

Isabelle raised an eyebrow at Shane. “That beer crowd could totally break a door down. You better do this quick. Unless you’re waiting for an audience? Maybe you’d like to do this on stage with the mic?”

She wouldn’t mind. She didn’t care where he did it as long as he did it soon so she could say yes.

Shane looked at the stage. “I can’t deny that doing it up in front of everyone is tempting.”

She laughed. Of course it was. “Then let’s let them in.” She stood and started for the door, but before she could grab the handle, Shane caught her hand and pulled her around and up against him.

“Isabelle, let me take you to cheesy tourist traps and monitor your gummy bear consumption and buy you an equal number of health books and sex books. Let me always be the one you get naked in car washes with and the one sitting next to you when you’re being questioned by security guards. Let me help you find trouble and let me help you get out of it. For as long as we both shall live.” He slipped the ring on her finger, then put the key in her palm. “And please, please knit me a scarf, teach me to varnish my decoupage boxes, and show me how the hell you made that model of Mount Rushmore.”

She held his face between her hands, absorbing the fact that this was the face of the man she would call her husband, and the father of her children, and the love of her life. “I’ll do even better… Have you ever heard of macramé?”

He gave her a mischievous grin. “Is that from one of the sex books?”

She patted his cheek. “I think it’s something you have to experience to really understand.”

Shane looked at the still-locked front door, then glanced toward the back of the bar. “I think I’m in the mood for some macramé.”

“Oh, you have no idea.”

And so on the biggest night of his life, Shane Kelley slipped out the back door of Trudy’s bar without a bit of fanfare to go home and spend a quiet night in with his girl…and a giant ball of string.

About the Author

Erin Nicholas is the author of sexy contemporary romances. Her stories have been described as toe-curling, enchanting, steamy and fun. She loves to write about reluctant heroes, imperfect heroines and happily ever afters. She lives in the Midwest with her husband, who only wants to read the sex scenes in her books; her kids, who will never read the sex scenes in her books; and family and friends, who say they’re shocked by the sex scenes in her books (yeah, right!).

You can find Erin on the web at:

www.ErinNicholas.com

ninenaughtynovelists.blogspot.com

on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/ErinNicholas

and even on Facebook:
www.facebook.com/erin.nicholas.90

Look for these titles by Erin Nicholas

Now Available:

The Bradfords

Just Right

Just Like That

Just My Type

Just the Way I Like It

Just for Fun

Just a Kiss

Just What I Need: The Epilogue

Anything & Everything

Anything You Want

Everything You’ve Got

Counting On Love

She’s the One

Hotblooded

No Matter What

Coming Soon:

Counting on Love

Best of Three

Going for Four

Up by Five

Sometimes you see love clearly. And sometimes it has to smack you in the face.

She’s the One

© 2013 Erin Nicholas

Counting on Love, Book 1

When a stranger walks up and punches him, Ryan Kaye assumes there’s a good reason. But he’s stunned to learn it’s over a one-night stand that never happened—with his friend’s sister, straight-laced Amanda Dixon. When Ryan confronts her about the lie, Amanda apologizes, but Ryan realizes he doesn’t want her to be sorry…he wants the night they supposedly spent together.

Amanda’s not looking to add anyone to her long list of commitments, so she was only trying to let a nice guy down easy by telling him a fling with Ryan broke her heart. So what if the fling only happened in her dreams? But when Ryan Kaye tempts her with the chance to go crazy and fulfill a few fantasies, she can’t resist. Thank goodness one night isn’t enough time to fall in love…

Warning: Contains a hot paramedic who knows how to get a girl to let her hair down, a girl who thinks she prefers her hair up, some naughty laser tag, some naughty role-playing and a lot of falling in love.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
She’s the One:

“So why laser tag?” Ryan asked, content to simply watch her as they wandered the lobby, looking over the video games that lined the walls, waiting for the laser tag game in progress to end.

“It’s dark so you’re kind of anonymous, you get to run around and hide and
shoot
people and you’re
supposed
to.”

He smiled down at her. “So you get to be bad, but no one really gets hurt. I get it.”

And he loved the insight.

She wanted to be naughty but was afraid of the consequences. She didn’t realize that the consequences of being a little wild could be
good
too. He’d have to help her figure that out.

As he strapped on the vest that would keep track of his shots and hits, he watched Amanda shrug into hers. He snagged the strap that was dangling just out of her reach. She looked up and he tugged on the strap, bringing her closer. She almost stepped on his toes, but she didn’t protest the proximity or him reaching around her to buckle her vest.

“You ready to be a little naughty in the dark?” he asked.

“Yes.” She said it breathlessly. “But before we go in there I need to know—are you for me or against me?”

He grinned and moved in even closer. “Against. Always. As much as possible.”

“Then you better watch your ass.”

He laughed, then swatted
her
ass. “I’ll be too busy watching yours.”

She was surprised for one second before her expression turned sexy. “Not in the dark.”