LITMIR.BIZ

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told you,” he said, “I don’t need you.”

      “What if it’s not about need, Jefferson? What if it’s not about what either of us needs?”

      He didn’t say anything.

      “What if it’s about want? About wanting a different kind of life, not needing it?”

      He looked unimpressed. How he reminded her of the man who had first stood in his doorway, arms folded over his chest, his one word—nope—hanging between them.

      She hadn’t let his attitude stop her then, and she wasn’t going to let it stop her now. Just like then, it felt as if her life depended on changing that nope to something else. “Can I tell you what I see?”

      “Please don’t,” he said, his voice hard and cold.

      She smiled, because she had already seen beyond that mask. She had already seen the strength and the decency that were at his very core.

      “I see a man,” she said quietly and firmly, “who despite his dizzying career and financial success, lives with an abject sense of failure. I see a man who viewed himself as helpless when it counted the most, when he most wanted to be powerful.

      “I see a man who has suffered way too much loss, and all that loss has left him feeling guarded about love, unwilling to risk such terrifying powerlessness and loss again.

      “I see a man who doesn’t need love but who wants it desperately. And yet he’ll say no to that—to rediscovering the richness of his emotional life, to learning to laugh again—because the risk of pain seems like too great a risk.”

      “It is. Too. Great. A. Risk. And I don’t want to talk to you about risks. How could you have done that? Put yourself in the path of that psychopath?”

      “I had to.”

      “But why?”

      “Because I was like the Cowardly Lion, I had to find my courage.”

      He snorted.

      “Because there is no love without courage. To choose love? Even though it has wounded you? That is the greatest courage of all.”

      Angie heard the firmness in her voice, the new strength of a woman who had found the courage to face down her own fears—all of them. “It’s the only risk worth taking. The tremendous payoff is worth the risk. The payoff is love.”

      * * *

      When Angie had laughed he had known the gig was up. The minute he had let her in that door, all those weeks ago, he had opened up a whole world of danger to himself.

      Her laughter had shown him, all too clearly, who she really was.

      And who she really was? Vivacious and fun, alight with life. Smart. Capable. And now this added element: pure, unadulterated courage. What could be more dangerous to his shut-down world than someone like her who was willing to grow and change, to let life teach her all its lessons, both easy and hard? What could be more threatening to the comforting darkness he had come to live in, than her promise of light?

      Still, he tried. He cleared his throat.

      “Let’s look at the facts,” he said.

      She wrinkled her nose at him. He hated it that she did that. It made her look so adorably cute.

      He cleared his throat. She had been back in his house less than three minutes and he was already reacting to her.

      “That moment of madness when I decided I was capable of making muffins?”

      “You totally miss me,” she said.

      He scowled at her. “It is the result of your intrusion on my world, influencing me, filling me with a desire to prove things that did not need proving a mere month ago!”

      He had thought, when she had first arrived, that it was only for two weeks. That was all. He’d been clear about that. A man could handle anything for two short weeks.

      She moved toward him. He had plenty of opportunity to move away. Plenty. But he did not.

      She came and stood before him. Everything she was, was before him. It was in her eyes, sparkling with unshed tears, and in her posture and in her exquisitely beautiful but tentative smile. She was courage and she was delicacy. She was strength and she was tenderness. She was tears and she was laughter.

      She was offering him a world that would go from black-and-white to full color; she was offering him a world that would go from bleak to glorious. All of that was in her as she reached out her hand and cupped his jawline, her fingers stretching out to touch his cheekbones.

      He froze. He could feel the utter tenderness of her touch. In her shining eyes was love and acceptance. He understood every man dreams of such a thing, without knowing that it was his greatest longing.

      Jefferson Stone’s strength completely failed him, crumbled like rock from an ancient wall.

      Or maybe that was not it. Maybe that was not it at all. Maybe it was that his strength was replaced with the courage she had talked about. And that courage unfurled within him like a flag that had felt the wind.

      The wind was her love, showing him all that he could be and all that they could be and all that their world could be.

      Because, instead of moving away from the promise of her touch, he moved toward it. He covered her hand with his, and then he guided her hand to his mouth and kissed her fingertips with the reverence of recognition.

      Of who this amazing woman was and what she was offering him.

      She felt his moment of surrender. Her eyes widened, and the tears were finally freed. Her mouth formed the most delectable little O. And then she was crying, and laughing at the same time.

      He gathered her in his arms and felt the pure homecoming of his heart finding its way back. He whispered his thanks to her and to the universe and to whatever forces had guided them toward this moment.

      This exquisite moment, when all the world stopped, when every other single thing fell away in insignificance, when all the world bowed before the glory of it.

      When all the world acknowledged that there really was only one truth.

      And that one truth was love.

       EPILOGUE

      JEFFERSON STONE WENT and stood at the window for a moment. The moody waters of the main body of the lake were swathed in the chill gray cloud of winter, but the water at the edges of the sheltered bays was freezing up nicely.

      The wind howled under the eaves of the house and tossed pebbles of slanting snow against the window. Here, inside, the contrast was sharp and delicious. The house was warm and cozy. He could smell pumpkin pie cooking. December would not be everyone’s favorite time to be on the lake, but it was his.

      Had December always been his favorite month, with its mercurial weather changes, and with skating on the lake and Christmas right around the corner? Probably it had not been. Once, he had wandered away, like a man lost, from the magic of all those things.

      He and Angie had married on Christmas Day. He had offered her the big spring wedding, knowing that dream had been yanked from her once without warning.

      But Angie had said no, that wasn’t her dream anymore. She said a big wedding was about a day, but loving each other was about a lifetime. And she had been so impatient! She was not about to wait until spring.

      So, instead of a church and a dinner, instead of all those traditions she had once longed for, they had done as his grandmother had once done, and sent out a blanket invitation to spend Christmas with them. It had been like the days of old, the house filled to overflowing with joy and love. The wedding had been a surprise for most of their guests. A few, like Maggie, had been in on the secret.

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