Chapter 20
LANDON
He sat in the waiting room of the therapist’s office waiting for Willa.
The first thing she’d done, even before they let her out of the hospital, was to find a therapist. She’ managed fine enough on her own the last time, or so she’d thought.
But coming face to face with ‘him’ had thrown her into a tailspin.
She’d been surprised when he’d volunteered to take her to her therapy sessions.
All he could say was the truth. “I love you like crazy. Whatever you need, whatever you want, to make sure that you’re healthy in mind and body, I’m here.”
And he’d kept to that.
So had her grandfather.
Alexander had backed off from his decision to separate Landon from Willa, even in the task force. Her grandfather had gone through his own crisis knowing that he’d helped Ted get close to Willa.
But it was Willa who pulled her grandfather out of hiding and made sure that he knew she didn’t blame him for anything.
That had gone a long way to reassuring him, but Landon could still see hesitation in Alexander’s eyes whenever he looked at Willa.
The door opened and Willa came out into the waiting room. For the first time since she’d started her therapy sessions, she didn’t have a handful of tissues in her hand.
Landon didn’t want to make anything of it. He kept a lot of his thoughts to himself and waited to hear what Willa had to say.
When they got into the car, she turned to look at him and he turned to look at her as well.
“You’re probably wondering how today went.”
“I am. I always want to know.”
She put her hand on his arm, and he looked down at the reassuring touch.
Reaching out to him physically and emotionally had been difficult for her the last few weeks since they’d found her in the cabin at Canyon Lake.
Feeling her touch him as if it was natural, felt like he’d run a marathon. Elated, but also exhausted.
He knew she must feel the same way.
“I think I’ve turned a corner.” She smiled and he smiled back. “I know you’ve been patient.”
He gently covered her hand on his arm with his other hand. “I want you to be happy. I just want to be with you. Holding your hand. Having you sit beside me on the couch. Lying beside you in bed just to watch you sleep. That isn’t about having patience, Willa. It’s about loving you with everything I am.”
“Then you’ll be happy to know that I called Captain Watts a few days ago.”
“Happy?”
“I asked him to borrow you for a few days.”
“I’m sure he said yes.”Landon knew just how much Captain Watts admired Willa.
“He gave me you for a week.”
“A week, huh? I’m going to really love this.”
“I hope you don’t mind driving us there.”
“I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.”
“Including the Riverwalk? Because I got us a hotel room overlooking the river. I just want to be alone with you.”
“That sounds like heaven to me.” He cast a look at the glovebox where he’d hidden the engagement ring that his mother had taken out of their safety deposit box at the credit union. His grandmother’s ring. “I just want to hold you, honey. I want to be there with you.”
He saw her drag in a lung-filling breath. “I want to do more than just have you hold me. I think I’m ready.”
“We’ll wait until you are, Willa. I’m not expecting anything.”
She smiled and leaned in for a kiss that he gladly gave her. “That’s one of the many reasons that I love you, Landon Cooper.”
WILLA
Five days later, when she woke up just before dawn, she reached her hands out and waited until the purplish-pink light of dawn sparkled off of the diamonds in her engagement ring.
Landon had slipped it on her finger the night before as they’d finished dessert at a riverside cafe. She’d stared at the ring in shock when he explained that what she thought was the most beautiful ring in the world had been his grandmother’s.
His voice had shaken as he told her that his grandparents had been married for seventy years before passing within hours of each other.
“I don’t know if we’ll have seventy years together, but I want every single second that you’ll give me, Willa.”
“Well, I’m holding out for seventy,” she answered back, “and you’ll get every second that I have because I know that I’ll always be here for you, just like you’ve been for me.”
Landon shifted behind her, and she felt him lift up the sheet before he spooned up behind her, his arm wrapping around her middle. “You’re up early.”
“I wanted to see the ring in the morning light.”
“Hmm?” He lifted up on his elbow and pressed a kiss on her shoulder as he looked at the ring. “It looks beautiful on your hand.”
He placed another kiss on her shoulder, and she smiled, blissfully. “It’s so beautiful. Your grandfather had amazing taste.”
“He did. My grandmother was just as amazing as you are. I know they’d love you as much as I do. As much as my parents do.”
He lowered himself back down to the bed behind her and lifted his hand from her belly and up to her breast. “I love the way you feel.”
He said the words, but the proof of it was in how he touched her.
Ted had left her with scars that might never go away but seeing the way Landon looked at her… looked at all of her, told her that he didn’t see those scars. Landon saw her.
Whatever hurt that Ted had tried to inflict on her was fading away. The memories when they popped up, didn’t make her cower in fear. She set them aside and lived in spite of them.
She reached around behind her and let her fingers tease his belly before she lowered her hand to wrap it around the erection that she’d felt a moment before. “I’m hoping that this isn’t just false promises, Landon. I might just become a morning person if this is how we’re going to start the day.”
He pressed a kiss on the back of her neck and used his fingers to lightly pinch and roll her nipple. “If I could start each day like this, I’d be the happiest man in the world.”
Drawing in a steadying breath, she lifted her leg and draped it over his thigh. “Would this help?”
“Fuck,” he groaned against her neck as he lowered his hand from her breast, down over her belly, to the apex of her thighs and slipped his fingers though her curls. He found her clit in a heartbeat, but he wasn’t in any hurry to make her come.
His fingers coaxed out sighs and soft breaths and when he moved in closer and paused, he placed an open-mouthed kiss against her pulse just below her ear. “I love you, Willa. I love you so much.”
“Then we’re a good pair, because I love you too.”
She let out a long breath as he slid inside of her until they were as close as they could humanly get.
Who knew that the best part of her life was born from the worst day of her life? She’d come a long way from those stubborn teenage years to a woman who wore her scars with an ease that she had worked hard for. There were so many times when she could have broken, in body and spirit, but here she was, celebrating life with a man who looked at and treated her like his equal in every way possible.
She knew that she would never have found justice for her friend without Landon Cooper and now, together, they were going to keep helping people, making her life more than amazing, it was complete.