38. Beyond the Rescue
“This has been the perfect Christmas so far. Can’t we just stay in and drink chocolate milk? Boozy hot chocolate?” Neve pleaded as she secured her scarf around her neck.
Christ, earlier she’d offered to prance around in nothing but a black thong, sky-high heels, and those lace gloves that drove him bat-shit crazy, all to keep from going on the hike. He wasn’t sure how she was going to make that work with one arm, but his imagination painted a titillating picture anyway. He’d almost caved, until he’d reminded himself—multiple times—a mission was at stake. People were depending on him.
He gave himself a massive virtual pat on the back for standing tough. His one-track mind, however, had been busy jumping said track ever since, grinding its gears on how he could coax her into modeling that outfit for him later today, and he had the hard- on to prove it.
Focus on the mission, dumbass. You’ll get to enjoy the spoils later.
“Nope. It’s a beautiful day, and we’re doing this. You don’t ignore tradition. Got your hand warmers?”
“Yes,” she sighed.
“C’mon. This’ll be fun.”
“Only a search and rescue guy would think hiking to a creek in twenty-degree weather on Christmas Day is fun.”
She stomped out the back door, looking like a penguin encased in bubble wrap, and he couldn’t hold back a grin. This was like being with five-year-old Neve, which was perfect for today—except that he was as agitated as a bag of cats. He was also trying to outmuscle his libido, which kept picturing removing every single layer of her winter clothing until she was down to nothing but her creamy skin.
Fucking focus!
“No offense on comparing myself to a bag of you feline types, Mr. W.” He winked at the fluff ball as he followed Neve out the door. The wink might have been more of a nervous tic.
He tried his best to conceal his jerky movements, but she was so busy huffing and puffing she didn’t notice—nor did she notice him sending off a quick text. After opening the truck for her, he jogged around the hood to bleed off some of his energy.
God, I hope this works!
He prided himself on his control. His logic. How he had a plan for everything. But right now he had no anchors to hold him steady. Just a will to convince Neve that they should be married— really married—and not because a piece of paper said so.
It didn’t take long to reach the trailhead, which was both good and bad. Good because it was showtime, and bad because … it was showtime.
He helped her out of the truck and took her gloved hand in his. The creek was an easy quarter-mile walk, and he concentrated on slowing his steps so she could stay in stride.
Neve paused and looked up at the sky, her eyes reflecting the same deep blue. “I haven’t been here in forever. I forgot how beautiful it is. Do you remember coming here at night to look at the stars?”
“I do.”
She seemed to leave her reluctance behind and grew excited, rushing up the trail .
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Slow down. It’s icy. I don’t want you falling and breaking your other arm.”
She gestured for him to hurry. “You’re out of shape. Let’s go!”
They rounded a corner, and he held his breath. Excitement, anxiety, and a boatload of other competing emotions played tug-of-war inside him.
Neve stopped short, and he nearly ran over her. “What …” She turned her head and looked up at him. “What’s all this? Did you do this?”
“I had a little help from my design team.”
The small clearing with a crescent of sandy beach looked as it always had, except now luminaries glowed around its perimeter.
“Your design team,” Neve deadpanned. “I don’t get it.”
He pushed ahead of her, pivoted, and walked backward. “Yes, my design team. They helped stage this, and they said twinkle lights would never work out here—too cold for batteries—so they suggested luminaria instead.” Hopefully, the substitution wasn’t a disappointment. “Let’s go, Little Miss Badass. You’re out of shape!”
A curious smile curved her perfect mouth. She followed, her head on a swivel. When they reached the middle of the clearing, Reece took her hands in his. “You told me once that this was your favorite place.”
“Yes, but that’s because I came here with you.”
“You also said you pictured being proposed to here. I think you clasped your little hands together and got this dreamy look in your eyes. You might have even batted your eyelashes.”
Her eyes widened, and a pretty blush painted her cheekbones. “And you said that was stupid.”
He wagged his head. “Yeah, I guess I did. Then you got kinda pissy and told me it was ‘romantic.’”
She rolled her eyes. “And you repeated it was stupid. No wonder I got pissy.”
“I had a limited vocabulary back then.” He sucked in a breath. “We have a lot of history, Neve. Our town, our families …” He gestured around the clearing, and familiar faces, their bodies swathed in winter gear, began materializing from the trees. His parents, his brothers, his sisters-in-law, Shane, Dixie and her husband Dewey, Luanne, Cade, Micky, and Amy.
The look of utter shock he’d been going for was evident in Neve’s hockey-puck eyes and her slack-jawed mouth. He beamed proudly. “Oh, and my design team. Would you ladies please take a bow?” Practically every woman there bent at the waist. Dixie stumbled on a tree root, recovered, and plastered on a glowing smile.
Neve gasped and drew a circle in the air with her pointer. “You guys were all in on this?” They bobbed their heads, each in an uncoordinated tempo, like someone had flicked a row of bobbleheads at random intervals. She turned to Reece. “W-why?”
“Besides needing the help of a design team to get this right—in case you haven’t noticed, I’m a little clueless about this stuff—I wanted backup.”
“Backup for …?”
To hold me up if you give me the wrong answer .
He sank to one knee and reached into his pocket, fumbling with the small box, nearly dropping it in the dirt. He snapped it open with a little too much force and broke the lid. Jesuuuus! He was completely muffing this!
His voice trembled as he spoke. “Neve Embry, I have loved you my entire life, and I intend to continue loving you for the rest of it. I said we got this backward, but really, we didn’t. You’re my best friend, and now you’re my wife. But I flubbed it the night we got married. I bypassed a really important step and failed to let you know you mean everything to me.” He cleared his sticky throat. “Here’s what I should have said to you that night: I’m so in love with you I don’t think I’ll ever come up for air. I don’t have the words to express how deep it goes or how powerful it is. What I feel can’t be contained by the entire San Juan Mountain Range, or even the Rockies, for that matter. I’ve wasted a lot of time, and I have a lot of catching up to do. I’d like the chance to do that for the rest of our lives. Would you do me the honor of being my wife, in all the ways that word implies?”
Sniffles came from their audience, and from the corner of his eye, he spied his mother and Dixie hugging. “My last prince has finally found his princess,” came a hoarse blubber—but the words were uttered by Dixie , not his mom.
Despite it all, he remained focused on the most precious woman in his life. He lifted the box higher.
Tears ran down Neve’s cheeks. “How did you get those?” Her voice was a quavering whisper .
“You gave me the combination to your safe, remember?” A grin found its way to his face. “They’re already engraved, so they’re ready to go. What do you say?” His panic rose when she didn’t reply, so he rushed to add, “But if you don’t like these, we can get something else. And if me being in your house makes it too cramped, I’ll get us another one. Anywhere you want.”
She doubled over, and he sprang up, thinking she might be sick. “Neve! Are you okay?”
“Can’t breathe,” she wheezed.
Someone—he had no idea who—took the box from him, and he put both hands on Neve and brought her upright. “Talk to me, sweetheart. Tell me what’s going on.”
She thumped her chest, and her eyes were wild, but her lips curled up.
“Looks like another rescue,” someone muttered behind him.
“Is she okay?” a different voice said.
“At least the right guy for the job is already here.”
Reece held her head. “We’re gonna box breathe together, okay, sweetheart?”
She nodded, and he began counting in twos. Her color was good. She didn’t appear to be going into any kind of distress, though her eyes were glossy with tears. Relief waved through him.
“I might need mouth-to-mouth,” she finally gasped. She took a moment to swipe at her wet cheeks.
He stood back. “What the hell? Are you okay or not?”
“More than okay,” she choked. “Just … I didn’t expect any of this. You literally took my breath away.” Her eyes locked on to his as the tears let loose, rimming and spilling down her pretty pink cheeks.
Okay. Taking her breath away is good. I think. The box found its way back into his palm.
“Y-you put so much thought into this,” she whispered.
“Told you I’m a romantic. When it comes to you.” He stared at her, trying to gauge his next move. Was he supposed to go back down on one knee? Nobody wrote manuals for this shit.
“Open the box,” Noah prompted somewhere behind him.
Reece obeyed and held out the open box in his palm. “Uh, dying here?”
Neve’s expression softened with a tenderness so palpable he had to suck in a breath of his own. She had looked at him the same way when she’d been five … and six … and seven. He’d been blind to it then, but now, it shook him to his core.
She pushed up on tiptoe and looped her good arm around his shoulder. Her indigo eyes sparkled with wonder and love so powerful he could almost feel emotions dancing in their depths. “Reece Hunnicutt, I’ve waited for you to rescue me my whole life. Of course the answer is yes. I will marry you”—her brows crinkled in confusion—“er, stay married to you. You know what I mean.”
His heart grew wings and nearly flew out of his chest. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her as close as was decent. “I know what you mean. And honestly, you’re the one who rescued me .” He held up the box, still in his grasp. “Can I put these on you? Will you marry me again?”
She lowered her heels back to the ground, pulled off the glove on her left hand, and held it out to him. She sang out, loud and clear, “Yes, I will. Today and any day. I do.”
Though he couldn’t keep his hand from shaking, he managed to get the band and the big diamond ring on her slim finger. In turn, she plucked his ring from the box and held it up to him in question.
“Please do,” he rasped. Clearing his throat, he loudly declared, “ I do too.”
Holding his eyes, she slipped it onto his ring finger. He was vaguely aware of their family and friends cheering, clapping, and whistling in the background.
Taking her back in his arms, he smiled down at her beautiful face. “I’m kinda new at this, though I vaguely remember Vegas. Is this the part where I get to kiss you?”
“Kiss her already,” Charlie hollered from the peanut gallery. Why had he invited them again? Oh, right. So Neve couldn’t say no.
“We’ve got this, Charlie.” She tugged on Reece’s jacket. “Oh yes. This part and many parts to come, for the rest of our lives. I love you so much, Reece Hunnicutt.”
His chest doubled in size, and his heart was so full it could have spilled into the creek.
“And I love you with all that I am, Neve Hunnicutt.”
Later that night, Reece lay studying Neve as she slept beside him. Moonlight streaming through the window shimmered in her hair, reminding him of threads of silver and gold. He couldn’t believe he’d get to watch her like this for the rest of his life.
After celebrating with the “wedding party” at Miners Tavern, where Neve had proudly shown off the engagement and wedding rings she’d once hidden away, they had come home exhausted. A few kisses later, though, and they’d shed their fatigue as quickly as they shed their clothes. The love they’d made wasn’t the frantic, hungry sort that so often overtook them. It had been languid and deep, souls open and touching and twining into one unbreakable, unshakable thing .
He was ready to do it again. Nothing compared to being inside Neve. Nothing.
He traced his finger down her cheek to her chin, where a tiny rough spot remained from the day she’d tried to check him on the ice.
Her eyes fluttered open. “Hmm?”
“Just thinking about how it’s my job to keep you safe, in spite of your track record. And to remind you every day how gorgeous you are.”
She rolled to her back and stretched like a cat, her arm arching above her head. “You’re the best man for the job.”
“That I am. In fact, I already have that job.”
A playful devil appeared in her eyes. “Yes, you do. Were you aware it’s a lifetime assignment?”
He pulled the sheet from her body and dipped his head to her bare breast. Before he latched on to a tip, he murmured, “It’s one of the many reasons I signed up.”
Her gasp, the arch of her back, stoked his fire. Eagerness overtook him, and soon he was on top of her, between her legs, entering her.
This was one of the ways he loved her best. Lying beneath him, her lips lifted in a smile, blond hair fanned against a white pillow, welcoming him in. Telling him with eyes as clear as the sky that she was his, no one else’s, and always would be. He had staked his claim .
He hovered above her, bracing his weight on his arms so he could look at her and take in every square inch of this heaven laid out before him. Like Fall River, she belonged to him and he to her. Forever.
THE END