Chapter 41
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Harper
We're lying in the bed of his truck, a wool blanket pulled from behind the back seat.
My head is on his chest. His arm is around me.
The stars are doing that thing they only do in the middle of nowhere, where there's no light pollution, and no city glow, and the sky just opens up like someone tore a hole in the dark and poured diamonds through it.
I could stay here forever. I think I might. No. I will. I’m going to make sure of it.
"So tell me what you wanted to tell me last night," Ace says, his voice a low rumble under my ear. "Something important?"
I trace a pattern on his bare chest with my fingertip. He's still shirtless. I'm in his shirt. The math works out.
"I sent Gianna the sales documents. Exactly how Hunter wanted them."
"Mm-hmm. Good girl."
"Well, she then asked me to get a meeting with Hunter. And a full report on the Sterlings. She wants to know everything about you. And she told me to pass along that she's your enemy's enemy."
He chuckles. The sound vibrates through his ribs and into my cheekbone.
"Yeah. We've heard that line a few times before. Hunter won't bite. We've got orders not to get tangled up with LA. And we’ve got Graves now, we’re in a good position."
I push myself up on my elbow to look at him.
He's completely relaxed. Head resting on his hand, which makes his bicep look absurd.
Moonlight on the bruise along his jaw. Scratch marks disappear below his collarbone.
He looks like a man who just rode a bull and fucked his woman in a creek bed and has zero regrets about either.
"What do I tell her?" I ask. "Because I'm stuck in the middle here, Ace. I have to keep her happy to a point."
He runs his tongue along his teeth. I can see the wheels turning behind those lazy eyes. People underestimate how smart this man is. They see the hat, the drawl, the boots. They don't see the mind underneath.
"I'll write you a report. An autobiography of sorts." He grins. "Ace Sterling. Professional bull rider. Part-time Harper worshipper."
My cheeks catch fire. I slap his chest. He catches my hand and holds it flat over his heart.
"Ace, I'm being serious."
"So am I." He squeezes my fingers. "Let's go home and write something together. Something that gives her enough without giving her too much. I'll run it all past Hunter tomorrow." He lifts my hand and presses his lips to my knuckles. "Alright? I got you, baby."
I smile as he pulls me back down to his chest.
"You want to stay up and write a report on your own family with me?" I whisper.
"I'll do anything if it means you're safe in this, Harper. I don't trust the Italians. I sure as hell don't trust the Greeks. We're playing a waiting game, and I am not having you caught in the crossfire."
I swallow. Sometimes, it doesn't feel real. But it never changes how I feel about Ace. If anything, it made me more protective of him. More aware of what he carries. More certain that the man underneath all of it is good in a way the world doesn't deserve.
"Maybe Hunter should hear her out. I think she's kind of cool." I pause. "But I don't really get your world."
His hand runs along my arm. Slow. Up and down. The kind of absent, tender touch that tells me he's thinking carefully about what comes next.
"Never trust anyone involved in the mafia, Goldie.
Promise me." His voice has dropped. Not angry.
Serious. The version of Ace that most people never hear.
"They're only ever out to protect themselves and their blood.
Gianna might just be playing the part to make you trust her so she can get the intel she needs to come tearing into New Falls and try to kill my entire family. You understand that, right?"
I stay quiet.
"This isn't like the stuff you read. The shows, the films. This is very real.
That's why you can't tell her anything unless we approve it.
And that's why you can't tell her we have her brother's killer.
That is leverage. That is something we might need to act on, and it's the only reason he's still breathing. "
The burning in my throat tells me he's right. The burning in my chest tells me I hate it, but nothing stops me from wanting to be with him.
"How do I know you aren't using me?" I tease.
He rolls over. Pins my arms above my head. His face is inches from mine, and his eyes are clear and steady and stripped of every layer of charm he hides behind.
"Because I'd die for you, Harper. Without a second thought. You're not someone I protect because of blood. You are someone I protect out of pure devotion."
The air leaves my lungs.
"Ace..." I trail off.
"Yes, pretty girl?"
The stars are above him. The blanket is rough under my back.
His hands are warm around my wrists. And everything I've been carrying since I got back to this town, every lie and every role and every night I've spent in LA pretending to be someone I'm not, all of it rushes to the surface and demands to be said.
"I want to give this a real shot."
He doesn't move. Just watches me with a burning intensity.
"I want to end the deal with Hudson and Gianna.
I want to come home." My voice cracks. I let it.
"I want to come home to you, Ace. I want that future you used to talk about.
The wrap-around porch. The kids. Everything I thought I wanted in life was a lie.
The career. LA. All of it. It's nothing compared to loving you. And I never want to lose that again."
He's so still above me. So completely, perfectly still.
"I chose wrong six years ago. I made a stupid decision because I was scared.
I was scared of how much we loved each other.
Of staying in the same town my whole life.
Of letting you give up everything to chase after me.
" I take a breath. "I was wrong. And I want to come home now. If you'll have me. Forever this time."
I don't even realize the tears are streaming down my cheeks until he leans in and kisses them away. One side. Then the other.
"Yes, Harper Jones," he whispers. "I'll marry you."
I gasp. "I didn't..."
He chuckles. That sound that lives in my chest like a second heartbeat.
"I'm joking, darlin'. You coming home to me is the only dream I've held on to. It's all I want. You, Harper. You are all I'll ever want in this life."
He releases my wrists and cups my face. And I kiss him.
Not like before. Not desperate or feral or hungry. This kiss is slow and full and aching. The kind of kiss that holds ten years of history and six years of grief and every sleepless night I spent in LA staring at the ceiling and wondering if I'd made the biggest mistake of my life.
I did. And he forgave me before I even asked.
He pulls back just enough to press his forehead against mine.
"I will marry you, though, Harper. But I'm going to do it properly. The ring you've always dreamed of. Your parents front row. That honeymoon to Venice."
I laugh through the tears. He remembers.
He remembers a conversation from when we were nineteen, lying in the back of this same truck, talking about a future we thought was guaranteed.
I mentioned Venice once. One time. A throwaway line about gondolas and pasta and churches older than anything in Arizona.
He kept it. All these years. He kept it.
"My purpose in life is to make you happy, Harper. I'd follow you anywhere, and this time, you have to let me." He pauses. The corner of his mouth twitches. "No running. Only the fun kind where I catch you and fuck you."
I laugh so hard it shakes both of us. I wrap my legs around him and pull him down against me, and I don't care that we're in the back of a truck outside a bar in the middle of nowhere.
I don't care that my hair is full of sand and my neck is covered in bite marks and his shirt is three sizes too big on me.
I don't care about Hudson or Gianna or the Greeks or LA or any of the hundred tangled threads that are going to make leaving complicated.
Because this is simple. This has always been simple. Me and him and a truck bed and the stars.
"Deal, Mr. Sterling." I hold out my pinkie. He links it with his. "No take-backs."
He turns his head and kisses our joined fingers.
"I'd never dream of it."
We lie there for a while after. My head on his chest. His hand in my hair. The bar winding down behind us. The desert stretching out in every direction, quiet and vast and full of the kind of darkness that doesn't scare me anymore. Not with him.
"Ace?"
"Hmm?"
"I really can't walk."
"I know, baby."
"You're going to have to carry me to the passenger seat."
"I know that too."
"And probably into the house."
"Already planned on it."
"And into the bath."
"Now you're pushing it."
"And into bed. And once we’re in bed, I’m going to have to take the role of pillow princess," I tease.
"Harper."
"Yes?"
"Shut up and look at the stars with me."
I shut up.
I look at the stars.
And for the first time in six years, I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be, and I am never leaving again.