Golden
Starring Jan and Diana from My Name on Your Lips
“THIS IS TOO FANCY FOR date night.” Diana bounced in her seat, arms around Jan’s elbow as she leaned against him.
“Remember, I used to avoid staying in Pine Ridge for any length of time. If I hadn’t met you, I planned to spend half of last year in Africa.” Jan turned his car into the parking lot of Country Pines. “So... Claire was raving about this place?”
“Mmhm.” Diana bit her lip and said no more.
Jan shook his head. His wife had been scared of her own shadow when he met her, thanks to an abusive, controlling ex-jerk with a temper made worse by alcohol.
In the year and a half since he’d met Diana, she’d come out of her shell and shown herself to be funny, smart, driven, and everything he could want in a partner—except in one area.
Diana never let herself relax. If she wasn’t waitressing, she was studying; if she wasn’t studying, she was trying to help around the house, and she was rapidly getting involved in every sub-committee in existence.
“You need a whole night where you can’t work on something,” Jan said sternly—but he was quick to add, “If that’s okay?” He never, ever wanted to cross into the controlling territory Diana had escaped from.
Diana sighed and gave him a smile. “You know you don’t have to do that, right? I know that you’re not Scott. He manipulated, belittled, blamed... You love, pamper, and care about me. I would have been happy with our usual date night. Bowling? What about steaks and brownie sundaes?”
“Nope. Hotel. Spoiling. Massaging you. Making your brain go gooey with only thoughts of me.” Jan kissed her fingers as they lingered on his arm.
“Okay. Ooh. I forgot, I have to text Georgia real quick and remind her that Onyx Farms called about the vegetable order.” Diana opened her phone, and her eyes narrowed.
“What the—Ugh. I have to reply to an email about the Applefest pie-eating competition. I really think we ought to have a supernatural division separate from the humans this year. I mean, no offense, but a minotaur is completely going to dominate, and that’s not fair to the humans who don’t know what they’re up against.”
“Honey.”
“Wait—Ah! What? What day is it?”
Diana didn’t give him a chance to answer. She pressed a hand to her cute blonde bob and raked her fingers through it in agitation. It made her look like an adorably angry cat—but it also meant that date night was rapidly losing its relaxing air.
“Darn it, I missed this email from Gloria. I’m in charge of picking the book club book choices for next month, and the theme is enemies-to-lovers. I have a huge list to get through. I should—”
“Stop talking about anything but you, me, and a bottle of wine?” Jan gently pushed her phone back into her lap. “Don’t make me use my poppart powers on you.”
Diana gave him a playful glare. “Hm? What’s that mean? You’ll curse me so that I can’t say your name, Mr. Stilz? Been there, done that.”
“A pox upon Rumple.” Jan opened the car door and rushed to open Diana’s before she could beat him to it. “That’s just one trick in the poppart bag.”
“You’re going to flood me with beautiful jewelry?” Diana touched the beautiful gold necklace at her throat, a soft smile playing on her lips. “You can’t keep doing that, babe.”
Jan wrapped his arm around her waist as they walked toward the row of doors.
“I can! It doesn’t cost me anything but a little energy, baby.
” To demonstrate, Jan weaved his fingers through the air as they walked.
As part-poppart (a specific sort of goblin), he could control metals and minerals as easily as other people manipulate their voices to create beautiful melodies.
Right now, the damp night air and the urgency in his blood helped him spin silvery swirls into a delicate, lacey-looking flower.
He passed it to Diana with a little bow.
“Let me spoil you, because you won’t spoil yourself. ”
DIANA LOVED PINE RIDGE and the people in it, especially her husband, her co-workers, and her in-laws. She loved her parents in Ohio and the grit and determination they’d ingrained in her. She wasn’t afraid of hard work or “burning out.”
No. Diana was afraid one day she would wake up and find she was still a waitress and part-time student in the tiny town of Antonia, Pennsylvania, and that Scott would come strolling through the front door, drunk and looking for someone to scream at.
Work was a good distraction. Making new friends, feeling like she was meshed tightly into Jan’s family and the community of Pine Ridge, was a wonderful safety net.
“What’s the matter?” Jan pushed open the door, and Diana entered the room. It was a perfectly soothing green, smaller than she would have accepted, but it instantly made her feel... cozy. Safe.
“Nothing! It’s just... I had to work so hard to get where I was—and Scott tried to take it away.
I had to struggle to get free from him, and I came here and...
I don’t know. It was a soft landing. Georgie and Georgia took me under their wings right away.
I met you, and I suddenly understood how a man is supposed to treat a woman, and I could see all the things I’d been blind to.
If I stop working so hard to give back to the people and the community that saved me—will the universe think I’m lazy?
Ungrateful? Will everything just ‘poof’ away?
” Diana put her faded backpack on the ground.
She’d worn it over a year ago when she fled from the apartment she shared with Scott.
She got out before he moved from verbal to physical abuse, but looking at the scuffed bag brought memories flooding back.
She had nice luggage now, her own money, plus Jan’s money. They shared equally whatever they earned, and he never made her feel small for earning less as a waitress than he did as a jeweler.
“I’m safe. I’m happy. I know it. Sometimes I’m just afraid I’ll wake up and find out it was all a dream. Too good to be true.” She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Jan, letting him pull her into a tight hug. “Especially you. You’re my one wish come true.”
Jan held her, rocking from foot to foot.
“I’m not letting you go. You don’t have to worry.
If this were a dream, I’d find you in your sleep.
Rumple took his true love—who was someone else’s queen at the time—and her child through time and space, crossing demonic portals and earthly oceans—just to keep her by his side. True love is like that.”
Diana blinked up at him, lost in the way her normally laid-back husband could weave images of powerful, death-defying love with just his words, the same way he could weave the finest golden chains out of thin air.
But.
“But she was a queen.”
“She was a farmer’s daughter when he met her. Waitress, weaver, queen... I don’t care about your job description, Diana. I care about the part where you love me and want me. You do, don’t you?”
“Of course!”
Jan nodded, hands sliding around her neck, thumbs massaging the tight knots that formed along her spine.
Diana loved this. This moment where she could just lean into her husband and let her cares melt away.
JAN SIGHED, THUMBS maneuvering, mind wandering.
Thin gold tendrils caressed his wrists, flowed from his fingers, and laced over the back of Diana’s neck.
No! No, no, no! Jan snapped his fingers softly, and the gold wisps fell to the floor. He didn’t want to scare Diana by making her feel constricted. He shouldn’t wrap his magic around her.
To his surprise, Diana looked up at him, pouting. “Hey. Where’s my pretty net of golden fluff, Mister?”
“Hm? Oh. I... I didn’t mean to.”
“Oh? I liked it.”
Jan’s eyebrows arched in surprise, but he quickly hid it, kissing Diana’s neck as his hands slid down her arms, stroking her wrists. Magic flowed, a light, bright gold weaving around her wrists and binding her to him.
“Jan.”
“Argh. I’m sorry.”
“Why?” Diana licked her tongue over his lips, moving her mouth along his jawline and down his throat.
“Um. Well. Because of what happened with... The past boyfriend who hurt you—”
“Never tied me to him with pretty golden chains while spoiling me and telling me he would move heaven and hell for me. He tried to force me to stay with him through fear and intimidation.”
“I’d never force you to do anything!”
“I know that. Seems like your magic understands exactly what I want. I want to belong to you. With you. And I like that you’re equally attached to me.”
“Equally attached?” Jan shook his head. Did she not understand, even now?
“Diana—you’re a human. You could end up with so many people, and most of them would be good for you.
Great, even. Any man with a brain would think he was lucky to have you.
But for me—one of Rumple’s descendants? Only one woman in the universe could be my one.
Only one woman would have to work to learn the secret of my name, and only my name on your lips could break that curse and lead to true love.
You don’t have to worry about me going anywhere, Di.
I’m yours!” Jan held up his wrist. A sturdy (yet elegant) gold shackle had formed around his wrist—and the delicate thread of gold around Diana’s wrist now sported one old-fashioned-looking key with a heart-shaped head.
“Oh! Oh, Jan.” Diana gasped and gently slid the bracelet over her wrist. Sure enough, the key fit perfectly in Jan’s cuff. “But you’re not m-my prisoner.” She looked horrified at the thought.
“No! Unless you mean prisoner of love,” he winked.
“Ooh. That could be fun.” Diana wiggled her hips, cheeks flushed.
“You think so?”
“With you? I know so. Besides—if I’m your prisoner of love, I definitely will stop trying to text and email all of my various sub-committee people.”
Jan licked his lips. “Sold.”