When Rick trailed off, Lana rose to her feet and met him at the bottom of the steps. “Maybe life would cut you a break?”
Rick just shook his head, pushing on. “I’ll try again tomorrow. I’ll keep trying until I find it. I know how important this is to you, so I won’t quit on this. I give you my word.”
And when a man like Rick gave his word, he kept it. Too bad the moose was the last thing Lana cared about.
“A moose isn’t what I need from you.”
His expression turned bleak, but Rick just nodded. “Yeah, I understand.”
“Actually, I don’t think you do.” Lana looked up at Rick, her heart pounding in her chest. “I came back because it’s Christmas. And I didn’t want it to be Christmas without telling you how much I—” She stopped, the things she wanted to say sticking in her throat. “I know being with me is complicated for you.”
“Lana, I love you. I’ve loved you since you almost killed me with a tranquilizer dart. It’s not complicated. It’s simple.” His words were quiet, exhausted, as if loving her was a weight he was carrying. Or maybe loving her and not having her.
Loving him and not having him was slowly killing her.
“You deserve everything,” Rick continued. “The best I can give you is not being dragged down by me.”
“No.”
“No?” He quirked up an eyebrow.
“I’m refusing your explanation. The terms are unacceptable.”
“Love isn’t a contract,” Rick said, shaking his head.
“What if it was? My shoes will always click. I can’t change that. I don’t want to. But who you are, everything you are, is everything I need. So if that’s the only thing keeping us apart, then I’m calling bullshit. You need to do better.”
“You’re not going to let me break up with you?” He sounded astonished. And her heart was crashing in her chest, because in his eyes was hope.
“I’m countering your offer of a breakup with a happily ever after.”
“Your company—”
“It’s my decision. It’s my life. I have the right to be happy, Rick. So here are the best terms I have. I love you,” she said simply. “You’re the first, really. And I’m hoping you’ll be the last. Because if this is what love is like, it’s…”
She hesitated, voice catching.
Warm, strong hands took her face in them, broad shoulders blocking away the rest of the world. “It’s what, Lana?”
“It’s scary. Terrifying. I want to throw up a lot of the time, and Montgomerys do not throw up.”
Lana found herself blinking away the tears in her eyes, his fingers wiping away the ones she missed.
“I don’t know how to keep being me without you. I can figure it out, but I really don’t want to. Because you’re the best man I’ve ever known. The terms I’m proposing are these: me and you. No termination clause, because no matter what, I know what we have is real. I know we can make each other happy because we already do. These last two weeks have been the best of my life, and that’s not because of my job. It’s because of you.”
She had more; she could do this better. Lana knew she could.
“I also promise you get the side of the bed you like the most, killer sex every time I get back from a business trip, and the remote at least twenty percent of the time.”
“Forty-five,” Rick countered.
“Twenty-five,” she said. “Not a moment more.”
Rick took her hands, folding them inside larger, rougher fingers.
“Lana, are you sure? Leaving you once is all I’ve got in me. I don’t have the strength to do it again. If you really want this, if I’m enough for you, then I’m not going anywhere. Not for the rest of my life.”
Rick’s heart was on his sleeve, his eyes locked onto her. A man who loved her. A man who needed to know he was safe with her too.
“You’re all I need,” she said softly. “I’ll carve it in snow on the mountainside if that’s what you need to believe me.”
Rick closed his eyes, took a deep steadying breath—as if the air in his lungs had been missing for far too long—and then he nodded. “Terms accepted.”
And just like that, Lana had closed the most important deal of her life. Rick pulled her in close, kissing her the way she’d desperately missed in the short time they’d been apart.
“Should I have my lawyers draw this up?” she asked, breathless.
“It’s a verbal agreement. Our happily ever after is legally binding.” His lips curved against her ear. “Come on, gorgeous. It’s Christmas. Let’s go home.”
Home was three steps up to a worn porch swing and a door that had seen better days.
Diego had a bowl of cereal waiting for each of them.
Epilogue
When the year ended in Moose Springs, it ended in style. Fireworks, festivities, a “who can last longest buck naked on a block of ice” contest, more fireworks. The whole nine yards. Food and alcohol were consumed in copious amounts. Someone always ended up drunk on top of the Locketts’ roof.
Considering how heavily Jonah was drinking when Lana and Rick had snuck away, the officer was the most likely to earn that distinction, although Lana didn’t blame him. Graham had been sworn in the day after Christmas, and the first thing Graham had done as mayor—with a bit of funding from Lana—was hire a deputy policewoman. Jonah deserved a night off.
Lana and Graham worked together well. Too well, honestly, which meant at some point, Graham was going to have to admit he was right for the job. Maybe on his deathbed, he’d get around to it. Which freed up Lana to continue waging her war against Silas. It had taken calling in every favor she had accumulated with her family members and promising future support on other projects to push them into agreeing to sell the Moose Springs commercial properties back into the hands of the people who deserved them: the town. Nearly everyone wanted to buy, but not all could secure funding, so Lana had started pulling strings with the Anchorage banks to force those loan applications through.
She’d flexed more muscle, called in more favors, and strong-armed more people than she ever had in her life, and that had just been in the past week. But it looked like the private businesses were going back to their owners. Even Rick was getting his place, despite his limited capital. The effort invested had been more than worth it.
Lana didn’t know what was going to happen to her condominiums. It was possible the town would use their increased voting power to push her out. But maybe not. In the meantime, Lana had tried to do her part to help by suggesting to Jax that the resort might benefit from a private investor, one whose money was built on her own portfolio instead of her family’s prowess. So far, Jax hadn’t gotten back to her on that one. He was too busy celebrating the New Year in style.