“Yet not once did you say a word to me about it!”
“I wanted to. God, I cannot tell you how much I wanted to. But every time I started to, I just couldn’t. Look.” He gazed at her helplessly. “You’re like some damn...princess or something, while I’m—well, I’m from a poverty-stricken little nowhere town in West Virginia. A town I clawed my way out of before it could suck me into the mines. I’ve been clawing my way ever since—for jobs, for better by-lines, for that next rung up the ladder.” He blew out a breath. “Then I met you and had a proverbial smackdown between the angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other.”
“And we both know who won that round,” she muttered.
“I’m not proud of it. When I sent the Hayley article to my editor, I felt honest-to-Christ sick. I knew I’d betrayed your trust and made you betray your best friend in the process. But the damn tipping point wasn’t me worrying over giving up my dreams. It was the idea of meeting your father. I thought about telling him I had intentions toward you—then having to admit I was unemployed when he asked what I did for a living.”
“So, what’s changed, Ty? This is all very angsty, but five minutes ago you were ready to toss me away for a job on some stupid newspaper.”
“Some stupid—? On the New York Times!” He long considered himself shock-proof. But hearing the NYC referred to as some stupid newspaper scandalized him right down to his toenails.
Yet in truth? “I would give that job up in a red-hot minute if you’d forgive me. If you’d let me stick around to be your guy.”
“Would you.” There was the princess persona he had mentioned. Coolly, she looked him over from the top of his head to the toes of his big feet where they tented the hospital sheets. “I’ll have to review my options and get back to you on that. Meanwhile—“ She climbed onto the bed on his uninjured side and, smelling like a million bucks, snuggled against his far from pristine body. “Just hold me for a while.”
He wanted her to agree to be his right now. Wanted to pin down an ironclad arrangement she could not wiggle out of. Make her agree he could stay here with her. Or that she’d go to New York with him. Something.
But it had been a fucking eventful day to say the least. Wrapping his good arm around her, he did as instructed. And received a world full of comfort in return.
“So,” he said with studied casualness. “Did I ever tell you I have a political-opinion blog that is starting to attract some attention?”
Hayley gave Jon-Michael a self deprecatory smile as he helped her into the local taxi he’d called to take them home. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“Do you? Good trick, considering I don’t have a clue.”
“You’re thinking I’m a big-ass talker, giving Ty grief about being an emotional coward. Considering you’ve called me on being the same thing.” The cab driver turned left at the highway instead of right and she frowned out the window. “Hey, he’s going the wrong way.”
Jon-Michael ran his hand down her hair from her crown to her nape, which he squeezed to redirect her attention on him. “You said you wanted to go home.”
“I do. To your place.”
“Yeah?” His tired eyes brightened and the corners of his mouth curled up like burning paper.
“Yes. I just wanna go home.”
He leaned forward. “Harold,” he said to the cabbie. “Change of plans.”
Ten minutes later, Jon-Michael had Hayley settled on the couch with a glass of water. “How you feeling?”
She gave him a sweet, loopy smile. “Mighty fine.”
“Good drugs, huh?”
“Extremely.” She took a sip of her water and grimaced. “A glass of wine would be good, though.”
“Yeah, that’s not gonna happen. You’re a couple sheets to the wind as it is.”
“There is that,” she agreed amiably. She handed him the water glass. As he took it, she said, “I love you, Johnny.”
He bobbled the glass, righted it with only a small splash across the back of his hand, then very carefully set it on the coffee table. “You—?”
“Love you.” She yawned. “I’m a real big proponent of never lying to oneself, yet I sure refused to acknowledge the way I feel for you. For way too long, I refused to do that. But it’s a funny thing when someone tries to kill you. It points out in rolling neon arrows how absurd lying to yourself is.”
He watched her wince at the mention of arrows.
Then she shook her head as if to dislodge the image. “Anyhow, after I injured Patsy enough to get away, I ran like the frickin’ wind. And all I could think of, with every step I took, was you. About how much time I wasted playing the same emotional dodge-em game I accused Ty of tonight. I should have admitted a long time ago what you and I both know.”
His heart pounding like a sonofabitch, he sat carefully on the edge of the couch next to her. “And we know...you’re in love with me?”
“Crazy in love with you. Mow-down-anyone-who-gets–in-my-way in love with you.” Her lips curled up. “You had me at the Groucho glasses, Olivet.”
Then she looked him in the eye with complete seriousness. “You have turned yourself into such a fine man, Jon-Michael.”
It was as if she’d reached inside his chest and wrapped her warm, capable hand around his heart. “Aw, Hayley.” Carefully, he scooped up her, sat down in the space she had occupied and rested her on his lap. He cradled her with her good shoulder tucked against his chest, her round butt nestled in his lap and her legs sprawled along the couch cushions. Pressing his chin against her cheek, he said in a low, rough voice directly into her ear, “I love you so much. I have for a long, long time. Soon as your meds wear off I’m going to ask you to repeat yourself, just to be sure we’re really on the same page here.”
She laughed. “Fair enough, but the answer will be the same. Hey!” She raised her head. “I’m so sorry, I never even asked. How did the board meeting go?”
“I aced it! Your Right-Is-Might turned out to be prophetic. Except for the old man and Jensen, they voted unanimously for my proposal. And the company is going to lease my part.” He shook his head in wonder. “I planned to give it to them, but the old man has been such a pain in the ass I’m dead happy to take his money.” Then he shrugged. “Knowing you love me, though? All that could have gone completely the other way and I’d still say life doesn’t get any better than this.”
“Adore the sentiment.” She rubbed her smooth cheek against his beyond five o’clock shadow. “But I love this outcome even more. And Jon-Michael?”
“Yeah, darlin’?”
“I am so glad to know I’ll have you by my side when, or if, they execute Lawrence Wilson. Knowing I have you to lean on, I can get through either outcome.” She pressed her cheek more firmly against his. “God, my heart feels like a big old balloon o’ bliss. And the best part? I can’t help but believe our life will continue getting even better.”
“If that’s even possible.”
“I know, right? But I’d wager everything I own on it, which, okay, isn’t much. But if I had a fortune I would bet it all on us. Because I know in my heart our love is just going to keep growing.”