“Are you saying that you’re afraid to build a life with a man you admittedly love because he might be killed in the line of duty?” Mike asked.
Brynne’s parents exchanged an eloquent glance.
“I didn’t realize we’d raised a coward,” Alice told her husband.
“You’re just saying that because you want to plan a wedding!” Brynne accused, stabbing at another hunk of waffle and pushing it into her mouth.
“I won’t dignify that remark with an answer,” Alice sniffed.
“Good,” Brynne shot back.
“Seems to me,” Mike said, used to being caught in the cross fire and therefore unfazed, “that you have some thinking to do, daughter-of-mine. Maybe it’s time you decided whether you want to hide out and play it safe, or join the game and give it the best you’ve got. I can tell you from experience that, win, lose or draw, grabbing life and running with it is your best option.”
Brynne was quiet. “It’s risky,” she reminded her mom and dad, in a small voice.
“You bet it is,” Alice replied. “You’ll get some bumps and bruises—you already know that, from being with Clay—but look what you would have missed, if you hadn’t loved him. Yes, you’d have skipped getting your heart broken, but what about Davey and Maddie? If you could go back to the beginning and make a different choice, knowing what you do now, would you do it?”
Brynne shook her head.
“Now you’re in that place with another, better man. You can save yourself—avoid the risks of loving a man who enforces the law—but what else will you be avoiding, Brynne? What else?”
There were a thousand answers to that question, starting with children.
But there were other joys, things meant to be shared with another person, that one very special person.
Sure, the worst could happen. It almost had, that very day.
She would have grieved terribly if she’d lost Eli, there was no denying that.
And yet she would have had memories, as short as their time together had been, to treasure forever: resting her cheek between his shoulder blades as they sped over fields of glistening white on his snowmobile, watching movies on his couch and winding up on the floor, making love. That spectacular kiss on New Year’s Eve. Even the dreams she’d never have dreamed without Eli.
Now she had a choice to make.
She could garner more treasures, more memories, to store safely in the warmest part of her heart, or she could chicken out on it all, squawking and flapping her wings and declaring to everyone who would listen that the sky was falling.
Well, she knew what her answer would be, what it had to be.
She would stop fretting and throw herself into the game.
Winner take all.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
AFTER THREE FULL weeks in the hospital, Eli was more than ready to leave.
When Sara pulled into his driveway, Brynne was waiting in the backyard, barely restraining Festus, who clearly wanted to break free, leap the fence and tackle Eli the second he got out of his sister’s car.
“Let him go,” he told Brynne, with a smile, because damn he’d missed that dog.
Brynne looked doubtful—and beautiful, standing there in jeans and a sweater that must have been left over from Christmas, given the appliqued reindeer on the front. A powdery snow had fallen the night before, turning the surrounding landscape pristinely white, and the combination made Eli think of one of those glass balls with small, festive figures inside.
He caught his breath, suspended in the moment.
Then, reluctantly, Brynne released the dog.
Festus sailed over the back fence and leaped into Eli’s arms, knocking him backward, laughing, into the soft snow edging the driveway.
They wrestled joyously, man and dog, while Sara fretted and Brynne hovered, nervous but smiling.
For Eli, that canine greeting was the perfect counterbalance to the last time he’d fallen onto snowy ground, and it took the sting out of the memory.
“For heaven’s sake, Eli,” Sara fussed, “get up! Do you want to be back in the hospital?”
Brynne said nothing, but she did lean over and offer Eli a hand.
He took it and rose awkwardly to his feet.
Festus pranced around them, tail wagging, grinning in that way dogs do.
Canine contingent, present and accounted for.
“Eli Garrett, you’ll be the death of me,” Sara complained but, like Brynne, she was smiling. Instead of heading for the house, she opened her car door to get back in. Most likely, she’d left poor, fictional Elliott Starr dangling from the lip of a cliff by his fingertips or fending off an army of bad guys, and needed to get back to her computer.
Brynne looped her arm through Eli’s and tugged him toward the backyard gate, which stood open. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep him nice and quiet,” she promised Sara.
“Nice and quiet isn’t exactly what I had in mind,” Eli said, for Brynne’s ears only. “In case you’ve forgotten, I’ve been held prisoner in a hospital for three weeks.”
She flushed slightly, but ignored him.
Sara settled into the driver’s seat, started the ignition, shut her car door and rolled down the window to reply. “If my brother misbehaves,” she called to Brynne, “and you’re forced to shoot him, I’ll understand.”
“I’m a dead man,” Eli murmured. “Because I definitely intend to misbehave.”
“Stop it,” Brynne whispered, smiling and waving as Sara buzzed the car window up again, backed up a little way and turned around.
“Not a chance,” he replied.
They went inside, man, woman and critter, and Festus, evidently exhausted by his duties as a one-dog welcoming committee, promptly made his way to his fleece-lined bed near the woodstove in the living room.
Brynne had built a fire earlier, and something savory was bubbling away in a crockpot on the kitchen counter. The mingled scents of woodsmoke and—was it chili?—were almost as tantalizing as the woman facing Eli now, with her arms around his waist.
He felt a rush of emotion, standing there like that, with Brynne holding him and being so obviously careful not to hurt him.
In that moment, Eli knew he had everything a man could reasonably want: a beautiful woman to love and be loved by in return, loyal friends and an extended family, a job he could hardly wait to get back to, a sturdy house to call his own and a damn fine dog.
The gratitude he felt was nearly overwhelming. It scalded the backs of his eyes and choked him up considerably.