Stonehill series collect.., p.53
Stonehill Series Collection, page 53
“Which one?”
“Either. Both.”
“Because whether you want to admit it or not, I know how your mind works. This isn’t me abandoning you, Annie. This isn’t me walking away and never looking back. This isn’t me dumping my responsibilities, forcing you to pick up my slack.”
“Sure feels like you’re dumping your responsibilities and leaving me with the slack.”
“No, I’m taking the lead here. I know I’m putting you in a bit of a bind at the office, but you will find another salesperson. You’ll be fine. It’s time for us to decide what we are to each other. If we’re anything at all. All I want is for you to stop making excuses as to why you can’t love me back.”
“I hate you,” she said softly and without an ounce of conviction. “How about that as an excuse?”
“Now if that were true, none of this would be an issue, would it? You don’t have to say that you love me. You don’t even have to love me. I love you, and I can’t be here day in and day out and not have you in my life the way I want you in my life. I’ve done it for too long. I’m at a crossroads, Annie. I have to make a choice. I’m choosing you. It may not feel like it to you, but I am choosing you.”
She lowered her gaze and shook her head slightly.
“You’ll find another agent, Annie. You’ll find someone who can fill my shoes. But I’ll never find another woman who makes my heart race and my palms sweat.”
She looked up at him for a moment but then snorted. “You’re so full of shit.”
He grinned. “I’m not lying. One look from you turns me into a puddle.”
Her smile fell a bit as she sighed. “I know that feeling. And I love you, too,” she whispered. “Despite you being egotistical, stubborn as hell, and impossible to deal with most days.”
The smile that broke on his face was so wide it made his cheeks hurt. She loved him. She’d actually said that she loved him. He knew she meant it. Annie didn’t say things just to appease people. If she said it, she felt it.
He was tempted to round her desk and kiss her again. This time slowly and sensually so she would feel every ounce of love he had for her. But she’d probably lose her mind if he tried to cross the lines of decency at work yet again. Instead, he held out a plastic fork to her. “Eat your dinner, darling. Before it gets as cold as your heart.”
Marcus hadn’t stopped feeling like he was floating on a cloud since Annie had admitted that she felt the same about him, and that feeling intensified when Harrison Canton called to offer him a job. Two weeks. In two weeks, he’d no longer be Annie’s employee. The first thing he was going to do, five p.m. on the dot, was pull her into his arms and kiss her with everything he’d been bottling up.
“That’s some smile,” Dianna said from his doorway.
He chuckled. “I just got a job at the Canton Company.”
Dianna’s face sagged a bit. “Annie said you’d met with Harry. Are you sure you want to leave, Marcus?”
He nodded.
She sat across from him, as if waiting for an explanation. Finally, a light went off in her eyes. “She gave in?”
He chuckled and rapped his knuckles on the desk. “I’ll be escorting her to your wedding, as a friend. But once I’m no longer her employee, Annie and I will… Well, I guess we’ll see where this is going. If anywhere.”
“Congratulations.”
“Thanks.”
“You know she’s going to need a lot of patience.”
“I’ve been patient for five years, Di. I think I got this.”
“Good. Are you busy? I have a client who hasn’t been in to fill out the identification forms yet. I’m sure he’s perfectly fine, but you know how Annie is. She’ll have a conniption if I meet him alone before verifying his identity.”
Marcus would have a conniption, too. Being an agent presented dangers, and Annie’s insistence that every client fill out a form with proof of identity and employment had skirted off more than one person who might or might not have been looking for a target to mug. If a client couldn’t be verified before the first meeting, the agent was to cancel or partner up with a co-worker.
“Give me five.” When he finished filling out the paperwork for the deal he was negotiating, he set it aside to be signed by the buyer later in the day and called out to Dianna. She met him in the lobby, and they headed out to meet her new client.
Marcus was in such a good mood, he didn’t even mind her nonstop rambling about the weather report. Having an outdoor wedding in April was risky, but she and Paul had decided to go for it. And she’d been afraid rain would ruin her wedding ever since. Now that the day was actually showing in the televised forecast, and with a twenty percent chance of precipitation, she was on the verge of having a panic attack.
She had played it cool, she said, for Paul’s sake, but the truth was, she didn’t know what they’d do if it rained on Saturday.
“Twenty percent chance of rain means eighty percent chance of it not raining. And if it does rain, you can always move things inside. I know it isn’t ideal, but it’s the ceremony that counts, not the location,” Marcus offered.
She sighed and looked at him. “I know. But I’ve been planning this since Paul proposed Christmas morning, and Murphy’s Law has done nothing but mock me.”
He chuckled. “You’ve handled it like a champ.”
He parked in front of a house with a for-sale sign in the yard. A man was already standing in the driveway looking up at the house.
Marcus climbed out and walked ahead of Dianna. “Hi. Marcus Callison.”
The man glanced past him at Dianna. “Brad Schafer.”
“I hope you don’t mind my tagging along. I haven’t seen this place yet and thought this was the perfect opportunity.”
“Not at all,” he said.
Dianna gestured toward the house, and Marcus followed behind, thinking how much he was going to miss being part of the O’Connell Realty team. It was going to be worth it, though. Being with Annie would be worth it.
Chapter 4
Annie had just finished filling her coffee mug when two large hands gripped her hips. She sighed loudly but couldn’t quite stop herself from smiling. She and Marcus had arrived later than most of the wedding guests—he’d insisted on stopping for dinner at some dinky sandwich shop along the way—but even so, she’d been the first one awake. She thought she’d have some peace and quiet before the hubbub of wedding preparations started, but it wasn’t to be.
She didn’t actually mind that he was touching her, but for the sake of continuity in their relationship, she said, “You’re in my bubble again.”
“I like your bubble,” Marcus said over her shoulder. “I’d like it more if it came with coffee.”
She reached into the cabinet and grabbed another mug, filling it for him as he advanced his invasion by sliding his arms around her waist and pressing his cheek to her head.
“What are you doing?”
He exhaled slowly. “Imagining what our mornings are going to be like after I move in with you.”
She pulled away enough to look over her shoulder. “What?”
“Your house is much too nice to rent. Mine is better suited for that.”
She turned and faced him in the small amount of space he was allotting between his body and the counter. “Are you insane?”
“Yes. I’m also teasing you. Maybe.” Reaching around her, he grabbed his mug. “In one week, I’ll no longer be on your staff. If you think I’m wasting one more minute—”
A throat clearing behind them made Marcus take a step back.
Paul pointed over Annie’s head. “If I can just get two cups of coffee to go, you can get back to…whatever.”
“Oh, we’re done with whatever.” Annie slid around Marcus and sat at the table, where she’d left her toast and fresh fruit before her space had been so temptingly invaded.
“Everything ready for today?” Marcus sat beside Annie and snagged an apple slice from her plate.
She merely cocked a brow at him. He was certainly getting comfortable with their relationship. They weren’t even dating, and he was talking about moving in? And stealing food off her plate? Brave man.
“As ready as can be,” Paul said.
“How are your nerves?”
“None to speak of.” He poured creamer into his coffee and stirred his drink. “I’m marrying an incredible woman. We’ll be surrounded by our family. And the forecast finally cleared so my bride can stop stressing about rain. It’s going to be perfect.”
With that he disappeared from the kitchen, and Marcus smiled at Annie. “He’s incredibly calm.”
“He’s internalizing his fear.”
“How can you tell?”
“He fixed two cups of coffee and then walked away without them.” She nodded toward the mugs still sitting by the pot. She grinned when Paul came back in, grabbed the cups, and left again, muttering about wedding rings and vows and hoping he didn’t forget anything else.
Marcus chuckled. “We should definitely just elope. Skip out on all this.”
Annie stopped lifting her cup to her lips so abruptly, liquid sloshed over the side and splattered on the table. “Elope?”
“Unless you want a big wedding. I didn’t think you’d be the type for all this fuss.”
“Who says we’re getting married?”
“Well, after I move in with you, eventually the next step will be marriage. Don’t you think? We want to set a good example for Mallory.”
His deadpan face cracked a bit, and his smile shone through, but she shook her head at him anyway.
“You need to leave my daughter out of your delusions.”
“She’s the one who brought it up.”
She let her jaw go slack as he stood and got a paper towel. “When did you talk to Mallory about us?”
“Oh, we had lunch Thursday after you blew her off, even though she drove all the way to the office.”
“I didn’t blow her off. A deal almost fell through at the last minute. I couldn’t back out of the meeting I was in.” She took the towel from him to clean up her mess. “What has gotten into you?”
He crossed his arms and rested them on the table, and all signs of teasing faded. “We’re not exactly teenagers anymore. We have to take our happiness while we can.”
“We’re not exactly ready for the nursing home yet, either. Jumping into conversations about moving in and getting married feels a bit premature.”
“You’re right. It is. I’m just teasing you. Maybe. But to be honest, we’ve danced around this thing between us for too long, Annie. One more week, and I’m all in. And I’m dragging you in with me.”
She couldn’t help but smile at him. “Do you think we could maybe have at least one real date before jumping all in? Maybe get to know each other on that level before deciding when and how we’re getting married.”
“Oh, I’m going to get to know you on every level.”
He leaned close but didn’t kiss her. She was surprised how deep her disappointment ran. She wanted him to. It seemed like the perfect moment. But she’d drawn lines, and while he might nudge them, Marcus wasn’t going to outright disrespect her wishes. Damn it.
She closed her eyes and moaned quietly as she looked away. “I can’t decide if your cockiness turns me on or annoys me.”
“Oh, it annoys you. But being annoyed turns you on, so it works out well for me.”
Cupping her mug in her hands, she stared at him. “Did Mallory really talk about us getting married?”
“Yes, but she was just teasing me. She learned that from you.”
She drew a slow breath. “You love when I tease you.”
“I love everything about you. Well. Almost.”
He smirked, and she glared playfully.
“She just wants to see you happy.”
“And she thinks I need a man to be happy?”
“No.” He ran his hand over her hair. “No, you most certainly don’t. But I do like to think you need me.”
Swallowing as that familiar anxiety—the one that warned her against putting too much faith in anyone but herself—started to rise, Annie leaned away and pulled his hand from her. He clutched on to hers, though, refusing to be dismissed.
“You sure want to put the cart before the horse, don’t you?”
He smirked. “Not as much as you want to shoot the horse before the journey even begins.”
She laughed, mostly because she couldn’t argue. Patting his hand, she pulled free as she stood and slid her uneaten breakfast toward him. “I’m going to get ready for the wedding before you decide which retirement community we should move into.”
“Stonehill Senior Village,” he called as she left the kitchen. “They have an indoor pool and shuffleboard.”
The sun shone high in the sky, only a few white clouds peppering the perfect blue. The lakefront air was a bit chilly but not as cold as it could have been in April. Marcus chuckled as the ceremony started with Kara’s granddaughter tossing white petals like the professional flower girl she insisted she was. Her brown hair was swept up in a bun, and her fancy dress flowed as she walked dramatically down the makeshift aisle.
Sean and Toby, Paul’s sons, stood next to their father, and he beamed with happiness as Dianna’s sons, Jason and Sam, walked at her sides. With their four college-aged boys standing around them and family and friends looking on, Paul and Dianna became husband and wife.
Annie sniffed as Paul slipped a ring on Dianna’s finger. Marcus imagined if Annie weren’t feeling so sentimental, she would have put an elbow into his ribs when he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and held a handkerchief out. Instead, she snatched the cloth and dabbed her eyes as her brother kissed his wife.
“Okay,” Sam sang out after a several seconds, “your children don’t need to see this.”
The couple parted as everyone laughed. A moment later, Paul was hugging Annie tightly. Marcus envied how close Annie was to her siblings. He was determined that eventually she’d be that free with her affection for him, but jealousy still unreasonably bit at his gut at how willing she was to hug and kiss her family.
“I’m so happy for you,” she said and then hugged her new sister while Marcus and Paul shook hands.
“How are you doing?” Marcus asked Annie as the newlyweds moved on to embrace other members of their family.
“I have all these…things going on inside me.”
He nodded with understanding. “Those are called feelings, sweetheart.”
She wiped her cheeks dry again. “My eyes won’t stop leaking. I think they’re broken.”
He laughed and put his arm around her again. He expected her to remind him of her bubble—the personal space that she preferred to keep intact—but she actually leaned into him and rested her head on his shoulder.
“What’s wrong with me?”
Marcus chuckled. “I think you could be happy.”
“I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.”
Wrapping his other arm around her, he used this unusual moment of vulnerability to hold her. “You might want to get used to it. I plan on making you all kinds of happy.”
She shook her head. “Please don’t. I can’t handle this. I need bickering and opposition.”
“There will be plenty of that, too.”
She tried to pull away as Mallory approached them, but Marcus kept one arm around Annie and put the other around her daughter. Annie looked up at him. Something in her eyes told him she wasn’t exactly comfortable, but he felt her body relax a bit and she didn’t pull away.
“That was a lovely wedding, don’t you think?” he asked Mallory.
She grinned at Annie. “There is something very lovely about small weddings.”
Annie’s mouth fell open, probably to tell them both where to stick it, as the photographer approached.
“Smile,” said the kid, who didn’t look like he was even out of high school.
Marcus pulled his girls closer to him and smiled. When the photographer walked off, he chuckled at the look on Annie’s face. “That’ll look good on the mantel, don’t you think?”
“She’s going to kill you.” Mallory laughed and walked off.
Annie gave him a side-eye glance and then pulled away and joined in a conversation with her sisters-in-law. Marcus followed her lead and starting mingling. When dinner was served, however, he moved to Annie’s side and sat at a table with her and Mallory.
“So, you two,” Annie said, cutting her chicken. “Let’s clear this up right now. If I decide to get married, it’ll be on my terms.”
“And Marcus’s, I assume,” Mallory said innocently.
Annie stabbed at her lunch. “Who says I’d marry Marcus? Maybe I have better options.”
Mallory smirked. “I hear Oscar the Grouch is taken, but Grumpy Cat may still be available.”
Annie narrowed her eyes, but Marcus howled with laughter. He loved when Mallory and Annie engaged in their native language of sarcasm. Few bounced quick wit off Annie as well as her daughter.
Annie turned her glare to him. “You two are just like peas in a pod these days, huh?”
Mallory smiled at Marcus. “I happen to like him. Not only does he tolerate you, but he seems to actually enjoy your company. Two pluses in my book.”
“What book is that? ‘How to Marry Off Your Mother’?”
Marcus tried to hide his grin when Annie glared at him, but he knew he wasn’t doing a good job. “Your mother hasn’t quite come to terms with this change in our relationship. She still thinks she has the power to resist me.”
“Oh, I have the power.”
“Come on, Mom. Look at his dimples.”
Annie snorted and picked her fork up again. “Those aren’t dimples, Mallory. Those are potholes on the road to hell.”
“Good day?” Marcus asked, startling Annie.
She gasped and looked over her shoulder as he stepped into the living room. “Damn it. You scared me.”
“Whatever it takes to get that stone-cold heart of yours to go pitter-patter.”
