Lucky Harbor: At Last Part 35

She couldn't have controlled hers even if she'd tried. He was still buried deep inside her, and she held him close, savoring the feel of their bodies joined together.

Finally she lifted her head and looked into his clear, gorgeous light brown eyes, and that's when she knew.

He was it for her.

No matter what happened, no matter what he said now, that fact remained.

"I've made some pretty spectacular mistakes in my life," he said quietly. "The latest was when I let you think I'd given up on us."

She tried to climb off him but he held her tight, pulling her down to him, pressing his lips to her temple. "Stay. Stay with me."

"I understood why you might have given up," she said. "I'd lied to you."

"Yeah." He nodded. "Which just proves that I'm not the only one who can make a spectacular mistake." He smiled at her. "That's good to know."

She couldn't smile back. Her heart was in her throat. She'd learned a lot about herself lately, mostly that it was hard to ask for forgiveness, and harder still to give it. To let go and trust. But worth it. Oh, G.o.d, so worth it. "I'm so sorry," she whispered.

"I know," he said. "And I'm sorry, too. So d.a.m.n sorry that I hurt you. But I swear to you, Amy, if you give me another chance, I'll never hurt you again. Not for anything. You can trust me." His gaze held hers prisoner, and it was too much.

Way too much. She felt too open and... naked. She dropped her head to his chest. "I do trust you," she whispered. "I just don't know what I'm doing."

He stroked his good hand down her back. "You'll figure it out. I have faith in you."

Lifting her head, she stared at him, then laughed. "You're not going to be the hero and offer to solve all my problems?"

"I'm not here to solve your problems. I'm here to support you in your own decisions. I'm not going to walk away, Amy. Not now, not when the going gets tough, not ever. I'm right here at your back."

"For how long?"

"For as long as you'll have me. I love you, Amy."

Staggered, she stared at him. "But you don't do love."

"I never said that. I said love hasn't worked out for me. But all it takes is the right one. You're the right one."

No one had ever said such a thing to her before, and it made her heart swell hard against her ribcage. "I love you, Matt. So much."

He smiled like she'd just given him the best gift he'd ever had. She settled against his good side, and they stared up at the star-laden sky. "I knew I'd find something on this journey," she said. "I wasn't sure what, but I knew it'd be something special."

They pulled into the North District office at nine a.m., one full hour late, and Matt knew that hour was going to cost him, in a big way.

He didn't regret being late. Couldn't. He'd meant what he'd said to Amy, that he was no longer putting his job ahead of his life. That had been habit, a self-preservation technique.

And it was chicken s.h.i.+t.

He'd learned something about himself here in Lucky Harbor.

The town trusted him. His friends trusted him. Amy trusted him. And he could trust himself and let happiness in.

Amy was his happiness.

The ranger station parking lot wasn't usually a hotbed of activity, but this morning the entire lot was jam-packed with cars.

"What's going on?" Amy asked.

Matt was staring at the lot. "I have no idea."

They got out looking like a ragtag team from The Amazing Race. Matt was still s.h.i.+rtless, the sling in place. Amy's clothes were torn from her breathless, in-the-dark climb down to where Matt had fallen. She was disheveled and glowing.

Not from the climb.

Just looking at her warmed Matt from the inside out.

"Mallory's car is here," Amy said, pointing it out. "And Grace's. And isn't that Josh's car? And Ty's truck? And Sawyer's cop car? What-Why is everyone here? Do you think they're all here supporting you?"

Yeah, that's exactly what he thought.

Proving it, the station door opened, and people filed out, his coworkers, and then Jan, Lucille, Lucille's entire posse... half the town.

"What the h.e.l.l?" Matt said.

Sawyer reached him first. "Got Riley's a.s.sailant in custody. The idiot showed up at the diner last night with a knife, threatening everyone in sight if they didn't produce Riley, and Jan beaned him with a frying pan. She's pressing charges, and Riley will do the same." Sawyer looked at Amy. "Jan told Riley that they were even now. The slate was cleared, and Riley could rent out that little hole-in-the-wall studio apartment above the diner if she wanted."

Ty and Josh reached them. Josh's attention narrowed in on Matt's makes.h.i.+ft splint. "Ah, h.e.l.l," he said, sliding the torn s.h.i.+rt aside, examining the shoulder until Matt hissed in a breath. "You did it again, didn't you?"

Lucille pushed her way between the two big men, barely coming up past their elbows. "Well?" she demanded of Matt. "I came out here and missed my morning talk shows. The least you can do is give me an exclusive quote on the situation."

Matt shook his head. "I don't know the situation."

Lucille went brows up, looking as if she'd just swallowed the canary. "So if I told you that we all came here to see your s.e.xy tush fired, you'd believe me?"

Matt slid a look to Josh and Ty, both of whom were wearing dark sungla.s.ses and matching solemn expressions, giving nothing away. Some help.

Lucille smiled and patted him on the chest like he was a sad puppy. "Aw, you're too cute to tease. We all came this morning to plead your case. Ty and Josh here told your boss that you couldn't be here because you were busy saving a woman who'd gone into the forest alone." She turned to Amy. "Did you need saving again, honey?"

"Actually," Matt said, holding her tight to his good side. "She saved me."

"Sweet," Lucille said. "I saved you, too, don't forget." She elbowed Ty. "See, Facebook isn't completely evil." She beamed with pride. "Oh, and you're cleared of any inquiries or blights on your record," she said to Matt casually. "Those Facebook pics were pretty d.a.m.ning." She turned to Amy. "I was thinking an exclusive show."

"Show?"

"Your art. You came to Lucky Harbor to follow your grandma's decades-old adventure, hoping for the same life-changing experiences, right? Do you have any idea what a great story that makes to go with the art? It's fantastic. I can't even make that stuff up. You're going to sell like hotcakes. We're going to make buckets of money."

"How did you know all that?" Amy asked. "About my grandma and everything?"

"Honey, I know all. The question is, did you get your life-changing experience?"

Amy looked at Matt and smiled. "I did."

Matt's entire heart turned over in his chest. "d.a.m.n," he said, pulling her in. "d.a.m.n, I love you."

"Watch the arm!" Josh warned.

"He's not watching that arm," Ty said as Matt kissed Amy again.

"Christ," Josh said.

Matt ignored them all and kept kissing Amy. A surge of emotion rocked him to his core when she responded with everything she had, and the kiss got even a little more heated. He was vaguely aware of everyone cheering and hooting and hollering, but he didn't give a s.h.i.+t. He had everything he ever wanted, at last.

Raising his head, he looked down at the woman whose smile made it seem as if she were lit up from within. She was filthy, exhausted, probably half starved, and a complete mess. But she took his breath and owned his heart, and he'd never seen anything more beautiful. "Be mine, Amy."

"I already am."

The Chocoholics' Brownies-to-Die-For

Ingredients

4 large eggs 1 cup of sugar 1 cup of brown sugar 1 cup of b.u.t.ter (2 sticks) 1 1/2 cups of sifted cocoa powder 2 tsp of vanilla 1/2 cup of sifted flour 1/2 tsp of salt Use the mixer to beat the eggs on medium speed until they turn light yellow. Add both sugars and salt. Mix well. Then gradually add the rest of the ingredients: vanilla, b.u.t.ter, cocoa powder, and flour. Keep mixing until it is all combined but the batter is still lumpy.

Pour into an 8" x 8" greased, nonstick pan and place it in the oven at 300 degrees. After 45 minutes, use a toothpick to check the brownies. Check every five minutes for a total cooking time of up to 60 minutes. When the toothpick comes out clean, remove brownies and let them cool before you cut them.

Voila! Your chocolate fix.

ER doc Josh Scott has his future all mapped out. But Grace has a different plan...

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Forever and a Day

Chapter 1.

Chocolate makes the world go around.

Tired, edgy, and more than a little scared that she was never going to get her life on the happy track, Grace Brooks dropped into the back booth of the diner and sagged against the red vinyl seat. "I could really use a drink."

Mallory, in wrinkled scrubs, just coming off an all-night s.h.i.+ft at the ER, snorted as she crawled into the booth as well. "It's eight in the morning."

"Hey, it's happy hour somewhere." This from their third musketeer, Amy, who was wearing a black tee, a black denim skirt with lots of zippers and kick-a.s.s boots, the tough girl ensemble softened by the bright pink Eat Me ap.r.o.n she was forced to wear while waitressing. "Pick your poison."

"Actually," Grace said with a yawn. "I was thinking hot chocolate."

"Or that," Amy said. "Be right back."

Good as her word, she reappeared with a tray of steaming hot chocolate and big, fluffy chocolate pancakes. "Chocoholics unite."

Four months ago Grace had come west from New York for a Seattle banking job, until she'd discovered that putting out for the boss was part of the deal. Leaving the offer on the table, she'd gotten into her car and driven as far as the tank of gas could take her, ending up in the little Was.h.i.+ngton State beach town of Lucky Harbor. That same night she'd gotten stuck in this very diner during a freak snowstorm with two strangers.

Mallory and Amy.

With no electricity and a downed tree blocking their escape, the three of them had spent a few scary hours soothing their nerves by eating their way through a very large chocolate cake. After that, meeting over chocolate cake became habit-until they'd accidentally destroyed the inside of the diner in a certain candle incident that wasn't to be discussed. Jan, the owner of Eat Me, had refused to let them meet over cake anymore, so the Chocoholics had switched to brownies for a while. Grace was thinking of making a motion for chocolate cupcakes as the next dessert. It was important to have the right food for those meetings, as dissecting their lives-specifically their lack of love lives-was hard work. Except these days Amy and Mallory actually had love lives.

Grace did not.

Amy disappeared and came back with b.u.t.ter and syrup. She untied and tossed aside her ap.r.o.n and sat, pus.h.i.+ng the syrup to Grace.

"I love you," Grace said with great feeling as she took her first bite of delicious goodness.

Not one to waste her break, Amy toasted her with a pancake-loaded fork dripping syrup and kept eating.

Not Mallory, who was still carefully spreading b.u.t.ter on her pancakes, her diamond engagement ring catching the light with every movement. "You going to tell us what's wrong, Grace?"

Grace stilled for a beat, surprised that Mallory had been able to read her. "I didn't say anything was wrong."

"You're mainlining a stack of six pancakes like your life depends on it."

This was a true statement. But nothing was wrong exactly. Except... everything.

All her life she'd worked her a.s.s off, running on the hamster wheel, heading toward her elusive future. Being adopted at birth by a rocket scientist and a well-respected research biologist had set the standards, and she knew her role. Achieve, and achieve high. "It's nothing really. Except I've applied at every bank, every investment firm, every accounting firm between Seattle and San Francisco."

"No nibbles?" Mallory asked sympathetically, reaching for the syrup, her ring flas.h.i.+ng again.

Amy s.h.i.+elded her eyes. "Jeez, Mallory, stop waving that thing around, you're going to blind us. Couldn't Ty have found one smaller than a third world country? Or less sparkly?"

Mallory beamed at the rock on her finger but otherwise ignored Amy's comment, unwilling to be deterred. "Back to the nibbles," she said to Grace.

"Nothing too noteworthy," Grace said. "Just a couple of possible interviews for next week, one in Seattle, one in Portland." Neither job was exactly what she wanted, but they'd both be a steady-and solid-paycheck.

Grace had grown up back east, from toddlerhood through getting her CPA. Drowning beneath the debt load of her education-her parents had been of the "build character and pave your own road" variety-she'd followed that job offer to Seattle, wanting a good, solid position in the firm. Just not one that she could find in the Kama Sutra.