Tami Hoag - Dark Paradise

“What do you say, Mary Lee?” he asked, spreading his hands, his heart pounding at the base of his throat. “You gonna give a hardheaded cowboy a second chance?”

She looked at him standing there in his good clothes, clean-shaven, and his hair combed, and her heart nearly overflowed. You’re hopeless, Marilee . Hardheaded didn’t begin to describe him. He was contrary and ornery and they didn’t see eye to eye on much of anything. And he was closed and stubborn and opinionated… And he was good and honest and strong and brave, and she loved him. No question that she loved him.

The air went out of J.D.’s lungs when she smiled that wry smile.

“Does this mean you’ll actually take me on a date?” she asked suspiciously.

“Dinner and dancing?”

“Dancing?” She sniffed, mischief sparkling like diamonds in her eyes as she pushed herself away from the railing. “You can’t dance.”

He took a step closer, squaring his shoulders at the challenge. “Can so.”

“Cannot.”

A smile played at the corners of his mouth. “Come over here and say that, city girl.”

Mari stepped up to him with her hands on her hips and looked him in the eye. “Show me.”

Carefully he took her in his arms and danced her through a slow two-step around the deck. While Spike looked on from the cushion on the Adirondack chair, they moved in perfect unison to a sweet, pretty song about Halley’s comet and innocence and simple joys. He moved with grace and confidence, guiding her, holding her in a way that made her feel safe and protected and small and feminine. Above them the sky turned purple with twilight and the moon rose in the east, a huge white wafer above the jagged teeth of the Absarokas. Down the valley the coyotes began to call.

Mari kept her gaze locked on J.D.’s, searching for a truth she wouldn’t count on him speaking. That he could give her his heart. That she could trust him with hers. That the years of wariness hadn’t left him permanently isolated.

She caught the slightest whiff of aftershave, and tears of love filled her eyes as she slid her arms around him and pressed her cheek against his chest, slowing their dance to a shuffle. He was a man as hard and unyielding as the land that bred him, and she might spend the next fifty years tearing her hair out over his stubbornness, but she wouldn’t trade a second of it for all the gold in California.

She mouthed the words against the soft cotton of his shirt, like a precious secret, like prayer. I love you .

J.D. wrapped his arms around her and pressed a kiss to the soft tangle of her hair. His heart felt huge and tender in his chest, beneath her cheek. Looking out across the valley to the mountains beyond, he felt both old and new, strong and vulnerable. He felt as if they were the only two people on earth, alone in paradise, starting fresh. He vowed to do it right this time. No lies, no games, cards on the table, nothing held back.

The music slowed. The sweet harmony of twin fiddles faded away, and the last notes were played on the guitar.

Their feet stilled.

Their hearts beat.

Mari held her breath.

And Rafferty tipped her chin up and gazed down into her blue, blue eyes and whispered, “I love you.”