Page 41 of Working for Keeps

“I’m here.”

“No—” Her hands tighten on my jaw, her voice trembling. “Not just in this room, Mick. Here. With me. Don’t go somewhere in your head where you’re bracing for the blow.” She swallows hard, a tear slipping down into her hair. “You’ve been braced since I got out of that car. Put it down.”

I put it down.

As the armor strips away, everything I’ve kept locked behind my teeth for three years spills out into the dark.

“I love you.”

For a second, she doesn’t breathe. “Say that again.”

“I love you.” It comes out rough, thick with emotion, and I don’t try to polish it. “I loved you at nineteen, I loved you every single day of the three years you were gone, and I love you right now. I’m not saying it because of where my hands are. I’d have said it in my own parking lot eleven days ago if I’d had the guts for it.”

“Mick—”

“I’m not finished.” I slide my hand under her jaw, holding her steady so she has to look at me. “You’re going to hear it from me every day for the rest of your life. You’re going to get sick of it, and I’m going to say it anyway.”

Her whole face softens, her eyes shining in the moonlight.

“I love you,” she whispers, her voice breaking. “I never stopped. Not for one day, Mick. Not for one hour.”

I shift over her, gathering her close, and sink into her slow and deep. There’s no rubber barrier, no ticking clock, nowhere left to run. The searing, wet heat of her wrapping tightly around me drags a low groan from the back of my throat. She rocks her hips up to meet me, her hands gripping my shoulders, and we fall into a rhythm that belongs entirely to us—deep, steady, and unhurried.

I prop myself up on one forearm, reaching down to slide my hand under the small of her back, tilting her hips to deepen the angle. Vera gasps, her eyes wide, her entire body clenching tight around me as I drive home. I do it again, slow and relentless, until she loses her breath entirely.

Somewhere in the middle of it, she starts laughing and crying at once, burying her face in my neck, telling me to shut up even though I haven’t said a word. I wrap my arms around her, holding her tight against my chest, feeling her heart hammering against my ribs while I drive into her until she shatters around me all over again. Her nails score deep lines into my back, her voice raspy as she cries my name like a vow.

The feeling of her unravelling beneath me pulls the floor right out from under me. My jaw clenches, my breath catching in my throat, and I follow her right over the edge, pouring every last piece of myself into her as my body shakes against hers.

Afterward, we lie tangled in a wreck of flannel sheets while the mountain goes about its quiet business outside the window.

She’s drawing invisible lines on my chest with one finger. It takes me a minute to realize she’s tracing a floor plan onto my skin.

“What’s that?” I ask, my voice rough.

“Your second bedroom,” she says softly. “The one full of lumber.”

“It’s a shop.”

“It has a window with north light, and you’re using it to store a table saw.” She props herself up on one elbow, her dark hair tumbling over my ribs. Her face is flushed, her eyes wide and serious. “I want it. I’d need a desk—a real wood one, not laminate. I am never sitting at another laminate desk as long as I live.” She pauses. “I’d need the county’s parcel data, about four hundred dollars of survey software, and I’d have to talk to the town council about whether they even want⁠—”

“Vera.”

“—because Hank Mullins has been running that public-works budget off a legal pad since 1998, and the culvert grid in this valley is a genuine disaster. The water comes off that ridge every spring, and nobody has ever modeled it⁠—”

A laugh erupts from my chest before I can stop it—a real, deep laugh I haven’t felt in three years. She stops talking, looking indignant as she sits up in my bed with her hair wild around her shoulders.

“What?”

“Eleven days ago, you walked into my plant to tear it apart,” I say, smiling up at her, “and now you’re going to fix the storm drains.”

“I’m going to model the storm drains.”

“God help this town.”

“Don’t laugh at me, Mick Hayes.”

“I’m not.” I reach up, wrapping my arm around her waist, and pull her back down onto my chest. She comes without a shred of resistance, melting against me. “Take the room. Take the whole house. I’ll put the saw in the barn.”