Love Proof (Laws of Attraction)

Thirty-three

Sarah stared at him, too overcome to answer.

Joe lifted her hand to his lips. “That’s all this is, Sarah. One long, two-month argument for why you should give me another chance. I know how you are—you’re going to want to be stubborn here. It’s always your first reaction. So I don’t expect any kind of answer right now—in fact, I don’t want one.”

“That really pisses me off,” she said. The words were out before she could stop them. Maybe he was right about her first reactions.

“Why?” he asked. “Because I know you?”

“No, because you think you know me. You don’t. You used to.”

“Then tell me the truth,” Joe said. “Are you feeling all mushy toward me right now? Ready to throw yourself into my arms and tell me, ‘Yes, Joe. I’m with you. Let’s run away together tonight’?”

“Of course not,” Sarah said.

“Then tell me what’s on your mind.”

Sarah narrowed her eyes. Because what was on her mind could very well be interpreted as stubbornness, and she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of proving his point.

“It’s like I’ve said before,” she answered. “You take a lot for granted. You always seem to think I’m a sure thing.”

“Sarah,” he said, “have you not been listening? You’re the opposite of a sure thing. A sure thing would have smiled the first time she saw me in six years. She would have been friendly. Happy to be around me. You’ve been like a junk yard dog I’ve had to sing to and feed scraps of meat night after night until you finally trust me enough to let me climb over the gate.”

She couldn’t help it—she had to laugh. Even though she knew she should be annoyed at the comparison. But she also knew he was fairly close to right.

“See?” Joe said, pointing to her smiling face. “That. Do you know how long it’s taken me to get that?”

Sarah closed her eyes and dropped backward onto the red velvet pillows. She never imagined when she bought them that one day she’d be sitting on her catalog couch, resting her head on her catalog pillows, while Joe-freakin-Burke sat there with her, telling her he had made an absolutely horrendous career move just for the chance of flying with her to Missoula and Billings and Pocatello so he could carry out his campaign to woo her.

“I’m not stubborn,” she said from her prone position. “I’m just practical. And you realize a part of me wants to tell you whatever you want to hear so you’ll quit that damn law firm tomorrow—tonight, even—and get out before it’s too late. You know that, right?”

“But I also know you’re a woman of your word,” Joe said, “and so you would never lie to me like that.”

Sarah sighed. And aimed one frustrated but mild kick at his thigh.

Joe caught her foot and held it. “Red?”

“Yes?”

“It could be like this again.”

“I know.” She knew she sounded serious, not soft. Like a lawyer conceding a point.

“Do you have a good reason not to?” Joe asked. “Tell me the truth. I’m willing to listen if you’ve got one.”

“So easily deterred, huh?” she asked, poking him with her free foot. He held on to that one, too.

“No, but I’ve thought it through and I’m ready for you. So make whatever kind of case you want for why you and I shouldn’t be together.”

“We’re opponents,” she said. “Or have you forgotten?”

“Easily fixed, and you know it. I’ll hand it over to someone else this week. Next?”

Sarah scowled. She wanted to give him other reasons: that the way he’d treated her before was unforgivable, that they had only been together again for less than a week, and that was hardly proof that they could sustain it, that, that . . .

But he had narrowed her arguments by telling her they had to be true. And she knew those weren’t.

The truth was, she could forgive him—and last night she had. Any anger she felt was gone. Maybe it had already left her before that, she thought, maybe at the ski area above Salt Lake City, maybe outside the airport in Pocatello, maybe in one hotel room or another. The moments had begun to blend, and she knew her heart had been changing all along. She couldn’t point to one single event and say, Yes, that one. That’s where I gave up being angry and started falling in love with him again.

And the truth was that even though they had only been “together,” in that sense, for the past week, they’d been together for two months. And for seven weeks before that. And in the same way she knew by the end of a weekend in Illinois that Joe was a man she could love, she knew that now, and didn’t feel right lying about it.

“You’re right,” she said, her body going limp. “I’ve got nothing.”

“Wait a minute,” he said, “no argument?”

“No, I’m too tired.”

“Not good enough,” Joe said. “I’m not winning this by default. You can’t give in because you’re tired.”

“Yes, I can. You win.”

In one swift move, Joe yanked Sarah toward him by the feet until her legs lay over his lap. Sarah laughed. “Look at me,” he told her. “Sarah, I’m serious.”

“What? You got what you wanted, didn’t you? You can quit, I’ll be your girl . . . ”

“This is not satisfying,” he said.

“Well, too bad. You wore me down. You’re like water on a rock—drip, drip, drip . . . ”

But then she sprang to life again, straddling him, pinning him to her couch. “Is this what you want, Burke? More of a fight? You want me feisty?”

“A little feist is good,” he said. “But I want to hear the words, too—can you give me that, Henley? Or are you going to leave me here hanging?”

“I will not leave you hanging,” she said, pressing her groin against his. “By no means. I’m feeling a second wind. And yes, Burke,” she said, resting her hands gently on the sides of his face and gazing into his eyes, “I’ll give you the words: I’m with you, Joe. Whatever this whole thing brings, I’m with you. Satisfied?”

“Getting there,” he said, standing up and lifting her with him. She wrapped her legs around his waist as he carried her in the only possible direction.

“You still haven’t said the other thing I want to hear,” Joe said.

“You’ll have to earn that, too,” Sarah answered. “Keep working on it.”