She knew she was blushing—even more so when he moved behind her and removed the necklace she was wearing, a simple strand of pearls that had seemed to fit her dress better than any of her other pieces. More people had turned in their direction, she saw. Even the auctioneer seemed to sense he had lost the attention of his bidders and he was waiting for the moment to pass before continuing.
Riley fastened the necklace she had made around her neck and she felt the weight of it, cool and smooth.
“There,” he murmured. “Perfect. Absolutely perfect.”
He wasn’t talking about the necklace. Her gaze searched his and she saw a fierce tenderness in his eyes.
He leaned in and kissed her cheek, right there in front of everyone in town.
“You’re perfect,” he murmured in her ear, so no one else could hear. “And now you’ve got both of my hearts.”
Claire’s breath left her in a whoosh. She wanted desperately to trust this was real, but how could she? Love wasn’t about grand, romantic gestures. It was hard work, it was struggle, it was compromise. It was cleaning up fallen branches after a storm and fixing broken bicycles and taking care of each other.
Much to her relief, the auctioneer made a funny comment and managed to grab attention back to the item currently on the block, the painting Sarah Colville had donated.
“Do you have to finish things up here or can we go somewhere and talk for a minute?” he asked.
Claire looked around at her well-organized committee, who had handled everything so far with competent flair. She could make an excuse, tell him she had too much to do. Some part of her urged her to do just that. He had already hurt her by walking away. What would be different this time?
But then she thought of her misery the past two weeks, the gray pall that seemed to hang over everything, the regret eating at her insides for what they might have had together.
Riley had risked his life in that accident to save her and her children. What kind of coward would she be if she refused to take any sort of risk in return?
“Okay,” she finally answered.
Riley’s brilliant smile sent hundreds of glittery butterflies fluttering in her stomach.
He took her hand and headed for the door. Claire wobbled along on her cast and the single strappy heel she wore on the other foot, struggling to keep up with him. After a few steps, he must have realized she was having trouble. He stopped, took a careful look at the crowd where a few people still furtively watched them, then he scooped her up, cast and all, her evening dress fluttering over his arm.
She heard a few gasps and titters behind them, but in that moment, Claire didn’t care, not with the bubbling laugh pulsing through her.
He was out the door and through the lobby in the time it would have taken her to lodge a protest—not that he would have listened anyway—and then they passed through the wide, carved doors into a cool mountain evening, sparkling with stars.
“That was quite a romantic gesture, Chief McKnight. I’m sure you set more than a few hearts aflutter.”
He grinned, looking dark and dangerous and gorgeous, and Claire fell hard for him all over again. “What can I say? I’m a romantic guy.”
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
He carried her just a few more feet until they reached a bench angled toward the canyon and the distant gleam of Hope’s Crossing.
Even though she could hear the distant sounds of the auction, of a few vehicles coming and going from the hotel, they were completely alone here. She shivered a little and Riley instantly removed his tuxedo jacket and slipped it over her.
“Claire,” he murmured. Just that, her name, and then he slid his hands to the lapels of his own jacket, drew her closer and kissed her. She caught her breath and returned the kiss, clutching her hands on his shirtfront and probably hopelessly wrinkling it. Oh, heaven. Right here, in his arms. Tears burned her eyes at the sweet ache of it, the slow, easy tenderness of his mouth on hers.
She wanted so desperately to trust him, to trust this, but that little flag of caution waved tentatively for attention and she finally slid away and released her grip on his shirt.
Striving for calm and sanity, she swallowed and drew in a shaky breath. “I’m sorry, Riley. You’re going to have to catch me up here. Last time we talked, you were telling me all the reasons you weren’t good for me.”
“All still very true.”
“Yet here we are.”
He was silent for a long moment, then he reached for her hand. “I’ve been informed by more than one person tonight that I’m a first-class idiot.”
“Don’t believe everything you hear,” she whispered.
“In this case, they’re right.” He squeezed her fingers. “I’m a cop, Claire. I’ve never turned away from rough situations. I volunteered for every one of my undercover assignments, even though I knew what I would be facing. I’ve been in the middle of hostage standoffs, I’ve had perps try to run me over, I told you I got shot once when a drug deal went bad.”
“You dived into the icy waters of Silver Strike Reservoir for us.”
He dismissed that with a shrug. “I’d be lying if I said I’d never been nervous in any of those moments. I know what fear is. Or at least I thought I did.” He paused. “In all those years on the job, nothing prepared me for this.”