“The best anyone has ever given me.” Rosa’s voice was breathless, her lips still tingling, and she couldn’t stop staring at Drake. Couldn’t stop being amazed that she’d actually found him. And that he’d found her. “I’m actually wondering if I should leave again now just so I can come back to that.”
Drake’s mouth was on hers again so fast that she didn’t even have time to take her next breath. And it wasn’t only her knees that went weak and her lips that tingled from his kiss. Every last cell in her body vibrated with want.
“That’s what you get when you stay.” She was still spinning, still trying to get her breath back, when he pulled her even closer and turned to his brother. “Were you being an ass again?”
“Don’t worry,” Alec said. “I apologized.”
“And I accepted,” she told Drake.
“We may even like each other now,” Alec drawled.
“Baby steps,” she teased with a laugh. “Seriously, though, we’ve agreed to get to know each other better before we make any more snap judgments.”
She could see how relieved Drake was that she and his brother weren’t at each other’s throats. And how happy he was to tell her, “My father is back from his job site, and he’s making dinner for all of us. He’s surprised that we’re all here, but I think he’s pretty happy about it.”
“Of course he is.” Her heart swelled with hope that Drake and his father would soon grow closer. “I can’t wait to meet him.”
Now that she’d finally made the big decision to move forward with her life, rather than keep hiding, she had so much to do. Contact that lawyer who had come to her defense on that TV talk show so that she could begin her own personal proceedings against the creep who had taken and sold the pictures. Call the network to let them know she no longer planned to be on the show. And, of course, finally talk to her mom face to face about it all.
But after nearly a week in hiding, she could wait one more night to set the wheels of the next big changes in her life into motion.
Tonight, it was Drake’s turn.
*
“My father—” Drake paused, obviously weighing his words carefully. Alec had gone inside ahead of them, and they were now standing alone on the steps just outside the door. “I’ve never brought a woman home before. None of us have, so this is a pretty big deal. And when I told him I was painting you—”
“He wasn’t exactly thrilled about it?”
A muscle jumped in Drake’s jaw. “I won’t let him hurt you.”
“He won’t.” She smiled to let him know she meant it. “Whether his reaction came from my reputation or his worries that you and I are repeating his history with your mother—I’m not going to fall apart. And I’m not going to run into hiding again either.” She put her hand on his jaw, loving the scratch of stubble against her palm. “I’m done with that.” She pressed a kiss to his lips—a promise of many more to come. “I have so much to tell you, but right now, let’s enjoy dinner with your family.”
Despite the questions in his eyes, he let her lead them in the door. “Mmm,” Rosa said, pausing to inhale the delicious aroma of roasting tomatoes and peppers. “It smells great.” At the same time, thinking of her mother and brothers making and sitting down to dinner without her made her chest ache.
A man with salt-and-pepper hair looked up from the island where he was chopping peppers. Drake’s father. He didn’t smile at her the way Suz and Harry had upon meeting her, but he didn’t scowl like Alec had either. Instead, he simply stared. Stared in a way that reminded her of the way Drake sometimes looked at her—with a painter’s eyes that saw far beyond those of the layman.
“Dad, this is Rosa. Rosa, this is my father, William.”
She heard that note of warning in Drake’s voice again, and though she loved him for wanting to protect her, she didn’t need him to slay her dragons anymore. She squeezed his hand to let him know she was okay, then slipped hers free to go meet his father properly.
Drake’s dad hadn’t moved from the island, hadn’t even put down the knife, but she didn’t let that deter her. The first test of her fresh start had been walking into the yarn store with her head held high. The second had been standing her ground with Alec, and then agreeing to start fresh after he’d apologized. She refused to fail this third test, even if William Sullivan didn’t look like he was planning to make things easier for her.