Fall to Pieces (30 page)

Her lips quirked into a little smile, sending
a burst of warmth through his chest.

"And I figured some stuff out. Like, with my
writing. I never thought of it as a career path, more of a way to
get a handle on all the crap spinning around my brain. But after
what you said, I sent some stuff to Jane to get her take. She
showed it to her literary agent who actually thinks it has
potential."

"That's fantastic!"

"Yeah," he said and scrubbed a hand through
his hair. "And I—uh—also realized that—uh"—shit, why was this so
hard? He took another drink of his wine, followed by a deep,
fortifying breath. "I also realized that even though I'm not
exactly sure what I'm going to do with the rest of my life, that
shouldn't stop me from being with the person I want in my
life."

Her eyes flared with surprise and guarded
hope as her fingers tightened around her wine glass. "What are you
saying?"

He set his nearly empty glass on the counter
and took a step toward her. Hoping she didn't notice how much his
hands shook, he took her glass from her and laced his fingers
through hers. "I'm saying I love you."

###

"Really?" Sadie said, half expecting to wake
up and realize this was all an amazing, impossible dream. But no,
Dylan was really here, his broad, callused fingers laced with hers,
standing so close to she could feel the warmth of his body
radiating into her own.

"Yeah, really," he said with a chuckle. "How
could I not?" His one hand released hers and came up to brush
against her cheek in a touch that thrilled her to her very core.
"You're beautiful, smart, funny, and sexy as hell."

Heat rushed to her cheeks as her mouth
stretched in a grin to match his.

"But even more important," he said, the grin
fading as his gaze filled with intensity, "once I got over my pity
party, I realized that whenever I was with you all the shit
crashing around in my head, all the stress, all the bad memories,
they all faded away. Being with you makes me happy, Sadie, happier
than I ever thought it was possible to feel."

Tears stung her eyes as his words flowed over
her, washing away the heavy weight of grief that had settled over
her these past few weeks. She wanted to freeze this moment, certain
she could never feel as much joy as she felt right now.

"Uh, Sadie?"

She blinked, focusing back on his intense
blue gaze, drinking in all the love radiating from his face.

"Are you going to say something?" he blurted.
"Like, maybe you love me too?"

In that second she realized that mixed in
with the love was something that looked an awful lot like fear. A
sound rose from her throat, half-sob, half-laugh at the that idea
Dylan Decker would ever for a second be afraid of her rejection.
Tears flowed down her cheeks unchecked. "Of course I love you! I've
loved you since I was thirteen years old!"

The last was muffled as he wrapped his arms
around her, pulling her against him until her face was buried in
the curve of his neck. It felt so good to hold him, to breathe in
the warm, musky scent of his skin. To feel his big, broad hands
splaying against her back.

"And everything you said, about being happy
when you're with me, I feel the same too," she said, breathless now
as he peppered her lips and cheeks with kisses. "With you I felt
like I had someone at my back, like I didn't have to face every
problem on my own. And it's been so hard without you, like I left
piece of myself back in Big Timber."

"I'm sorry," he groaned between soft pecks of
her lips. "Forgive me for being slow on the uptake and needing a
little more time to realize how much I love you and need to be with
you."

"I waited fifteen years for you," she said,
giving his bottom lip a playful nip. "What's a few weeks in the
scheme of things?"

"Okay if I spend the next fifty or so making
it up to you?" His hand slid up her ribcage, coming to rest against
the undercurve of her breast.

Heat rushed through her, a vivid reminder of
just how much she had missed him. "That sounds like a good
start."

THE END

Want to know how Damon Decker and Ellie
Tanner found their happily-ever-after? Keep reading for an excerpt
of
Blame It On Your Heart
, book one in
the Big Timber series.

She turned slowly, preparing herself for the
gut punch of seeing his face again after all these years.

"Damon." Her voice caught in her throat at
the first sight of him. Even in the dim light of the restaurant,
there was no mistaking the lines of his tall, rangy body. In the
years since she'd seen him, he'd gained a couple inches in height
and at least thirty pounds. And from the way his T-shirt stretched
across his broad chest and shoulders it was all muscle.

Her gaze drifted up to his face, to that
square jaw she used to trace with her fingers to feel the rasp of
thick stubble. The high cheek bones, sharper now than they'd been,
giving his face a leaner more chiseled look.

Finally she met his gaze, those dark blue
eyes that had been stormy with anger and hurt the last time she'd
seen him. Now they didn't show anything. Not anger, not
surprise.

Unlike her, he'd known she was coming.

And while she'd known that the odds were
they’d run into each other sooner or later given that his mother
and hers had been best friends since childhood, she'd been
determined to push it back to as "later" as possible.

She would have assumed he would be on the
same program.

So what the hell was Damon Decker, who had
made it plain as day that he never wanted to see her again, doing
here in her family's restaurant?

Ellie didn't even realize she'd asked the
question out loud until Molly answered, her voice falsely bright,
"Damon is our new partner!"

"Since when?" she burst out desperately
trying to maintain her composure.

"They brought me on a little over six months
ago. I've been looking to branch out, and this was a great
opportunity," he said calmly as though there was nothing strange
about this situation.

She was speechless, struggling to process it
all. Of all people, she would have never expected Damon to align
himself closely and invest in her family's business.

Not that he wasn't capable—Adele had been
only too happy over the years to keep Ellie updated on every detail
of Damon's life, learned from her at least once a week lunches with
Damon's mother Vivian. So it was no surprise to her to learn that
Damon, who had successfully invested in a chain of gas stations and
convenience stores since he got out of the army four years ago, had
the means to invest in a project like this.

"Of course, it's not anything like what Troy
made," Adele had mused. "But it's good, honest work and he's really
made something of himself."

The subtle dig hadn't gone unnoticed. Adele
had never thought much of Troy, and the only thing that kept her
from badmouthing him outright was her unconditional love of her
only grandchild.

Too bad Ellie hadn't been able to see what
was so obvious to her mother.

She felt Damon's stare give her a full body
sweep and desperately wished she could have staved off Anthony's
hunger to change out of her grubby tank top, threadbare cutoffs,
and flip flops. Surely if she'd been wearing her New York armor of
full makeup, hair tamed into a perfect silk fall across her
shoulders, dressed head to toe in designer labels, she wouldn't
have felt so vulnerable.

Vulnerable. There was a time when it would
have been impossible for her to imagine feeling that way with
Damon. Practically from the moment they'd met he was a strong,
steady presence in her life, making her feel safe, assuring her
she'd never be alone.

Now she felt stripped bare, the sting of her
ruined life and failed marriage made more acute under his assessing
gaze.

Of course he knew the truth. Even if their
mothers didn't share every little detail, he'd have to have lived
under a rock for the past year to not know what a shambles her
world had become.

But if he was gloating inside, it didn't
show on his face. It was disconcerting. Once upon a time, she could
read his every emotion as though she was feeling it herself.

"And that surly guy in the kitchen?" Ellie
asked, trying to stay on track even as she tried to regain her
equilibrium.

"Brady McManus. He was in the Rangers with
me."

She nodded. By Rangers she knew he meant the
army rangers—Adele had told her all about it. Just as she'd told
her when Damon had moved back to Big Timber as soon as he finished
up his last tour in the army.

Ever since then she'd been bracing herself
for the day Adele would pass on the news that Damon was settling
down with some nice local girl and having a couple kids.

And as unfair as it was, considering she was
for the most part happily married and a mother to boot, the thought
of Damon having that life in Big Timber—without her—made her
stomach clench and her eyes burn with tears.

But that day hadn't yet come. Even if her
mother hadn't kept her up on the latest doings of the Decker
family, Ellie would have known what Damon was up to. Ever since
Damon's older brother, Deck, had married actress Jane Bowden, the
press had been all aflutter over his younger, single brothers. One
recent issue of
People
Magazine
had even featured
them as two of the country's most eligible bachelors.

In the article that had accompanied the
picture, both younger Deckers had asserted they were currently very
single.

She wondered how much longer that would
last. Then it hit her. If she didn't figure her life out soon, when
and if Damon fell in love and married someone else, she'd be here
to witness it firsthand.

Her stomach rolled and she thanked God she
hadn't had the appetite to eat anything today.

"Are you alright, honey? You look a little
peaked."

"I'm okay," she said, moving on unsteady
legs to sit next to Anthony who was busy wolfing down his burger.
She reached out and rubbed her hand across his back, driven as much
by the need to touch her child as by the physical reminder of what
her life was about now. Why she had no reason whatsoever to be
concerned about Damon Decker's love life.

She'd made her choice a long time ago and
there was no going back.

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Blame It On Your Heart
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Jami Alden is an award winning author of
sexy contemporary romance and gritty romantic suspense. Her book
BEG FOR MERCY was awarded the Romantic Times Reviewer's Choice
Award for Best Romantic Suspense, and her contemporary ebook
original,
PRIVATE
PLEASURES
, was a top 10 bestseller on Amazon, Barnes and Noble,
and iBooks.Jami's books which feature smart, driven women and hot
alpha heroes are known for being sexy, intense, and full of
emotion.
She is currently working on a new contemporary series set in a
small Montana town. The first book in the series,
BLAME IT ON YOUR
HEART
, is available now.

Jami lives in the San Francisco area with
her husband, 2 sons, and a dog who patiently listens to my dialogue
and helps her work out plot points. When she's not writing, she
enjoys running, reading, cooking, and watching a brain numbing
quantity of food network programming.

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