Hard to Hold (True Romance) (22 page)

“I’ll sleep once you’re comfortable,” she replied.

“I’ll be fine.”

“Yes, you will,” she agreed, then placed the folded towel across his forehead and forced his eyelids shut with a gentle sweep of her hand.

Mike slept on and off, waking once to empty the last of his stomach contents. During other hazy, yet wakeful moments, he sipped more ginger ale at Anne’s insistence or felt the cool compress she wiped across his skin. At daybreak, she showered and then disappeared out the door. By the time the sun had completely risen in the sky, she was back with the announcement that a driver was waiting for them downstairs and she had the address of a medical clinic.

Mike didn’t have the strength to argue. Anne took complete control from directing the cab to the correct location, filling the doctors in on his condition in surprisingly clear Spanish, and remaining at his side while the nurse hooked him up to an intravenous drip to replenish the fluids he’d lost.

By midafternoon, his strength had returned enough for him to leave. They returned to the hotel and after a brief nap, he woke up, showered, and brushed his teeth, but decided that shaving while he was still so unsteady on his feet was not a good idea. Anne stripped the sheets off the bed and was tucking the last corner of a fresh set beneath the mattress when he returned. He leaned against the wall for support while he waited, watching her move with quick efficiency. Once she’d floated the bedspread across the top, she motioned him back into bed.

“You catch up on some sleep, too,” he said. “I’m done hurling now. Join me?” He moved the sheets aside to make room.

“Eat some crackers first,” she insisted. “The doctor said you needed to fill your stomach with something to stave off the excess acid.”

He shook his head, unable to process the thought of putting food—even the blandest food possible—into his digestive system.

“No, I’m fine.”

“Just nibble on one. The salt helps, too, though I have no idea why. Just do it, okay? Please? For me?”

Even at his strongest, he doubted he could deny anything Anne requested, wanted, or wished for. After he bit half a cracker, chewed, swallowed, and washed it down with semiflat ginger ale, she smiled.

God, he’d do anything for that smile. Anything at all.

The most he could do right now, however, was obey her commands. Until he had more strength. After that, all bets were off.

Nineteen

B
Y THE NEXT DAY,
M
IKE FELT NINETY-PERCENT BETTER
. He celebrated by suggesting they get out of the hotel room and explore the city for an hour or two, or until he had a relapse. He had not traveled to a different hemisphere to spend his time in bed—well, not unless he was making love to Anne, and he wasn’t quite ready for that type of physical exertion just yet.

Arequipa overflowed with stunning architecture. Five distinct influences, each introduced to the landscape after a huge earthquake hit the region, that created a magical maze of buildings. Anne read aloud from a travel brochure and they wandered around for hours, keeping their pace slow. Moving at a relaxed tempo not only reserved his strength, it gave them more time to hold hands and kiss under impressive archways.

They returned to Lima the next day. Before they’d even left New York, Anne had made reservations for them at a restaurant she’d heard about that overlooked the Pacific. For the occasion, Mike bought her a dress, a pretty pair of beaded sandals, and a handmade shawl from a local market. He’d even sprung for a new cotton shirt for himself, which he wore untucked with a pair of khakis and his favorite sandals. They weren’t the dressiest pair waiting for a cab outside their downtown hotel, but if Mike wasn’t wrong, they were the happiest.

Before walking across the long pier to the glittering restaurant that dominated the entire space with a rich, Wedgwood-blue roof and intricately patterned, crisp-white gingerbread latticework, they strolled along the rocky shore. The salty breeze tousled Anne’s hair so that she tied it back from her face with a ribbon, which gave Mike easy access to her neck once they’d settled onto a rock, their feet dangling above the misting ocean.

“Thank you for taking care of me when I was sick,” he said.

She looked at him like he’d sprouted another head. “You keep saying that. What did you expect me to do when you were puking your guts out?”

He sat back, struck by her question. He certainly hadn’t thought she’d abandon him in his hour of need, any more than he would have deserted her. And yet, he couldn’t lie and say that he’d assumed she’d pamper him the way she had.

“I don’t know,” he replied.

She rolled her eyes heavenward. “I can be very considerate when I need to be.”

“You were more than considerate,” he assured her. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you reminded me of my mother.”

She snorted. “How can I not take that the wrong way?”

“You haven’t met my mother,” he reminded her. “She’s totally cool. Very nurturing and a fabulous cook, but she’s just as strong and independent as you are. I want her to meet you. I want you to meet her. And my father. And my sisters. The holidays are coming up, right? Come with me to Syracuse.”

Mike’s heart skipped a beat for the split second it took for Anne to smile. They both lived close to their families and took time away from each other occasionally to go home and visit. But they’d yet to do the “introduction to the family” bit on either side that would take their relationship to yet another level.

Even though they were in South America after experiencing a trip full of mind-boggling highs and literally gut-wrenching lows, he could think of nothing more terrifying than bringing Anne with him to his aunt’s house on Christmas Eve where his entire family would catch their first glimpse of the woman who’d turned his life upside down in the most spectacular way.

“Really? At Christmas?” she asked. “Won’t your entire family be there?”

He smiled. “Every aunt, uncle, cousin, sibling, niece, nephew, and parent will be there,” he confirmed. “But you have nothing to worry about because they’re all going to love you.”

“And how could you possibly know that?” she asked.

He almost said,
because I love you,
but the words caught in his throat.

“What’s not to love?”

He slipped his arm around her, and with her head on his shoulder, they watched the sunset prism of oranges, golds, and pinks streak across the horizon. The crash of the ocean against the rocks echoed in Mike’s ears, but even the raucous sound couldn’t block out what he’d nearly said aloud.

He loved her.

After a moment’s consideration, he realized that the fact that he’d fallen in love with Anne did not surprise him in the least. What took him off guard was the fact that he’d stopped himself from saying it out loud.

In his life, he’d only told one woman that he loved her, and back then, when he was so young and inexperienced, the words hadn’t had the power to change anything about their relationship. Love or no love, they’d still hang out, listen to music, and have fun with their friends. With Anne, however, it would be different.

He was different.

Loving Anne meant changing his life. Loving Anne meant looking farther into his future than he ever had before. He loved his life as is. He had a great job, a fabulous dog, an amazing apartment in a neighborhood that rocked. But things couldn’t remain the same. And he didn’t want them to. Without change, there would have been no Anne at all. Her job situation notwithstanding, they’d worked through their rough patches with humor and patience. She understood about his disorder, his ambitions, and his passions. He’d come to trust her in ways he never thought possible.

And then there was the sex.

God, the sex.

Anne cherished intimacy, and with him, she didn’t shy away from anything. She was bold and adventurous and sexy. And trusting. Strong, independent-thinking Anne Miller counted on him as much as he did on her.

Yes, he loved her, but was he ready to make that bold confession?

Was she?

He decided to keep silent. He wanted to enjoy the secret for a little while, mull it over, make sure that when he said the words aloud, both he and Anne would be ready to take their relationship to the inevitable next step.

“Ready for dinner?” he asked.

She snuggled closer to him. “I could sit here with you for the rest of my life and be perfectly content,” she said, sighing as the last arc of the sun kissed the water’s edge.

He laughed with a bit more nervousness than was warranted, then stood, tugged her to her feet, and kissed her with a kind of passion he hadn’t known existed until right that moment.

This passion scraped his insides and left him raw. This passion couldn’t be doused by bad work hours, illness, or any other curve-ball. This passion might just last a lifetime.

And that changed everything.

Christmas at Mike’s house was always a wild and exciting affair. And as it was the first time Anne would meet his family, Mike’s anticipation was a mixture of tension, happiness, and fear. He loved his family. They were loud and boisterous, particularly his father’s Italian-Catholic side, with whom they spent every Christmas Eve. His own Jewish mother had never had trouble fitting in—and not surprisingly, Anne did not either.

Their relationship had changed since Peru. Mike hadn’t believed they could get any closer, but after she’d seen him at his absolute worst, she seemed to rely on him a little more than she had before. Now when they talked about her unhappiness at work, she didn’t shut him down. When he made suggestions of how she might take a new perspective on her future in journalism, she listened. When she wanted to brainstorm about the possibility of going to graduate school or moving to the city or even working for a rival newspaper, she chose him to talk to.

He still had the sense not to tell her what to do, mainly because he knew that no one could figure out the answer better than Anne herself. She’d find her own way. She’d discover the best solution. And when she did, the first person she’d share that milestone with would be him. Of this, he had no doubt.

Before, during, and after the traditional Italian Christmas Eve, Anne hung out with his mother, shared funny stories about him with his sisters, and endured his father’s tales of raising three children in two faiths. Amid all the conversations, they ate. His cousin, Erin, had once again outdone herself by making pounds and pounds of more than twenty varieties of cookies using every family recipe their aunts and grandmothers had ever created. They feasted on homemade pasta, meatballs, and seafood dishes that his aunt, cousins, and their daughters had been cooking for more than a week.

As the night progressed, more than fifty relatives and friends came in and out of the house. With each round of greetings and introductions, Anne’s eyes widened in surprise, then excitement. She loved meeting new people. She loved sampling all the wonderful cooking, playing with the kids running up and down from the basement playroom, and helping out in the kitchen whenever she could coax someone into allowing her to.

Mike was so head over heels in love, he could barely stand it. And yet, he still hadn’t said the words.

They’d been on the tip of his tongue since that night in Lima. He’d had to get used to the idea, accept the fact that his bachelor days were long gone—right along with the key to his heart. Anne had that in her possession, whether she knew it or not.

Now that he knew how seamlessly she folded into his family, he could hardly contain the declaration. But first, he had to get her alone. He’didn’t know when or where, but before the night was over, he’d hit her with his big confession and hope she felt the same way.

By the time the festivities ended, they were both exhausted. They drove back to his father’s house, where Anne would sleep in his sister’s old room. When he volunteered to take Sirus and his father’s two Weimaraners, Lucy and Morgan, for a walk, Anne asked to come along. He considered reminding her of how the temperature had dipped to freezing and snow had been dusting down from the sky for over an hour, but he wanted her all to himself, even if they were too bundled to do anything more than hold hands through fur-lined mittens.

The dogs wasted no time doing their business, but after a twenty-minute walk around the block, Mike let them scamper around the snow-covered yard while he and Anne watched from the driveway. She cuddled into his arms—or as close to his arms as she could get with so many layers of clothing between them. While he appreciated his father’s old-fashioned insistence that they not share a room since they were neither married nor engaged, he also wanted to wake up with Anne. Not just on Christmas morning, but on the ordinary days, too.

“I told you my family would love you,” he said, knowing the time had come. He wanted to remember this moment. He wanted her to remember it. He wanted the whole world in on his secret, but first, he had to tell her.

“I loved them, too,” Anne said. “But like you said, what’s not to love? Of course, I’m going to gain back all that weight I lost before Peru. Your cousin’s cookies are too delicious to be believed. And I am a connoisseur of cookies.”