“Absolutely.”
“Are you okay?”
She nodded against his shoulder. “I’m falling in love with you, too, Erik. I think that’s what scared me. I knew the day we met that it could happen, but I wasn’t ready for it. It happened so fast.”
Drawing a deep breath, she lowered herself to her heels and let her hands slide to his chest. Still holding the little box, she met his eyes. “I think I panicked,” she explained.
He brushed back the hair the breeze fluttered across her cheek.
“I know you did.” She’d been no more prepared than he’d been to put a name or label on what had seemed to be growing more complicated by the moment. A little apprehension on her part hadn’t been surprising at all. He hadn’t dealt with it all that fearlessly himself. “We’ll take it slow now. Okay? No pressure. No rush. We’ll just take our time and stay open to possibilities.”
“Possibilities,” Rory repeated. “That’s what Phil told me I should look for here.” She’d only been thinking about the property, though. As Erik smiled into her eyes and drew his hand to the back of her neck, Rory remembered that the woman had also warned her to keep an open mind about him.
“She told me that, too,” he told her, and lowered his mouth to hers before she could say another word.
There was relief in his kiss as he pulled her closer, and promise, hunger, possessiveness and need. It was the need she felt most. His, definitely, but her own, too, in the long moments before he lifted his head and eased back far enough to release her hands from where they’d been trapped against his chest.
“What?” he asked, seeing the question in her flushed features.
She looked at the little gold box, lifted off its lid. Suddenly she felt certain the little life preserver didn’t represent what she’d thought.
Erik’s voice was quiet. “You said there was a time when you could always count on something like that being there for you Christmas morning.”
Her smile came easily at the reminder. “I thought this had something to do with the store. Something about keeping it afloat. But it’s a lifeline, isn’t it?”
“It is,” he murmured, touching his lips to her forehead. “I’m just not sure which one of us I thought needed rescuing.”
“Erik!”
In a flash of maroon fleece and gray denim, Tyler bolted through the door onto the porch.
“Hey, buddy!”
“You’re here!”
“I’m here,” Erik agreed, and pulled him between them for a hug.
It was then that Rory felt what Erik had wanted her to glimpse again.
At that moment, all felt truly, completely and utterly right in their little world. That was the magic, and it was the most wonderful gift of all.
As they headed in from the cold, it started to snow.
“Why are we waiting in here, Erik?” Confusion shadowed Rory’s smile. “We’ve said hi to Phil and Cornelia,” she pointed out, their purpose at the FGI office accomplished. Or so she’d assumed.
“We’ll go in a couple of minutes. This is just some of that year-end stuff I need to take care of.”
He’d been busy with work off and on for the past week. That afternoon, though, he was going to show her and Tyler where he built boats.
As if anxious to get business behind him, he tugged her closer to where he stood by a gold filigree chair. “Do you want to spend tomorrow night on my houseboat? Tyler might get a kick out of the fireworks.”
Tomorrow was New Year’s Eve. “He’d love that. I’d love it,” she stressed.
She hadn’t seen his place yet, though he had warned her it was small. By land-standards, anyway.
“Then that’s what we’ll do.”
Looking more preoccupied than impatient, he glanced to the open door of the room the elegant older woman presently used as her private office. The space off the lovely conference room wasn’t much bigger than a closet, but it apparently served her purpose until the major construction behind the sheets of heavy plastic in the entryway would be completed.
Beyond them, Phil and a petite, honey-gold blonde sat beneath the crystal chandelier at the mahogany table. On its surface, hundreds of letters from the mailbags mounded by the delicate French writing desk teetered in stacks. Others had been sorted into piles as the women carefully read each one.
Cornelia had introduced the pretty woman with Phil as Shea Weatherby. She was the reporter who’d written the article that had resulted in the continuing deluge of mail from prospective Cinderellas, or “Cindies,” as Rory had just learned her fairy godmothers called the ladies they sponsored. She’d also just learned she’d been their second success.
As focused as Shea appeared to be on her reading, she seemed even more intent on ignoring Pax. Erik’s business partner had come over with them after Erik had showed her and Tyler around their client office next door. Pax had used the excuse of needing a decent cup of coffee, something he apparently mooched off the women with some regularity. Yet it was as obvious as the charmingly devilish smile that clearly wasn’t working on Shea that she was the reason he was hanging around with Tyler by the pretty little Christmas tree, checking out the boats beyond the window.
“Do you mind if I ask what we’re waiting for?” Rory ventured.
“Not at all,” came Erik’s easy reply. “I just need to give Cornelia a check and pick up a deed from her. I’m paying off the mortgage on your property so you can stop worrying about it.”
He was paying off her mortgage? “I never said I was worried.”
The look he gave her said she couldn’t possibly be serious. “Honey.” Brushing back her bangs, he planted a kiss on the furrows between her eyes. “You’ve never had to tell me when you were concerned about something. I can see it. This way, the pressure’s off.”
“You’re giving me the place?”
“Consider it a pre-engagement present.”
She opened her mouth, closed it again.
“Pre-engagement?” she finally asked.
“Yeah. You know. It comes before an official engagement. If you want, I can hold off titling it to you until then. Either way, the property is yours to do with as you please.”
He’d figured they could eventually live together there or he could have a bigger house built back by the woods. Whichever she wanted. With the boatworks here, he’d commute by plane most of the time. If she decided to sell or lease the place, that was her call, too. He just wanted them together. But he’d already gotten way ahead of where he figured she mentally was with their relationship.
Seeing that he’d left her a little speechless, he figured it best to change the subject. He’d told her they wouldn’t rush. That they could take their time.
“Hey. Ignore me. I was just in business mode,” he explained. “I hadn’t intended to bring that part up until you got used to me being around.” He hitched his head toward the open door. “I’m going to see what’s holding up Cornelia.”
He gave her a kiss, quick and hard, and turned away.
Catching his arm, she turned him right back. “I’m getting used to you,” she assured him. “How long an engagement are you talking about?”
“However