Page 101 of Work It Out
Last came a reel. She watched herself come in from the right like she was approaching a vault, then body slam into Jake so hard the memory jarred her teeth. The funny thing was, watching it this way, she saw things she’d missed in the moment. Things like the way that, even when he could barely force his eyes to focus, they’d sought her out and stayed there, gazing at her as if he’d always known she would protect him, even from himself. She even saw the brief moment where the same trust flashed in her own eyes when she looked at him.
…be brave enough—love hard enough…
“You love me.”
She’d whispered it to herself, but he’d heard. A snort eerily reminiscent of Hogrid danced like a snowflake on the night air. “Of course I love you, cupcake.” He turned her in the seat of the truck until she was facing him where he stood in the open door, then made a place for himself between her knees.
He fiddled with his smartwatch, then took her face in his hands, much the way he had in the picture her father would’ve bastardized to hurt them both. He brushed kisses over her cheeks, her forehead, her jaw. He teased the corner of her mouth with butterfly caresses. Then he focused those shining silver eyes on her. “I love you, Rayah Sunshine Summers. I love your teeny body and your giant heart. I love your iron will and your ruthless burns. And I really, really love your pig.”
Perhaps that touch to his watch had been a cue, because Hogrid streaked across the lot in a flurry of skittering hooves and high-pitched squeals of joy. He came at them like a shot, nothing but a blur of red and white and pink until he clamored to a halt at Jake’s feet and tried to climb his leg.
Jake picked him up. When he straightened, Rayah didn’t know if she should gasp or laugh. He’d grown so much in the short time she’d been gone, at least doubling—if not tripling—in size. Someone had also dressed him in a velvet Santa suit. Jake set the piglet in her lap, and he immediately set out to snuffle every bit of her.
“I think he missed you almost as much as I did.”
She scratched under his chin, a watery laugh catching in her throat. “I missed him, too.” She looked up at Jake. “I missed you both, but…”
Jake shook his head, chuckling. “Of course there’s a but.”
She played with the tail of Hogrid’s Santa hat. “I never wanted you to tank your career.”
“Funny you should mention that.” A huge smile broke across his face. “You, madam, are looking at Phantom Strike, the newest member of the Merciless Movie Universe.”
“What?”
“I got the part.”
Her mouth fell open. “You—”
“I know. I was surprised, too. But the production company thinks they can work PR magic with a superhero who’s super despite having a few unique obstacles in his path.”
She wanted to be happy for him—washappy for him. But she also knew what that meant for them. Tucking Hogrid’s head under her chin, she voiced the concern that worried her most, the thing she’d never truly been able to see past. “How could we ever make it work? You’ll be in L.A. or on location so much. I have to be here. I just don’t see—”
He leaned into the cab and pressed a quick kiss to her lips, stoking the slow burn she wouldn’t be able to resist much longer. But before she could get her hands in his hair and pull him back, he retreated. “Cupcake, the flight from Flagstaff to L.A. is less than an hour and a half. We can split our time.” She started to interrupt, but he silenced her with another quick, unsatisfying peck. “And I know what you’re going to say. You don’t see how you can be away so much, especially now that you have a six-month waitlist full of anxious celebrities.”
“We have a what?” Grace hadn’t mentioned that.
“Sweetheart, my phone has been ringing off the hook since I posted those pictures. You’re a trainer to the stars now. Sorry. We can be divas, but we pay well. You can keep training here, or you can hire more help, expand, whatever you want. You’ve been gone for weeks, and Grace has done a phenomenal job. She’ll need a raise, and they’ll always need you for the bigger decisions. It’ll be a balancing act. My balance may be shit, but yours is flawless—we can make it work.”
“You’d do that?” She picked at the puffy white ball on Hogrid’s hat. “You’d bounce back and forth with me?”
Another of those beleaguered man-sighs. “Are you hearing this, Hogrid? No faith. The woman has no faith.” He reached over and patted the piglet’s head.
That’s when she saw it. Twinkling Christmas lights caught against stone, glittering and casting pinpoint beams through the night.
With shaking fingers, Rayah wiggled the hat from Hogrid’s head. When she looked up, Jake set the piglet on the ground. He lifted her out of the truck and set her on her feet. Then he sank to one knee.
Jake took the Santa hat from her hands and untied the ribbon she hadn’t noticed, the one that held the ring in place around the hat’s thin point. Reaching for her hand, he said, “I know it won’t be easy, and I know it all happened fast. But it’s like I said, I knew the moment I met you that you were special. I was blown away by the strength of your heart and your convictions, not to mention that ass.” He groaned, a sexy moan that made her tingle even as he made her laugh and cry and burst with joy. “You reminded me what was important, gave me back the home I’d forgotten meant so much to me, the place and its people. I want nothing more than to share that and so much more with you for the rest of our lives.
“Please, cupcake.” Jake held out his hand, his smallest finger extended and adorned with the simple ring. “Pinky promise you’ll be my wife.”
One…two…three hard, heavy beats of her heart.
“Oh, put him out of our misery already!” someone shouted.
Rayah jerked her head up to find the entire town of Bigbone, Arizona, watching them.
“Gramps!” Jake hollered back. “We talked about this.”
