“Not for one second of one day. He gave me you, Lana.”

The love her mother felt for her came through so strong and so certain, Lana couldn’t help but feel hope welling through her. Of course, her parents had married for love instead of business.

Lana knew what she was picking, if the choice was still on the table. She’d never know until she tried.

When the plane landed in Anchorage early on Christmas morning, Lana switched to a smaller aircraft to fly her to Moose Springs. For once, she didn’t feel guilty about splurging. Lana drove straight to Rick’s house before she lost her nerve. She didn’t want to waste one more second without telling Rick the things she should have told him when he left. If he still didn’t want to be together, then…well…Lana would simply deal with that when it happened.

It took every ounce of her courage to drive to Rick’s place. So of course, he wasn’t there. All Diego could tell her was that Rick had gotten home from a Christmas party and gone out into the woods. He invited her to wait inside, but Lana stayed out on the porch instead. Since Rick’s car was parked in its spot, he’d be back eventually.

Feeling chilly and ridiculous, Lana was still waiting on the front porch steps half an hour later when Rick emerged from the woods behind his barn. He seemed lost in thought as he trudged through the snow, head down, so he didn’t notice her car until he was almost to the house. When he realized her vehicle was in the drive, he stopped in his tracks, head snapping around. Lana’s heart stopped too, at least for the moment it took for him to offer her that quiet smile of his. It was worn but real. Like him.

They had only been apart a few hours, but Lana had missed him so much.

Rick crossed the drive and approached the steps, looking at her with a confused expression.

“I took a red-eye,” she said, feeling as if she should explain. “I wanted to be back here for Christmas. Diego said I could wait inside, but I didn’t know if you wanted me here. Showing up after a breakup is kind of a stalker move.”

“You’re always welcome here,” Rick said in a rough voice. “I’ll never make you leave.”

Rick winced at his own words. Lana didn’t have the heart to throw them back at him, not when pain was etched across his face.

So instead, she gently said, “You just couldn’t stay.”

“Ever since I got on that damn airplane, I keep telling myself that it was the right thing. That you deserved better. But breaking your heart sure didn’t feel like treating you better. It felt like being a scared idiot who lost the best woman he’d ever had.” When Lana didn’t reply, Rick stood there, fist clenching and unclenching helplessly at his side. “I don’t know how to make it up to you. I left you when you needed me. I’ve been on the bad end of that, and I swore I’d never do it to someone. But I did it to you.”

Lana didn’t even try to stop the tears welling up in her eyes. Rick had always gotten to her, and she wasn’t afraid to let him see her upset. Not anymore.

He took a step, instinctively moving toward her when she was crying. Then he stopped, giving her space like he had the first night at the town hall, as if not sure of his welcome.

“My personal bubble is less inflated than most,” Lana reminded him, because he would always be welcome with her too. Welcome, wanted, desperately needed…all of it. Everything.

“Mine’s destroyed,” Rick whispered. “Being with you ripped that shit in half and threw it away.”

Lana’s hands were shaking worse than ever before. She didn’t know if she had the courage to tell him what she needed to say.

“I’m so sorry, Lana. I don’t know how to make this up to you. I tried all night to find that damn moose. I knew I’d hurt you, and I didn’t know what I could do to make up for it. I thought maybe this time…”

When Rick trailed off, Lana rose to her feet and met him at the bottom of the steps. “Maybe life would cut you a break?”

Rick just shook his head, pushing on. “I’ll try again tomorrow. I’ll keep trying until I find it. I know how important this is to you, so I won’t quit on this. I give you my word.”

And when a man like Rick gave his word, he kept it. Too bad the moose was the last thing Lana cared about.

“A moose isn’t what I need from you.”

His expression turned bleak, but Rick just nodded. “Yeah, I understand.”

“Actually, I don’t think you do.” Lana looked up at Rick, her heart pounding in her chest. “I came back because it’s Christmas. And I didn’t want it to be Christmas without telling you how much I—” She stopped, the things she wanted to say sticking in her throat. “I know being with me is complicated for you.”

“Lana, I love you. I’ve loved you since you almost killed me with a tranquilizer dart. It’s not complicated. It’s simple.” His words were quiet, exhausted, as if loving her was a weight he was carrying. Or maybe loving her and not having her.

Loving him and not having him was slowly killing her.

“You deserve everything,” Rick continued. “The best I can give you is not being dragged down by me.”

“No.”

“No?” He quirked up an eyebrow.

“I’m refusing your explanation. The terms are unacceptable.”

“Love isn’t a contract,” Rick said, shaking his head.

“What if it was? My shoes will always click. I can’t change that. I don’t want to. But who you are, everything you are, is everything I need. So if that’s the only thing keeping us apart, then I’m calling bullshit. You need to do better.”

“You’re not going to let me break up with you?” He sounded astonished. And her heart was crashing in her chest, because in his eyes was hope.

“I’m countering your offer of a breakup with a happily ever after.”

“Your company—”

“It’s my decision. It’s my life. I have the right to be happy, Rick. So here are the best terms I have. I love you,” she said simply. “You’re the first, really. And I’m hoping you’ll be the last. Because if this is what love is like, it’s…”

She hesitated, voice catching.

Warm, strong hands took her face in them, broad shoulders blocking away the rest of the world. “It’s what, Lana?”

“It’s scary. Terrifying. I want to throw up a lot of the time, and Montgomerys do not throw up.”

Lana found herself blinking away the tears in her eyes, his fingers wiping away the ones she missed.

“I don’t know how to keep being me without you. I can figure it out, but I really don’t want to. Because you’re the best man I’ve ever known. The terms I’m proposing are these: me and you. No termination clause, because no matter what, I know what we have is real. I know we can make each other happy because we already do. These last two weeks have been the best of my life, and that’s not because of my job. It’s because of you.”

She had more; she could do this better. Lana knew she could.

“I also promise you get the side of the bed you like the most, killer sex every time I get back from a business trip, and the remote at least twenty percent of the time.”

“Forty-five,” Rick countered.

“Twenty-five,” she said. “Not a moment more.”

Rick took her hands, folding them inside larger, rougher fingers.

“Lana, are you sure? Leaving you once is all I’ve got in me. I don’t have the strength to do it again. If you really want this, if I’m enough for you, then I’m not going anywhere. Not for the rest of my life.”

Rick’s heart was on his sleeve, his eyes locked onto her. A man who loved her. A man who needed to know he was safe with her too.

“You’re all I need,” she said softly. “I’ll carve it in snow on the mountainside if that’s what you need to believe me.”

Rick closed his eyes, took a deep steadying breath—as if the air in his lungs had been missing for far too long—and then he nodded. “Terms accepted.”

And just like that, Lana had closed the most important deal of her life. Rick pulled her in close, kissing her the way she’d desperately missed in the short time they’d been apart.

“Should I have my lawyers draw this up?” she asked, breathless.

“It’s a verbal agreement. Our happily ever after is legally binding.” His lips curved against her ear. “Come on, gorgeous. It’s Christmas. Let’s go home.”

Home was three steps up to a worn porch swing and a door that had seen better days.

Diego had a bowl of cereal waiting for each of them.

Epilogue

When the year ended in Moose Springs, it ended in style. Fireworks, festivities, a “who can last longest buck naked on a block of ice” contest, more fireworks. The whole nine yards. Food and alcohol were consumed in copious amounts. Someone always ended up drunk on top of the Locketts’ roof.

Considering how heavily Jonah was drinking when Lana and Rick had snuck away, the officer was the most likely to earn that distinction, although Lana didn’t blame him. Graham had been sworn in the day after Christmas, and the first thing Graham had done as mayor—with a bit of funding from Lana—was hire a deputy policewoman. Jonah deserved a night off.

Lana and Graham worked together well. Too well, honestly, which meant at some point, Graham was going to have to admit he was right for the job. Maybe on his deathbed, he’d get around to it. Which freed up Lana to continue waging her war against Silas. It had taken calling in every favor she had accumulated with her family members and promising future support on other projects to push them into agreeing to sell the Moose Springs commercial properties back into the hands of the people who deserved them: the town. Nearly everyone wanted to buy, but not all could secure funding, so Lana had started pulling strings with the Anchorage banks to force those loan applications through.