“Piper,” he rasped, their mouths heating, seeking. “Say you’re mine again. Be clear. I need you to be clear. I’ve been fucking miserable thinking I lost you forever.”
“I’m yours. Of course I’m yours. I’m sorry I ran. I’m sorry I doubted—”
He hushed her with a hard press of lips, his frame heaving with relief. “Thank Christ,” he said hoarsely. “And no. You did nothing wrong. Nothing.” His thumb brushed against the base of her spine, his body still rocking her side to side. “Everything is going to be okay now. We found our way back. I’ve got you back and I’m not letting you go ever again.”
She clung to him. “Promise?”
“I’ll make the promise every single day.”
A blissful smile bloomed across her face. “I’ll try again with Cross and Daughters. I’ll be stronger next time at the docks. I can be—”
“Oh God, no. Piper.” He ducked his head to make eye contact, his dark brows pulled together. “First of all, you don’t have to be tough. Not all the time. I don’t know who decided my perfect, kind, sweet, incredible girlfriend needed to fit some goddamn mold, but you don’t. You just be Piper, okay? She’s who I’m in love with. She’s the only woman who was made for me. Cry if you want to cry. Dance if you want to dance. Hell, scream at me, if you need to. No one gets to tell you how to act or feel when I leave. No one. And, baby . . .” He puffed a laugh. “When I got to the bar, it was packed. Everyone loves it. People just move at a different pace in Westport. They’re not all on a strict schedule like me.”
“Wait. Really? It was packed?” She gasped. “Oh no. Hannah—”
“Is fine. Fox jumped in to help. And she helped me find you tonight.”
“Oh! Oh. I’m so glad.” Happiness bubbled up inside of her chest, and she gave a watery laugh. “We better get home, then. I guess I have a bar to run.”
Brendan brought their mouths together and kissed her with painstaking affection that quickly started to burn. Her throaty moan met his urgent growl, their tongues winding deep, his hand scraping down to palm her backside. “We could go home tonight,” he rumbled, tilting his hips so she could feel the firm rise of his need. “Or we could walk across the street to my hotel room and worry about getting home in the morning.”
A sigh shuddered out. “Why aren’t we already there?”
“Give me a minute.” He jolted into a stride across the quiet avenue that turned into a jog, jostling her all over the place, sending her laughter ringing down the night-draped street, then a euphoric squeal when he threw her over his wide fisherman’s shoulder. “So . . .” he said when they were halfway through the hotel lobby, scandalizing everyone in their wake. “Are we just not going to talk about the mechanical unicorn?”
“I love you,” she gasped through mirthful tears. “So much.”
“Ah, Piper.” His voice shook with emotion. “I love you, too.”
Epilogue
One week later
It was a sad day.
It was a happy day.
Brendan was coming home from a fishing trip, but Hannah was going back to LA.
Piper sat up in bed and pushed off her eye mask, marveling—not for the first time—over how much the room had changed. Before leaving LA, Brendan had driven her to Bel-Air for a quick visit with Maureen and Daniel. Halfway through the stopover, Brendan had disappeared.
She’d found him upstairs in her room, packing her things.
Not just her clothes, although it was nice to have her full wardrobe back. But her knickknacks. Her perfumes, her bedspreads, her shoe display case and fashion scarves. And as soon as they’d gotten home to Westport—okay, fine, after a rough, sweaty quickie on the living room couch—he’d taken the items upstairs and made the room . . . theirs.
Her super-masculine sea captain now slept under a pink comforter. His aftershave was sandwiched in between nail polish bottles and lipsticks, and he couldn’t seem happier about the feminine clutter.
They’d only had a few days of officially living together before his trip, but they’d been the best days of her life. Watching Brendan brush his teeth with nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist, feeling his eyes on her as she bartended, pancakes in bed, shower sex, gardening together in their backyard, shower sex. And best of all, his whispered promise in her ear every morning and night that he would never, ever let her go again.
Piper flopped back against the pillows and sighed dreamily.
He’d be pulling into Grays Harbor in just a few hours, and she couldn’t wait to tell him every shenanigan that had happened in Cross and Daughters since he’d been gone. Couldn’t wait to smell the salt water on his skin and even continue their conversation about someday . . . someday having children.