In Too Deep (44 page)

But when he turned, there she
was—silhouetted in the back door with Donny snuffling around her
boots, a goofy grin on his doggy face. The same goofy grin he’d
have if his muscles hadn’t hardened into immobility.

West cleared his heart out of his
throat and tried not to pounce on her right then and there.
“Piper?”

“
Took you long enough,” Shaye
said. “What’d you do, swim over?”

Piper’s lips curved, the smile
fading before it touched her eyes. Her gaze skimmed over his
unshaven jaw, untucked shirt, and mussed hair. Yeah, he was a right
mess, while she looked impossibly lovely in her black jeans and
combat boots. God, he could kiss those purple monstrosities, he’d
missed seeing them so much.

“
Shaye.” He kept Piper centered in
his crosshairs. “Go and explain to the diners there’ll be a delay
with their meals.”

“
That’ll go down well.”

“
I. Don’t. Care.”

If Piper moved one step he’d go
caveman—and to hell with kidnapping being illegal. He’d lock her in
his bedroom and pray she came down with Stockholm
syndrome.

Shaye moved to his side and jabbed
his arm. “I’ll tell them their meals are on the house, shall
I?”

West shoved a hand into his pants
pocket, pulled out a two-dollar coin and slapped it on the counter.
“Put this in your jar and tell them whatever you bloody want. Just
do it.”

Shaye snatched up the coin and
hissed under her breath, “Just don’t muck things up.”

With a toodle-oo wave to her
sister, she left them alone.

“
I’m hoping you didn’t come here
just to wash dishes,” he said.

Piper shook her head and watched
him some more with those big-cat eyes which seemed to peel back the
layers of his soul. Well, if she could see into his soul, she
wasn’t running away screaming.

A good sign.

“
You caught me in the middle of
chaos.” He flicked a hand at the sink. “Things have been crazy
around here since I got back from Wellington.”

Her brow creased. “You went to
Wellington?”

“
I flew up to find you, but your
flat was empty. The neighbors didn’t know where you’d gone, your
aunt hadn’t a clue, and your boss wasn’t helpful.”

“
Oh. You saw Tom?”

West nodded. What a cheery meeting
that’d been, the burly cop refusing to reveal a hint of Piper’s
hiding place. Doubtful that a fist in the nose would loosen the
man’s tongue, he’d walked away.

“
He refused to discuss you at all,
so I had no choice but to return home to try and organize this mess
until I could go back and have another go at trying to find
you.”

Piper scratched Donny’s head,
studying West from under her lashes. “I stayed with a friend and
then drove to Lake Taupo for the weekend. I packed my diving
gear.”

Donny licked her fingers and she
laughed.

Piper. At Lake Taupo. With
diving gear.
West pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to
slow the pulse of blood exploding into his brain. “You went to the
Nationals?”

“
Yep.”

“
You were going to be my safety
diver?”

“
You needed one, and I’m the
best.”

“
Is that the only reason you
went
?” Please don’t let it be the only reason she
went.

Piper closed the distance and laid
a palm on his chest. The simple touch and the warm all-woman scent
of her floored him.

“
I went because regardless of how
you feel about me, I wanted you to be safe.”

West gripped the counter with numb
fingers, swallowing. Unaware of his feelings for her, she’d pushed
past her own nightmare to support him.

“
That must’ve cost you a great
deal.” His voice came out rough.

She petted his chest and gave him
a wonky smile. “Losing you would’ve cost me much more. I didn’t
want you down there without me watching your back.”

Cupping her face, West brushed a
thumb over Piper’s lower lip and rested his forehead on hers. Her
eyelids fluttered shut and her breathing hitched.

“
I shouldn’t have let you walk
that day—you were right, you know. I didn’t realize I’d pushed you
away because of how my mother left me.” He chuckled bitterly. “I
always thought I was a bad prospect for a long-term
relationship—disposable, unlovable—feelings that became a shield to
stop any woman getting too close. Except you, baby. You smashed
that shield to dust. I accused you of being a quitter, of running
away—and all the time it was me, scared shitless, and you called me
on it. But, like a fool, I let nine-year-old history repeat itself
and said nothing.”

Her fingers trailed down his chest
and stopped at his belly, gripping his shirt. “Why did you quit the
Nationals? They were so important to you.”

Yeah, so important he’d allowed
the stubborn need to prove himself turn him into a complete
jerk—when he should’ve confessed he loved her heart and
soul.

“
I realized something, someone—”
West stroked a hand over her silky hair and left his fingers buried
in the soft strands at her nape “—was more important to me than
collecting a tag off a two-hundred-foot guideline.”

“
Is that why you came to
Wellington?”

He pulled back, met her gaze. “I
came to tell you that, and to look for a job. I can manage a pub
anywhere, but I can’t manage without you—and I know you need to be
there for your dive squad call outs.”

Piper’s hands came up to cover
his. “But Due South needs you. Bill needs you.”

“
I need you.” The words were
wrenched from his chest. “
I need you, Piper.
”

She shook her head and his heart
shattered, landing in a bloody heap on the floor.

“
You’d hate Wellington, West. It’s
windy and cold—and yes, I know, so is Stewart Island—but it’s
filled with city people. The kind of people who don’t have time to
stop and chat, or won’t turn up on your doorstep with homemade
chicken soup when you’ve got the flu. And besides—” she rose up on
tiptoe, planting a kiss on the corner of his mouth. “—I don’t live
in Wellington anymore.”

“
You don’t?”

“
I handed in my resignation to
both the dive squad and the police force.”

His brain short-circuited, his
head spinning in a dizzying carousel. “You resigned?
Why?”

She shrugged a shoulder, but
couldn’t prevent a small, sly smile. “Something—actually,
someone—was more important to me than a job I no longer had the
stomach for. Plus, my brother poached me with an un-turn-down-able
offer.”

“
Really. What did he offer
you?”

“
Partnership. So, as of now, I’m
the not-so-silent partner in Ben’s dive business.” She rolled her
eyes. “I’m employed but homeless, so you better come up with
something more enticing than
needing
me.”

Too much to take in, he just
gaped.
Use your words, West, dammit—before you foul this up a
third time!

He swept a hand down to cup her
sweet, denim-clad ass in one palm and dragged her flush against
him. “How about a home with a man who loves you with all his heart
and soul?”

She squirmed closer in his arms
and burrowed her face into his neck. “Please say that man is
you.”

Her lips tickling his skin made
him shiver, even as his nerves spiked along his gut. “It’s me. I
love you, Pipe.”

West trapped her against the
counter and her hot kisses skimmed up his throat, but he caught her
chin before she reached his lips.

“
Will staying here make you
happy?” He needed her say to it. “Tell me…” His voice cracked and
he waited helplessly for her answer.

***

Piper drowned in the bluest of
blue eyes. The eyes of the man who loved her. He dazzled her so
much it took a few seconds to decipher the note of desperation in
his voice. The impenetrably cool West wasn’t impenetrably cool
around her. In fact, West downright vibrated with emotion. She slid
her palms up the ridges of his abs she loved so much, and settled
them over the wild racing of his heart.

“
Staying here won’t make me happy,
West. You make me happy.” She paused, breathing him in and
relishing the security of his arms around her, the heat of his skin
radiating through his shirt. “When I was little, my mum used to
read me a Bible story about Ruth. In the story, Ruth says, ‘Don’t
ask me to leave or go back and not follow. Wherever you go, I’ll
go, and wherever you live, I’ll live, and your people will be my
people.’ I’ve forgotten the rest, but not that bit.”

His gaze flared hot and a muscle
ticked in his jaw. “That’s one heck of a story.”

“
I’ve kinda adopted it as my
motto.” Piper gently pulled his face down. “I love you, West.
Always have, always will. Wherever you go, I’ll be at your side.
Whether we live in Oban or Timbuktu, I’ll be happy so long as we’re
together.”

Hoots and catcalls erupted from
behind the kitchen’s swing doors. Thuds, bangs, and then a stream
of people stumbled into the kitchen—Shaye, Ben, Glenna, Bill, Ford,
and even Mrs. Taylor, who maneuvered into a better viewing position
by wielding her walking sticks like martial arts staffs.

“
Get on with it then, boy,”
growled Bill, but he chuckled and rubbed his hands together. “Ask
her to marry you, and be done with it.”

Her mother swatted Bill’s arm and
pointed at West with a mock glare. “You’ll do no such thing. My
eldest daughter won’t be proposed to in a pub kitchen—” She flung
her hands up. “You haven’t even got a proper ring.”

Marriage?

Did Bill and her mother want West
to have a coronary before he turned thirty? She slanted a glance at
him, but instead of a bloodless face and goggling eyes, he grinned.
As if he wouldn’t reject the idea of dragging Oban’s Presbyterian
Minister into the kitchen right now.

In fact, West’s face mirrored the
same expression she’d seen in the photograph on his dresser. Love.
Pure, and steady. A forever kind of love. Like her mother had said,
she’d been too blind to see it before.

He held up a finger. “Stay right
there. Don’t move from this spot.” West slipped between the growing
crowd and through the kitchen doors.

Bill chuckled. “Gone to grab a
washer from the toolbox to use instead of a ring, I
imagine.”

Claire nudged him in the ribs and
shushed him.

The murmuring rumble of her family
and friends faded into white noise, as she focused on the swinging
doors until West shoved through them again. Sucked through time to
her first day back on Oban, she could scarcely believe he was the
same man. He still sported the same broad shoulders and bite-able
butt, but there the similarities ended.

The West walking toward her had
mussed hair, overdue for a trim, and about three days of stubble
darkened his jaw. His eyes, when they rested on her face, glowed
with sensual heat, silently promising she’d never again wake in the
night alone. And when she looked at him, she no longer saw through
a lens of bitterness and grief. She saw a man Michael would’ve
approved of, and a man she loved enough to finally let her father’s
memory rest in peace.

West dropped to one knee in front
of her combat boots, holding out a small black box. Laughter,
tempered with the effort of not bursting into tears, bubbled out of
her. She could’ve sworn Mrs. Taylor squealed in delight from across
the room. Raucous applause and whistles erupted, led by her
brother.

“
Oh, shut up you lot,” Shaye said,
since Piper could do nothing but gaze at West in mute appeal. “Let
the man speak.”

Mrs. Taylor’s walking sticks poked
amongst the crowd until it quieted.

West gave Piper a crooked smile.
“I didn’t think I’d have an audience when doing this.”

“
Well, make it memorable, lad,”
came Old Smitty’s voice from the back. “We’ll be talking about this
for years to come.”

West snagged her hand.
“Piper.”

The way he said her name had every
other person in the room fading to oblivion.

“
I love you. I’ve always loved
you, but I’m guilty of being a stubborn, proud idiot by trying to
deny it for so long.”

“
Hear, hear,” muttered
someone.

Piper didn’t take her eyes off
West to identify the speaker.

“
People think I’m never short of a
quick comeback or a witty line, but when it comes to you, babe, you
leave me speechless—so I’ll keep it simple. I want you in my arms
and in my life forever. Will you marry me?”

Before she could answer he pried
open the ring box, but instead of the flash of diamonds, two rings
winked at her. One, a small solitaire and behind it, a gold
Claddagh ring, a mirror of the one her parents wore.

“
What’s with the two rings?” she
blurted, looking from the box to West.

West groaned. “Answer the question
before I explain the rings, Pipe—I’m dying here.”