Three daylight jumps, one night jump, and one broken ankle later, I swore I’d never let the pair of menaces known as my mother and step-father take me anywhere ever again. I couldn’t even claim I’d broken my ankle doing anything interesting. I’d tripped hopping out of the bed of my step-father’s new truck, catching my shoe on a harness, and faceplanted into the gravel. I’d only scraped my knees, hands, cheek, and nose, the only consolation I was getting out of the situation. I could’ve gotten covered with gashes to go with the broken ankle.
“Life simply isn’t fair,” I announced from my seat in the ER waiting room as a broken ankle wasn’t a lot further down the waiting list than some of the other cases rolling through the hospital. My step-father’s pet paramedic, per law, loitered while waiting for someone to see me and fix the damage. “Who the hell breaks their ankle getting out of a damned truck?”
“You,” my mother said. “You did that to get out of making more jumps the rest of this week, didn’t you?”
“No, Mom. I did not break my damned ankle to get out of skydiving. This is all my brother’s stupid fault. If he hadn’t broken it the first time, I wouldn’t have broken it this time.”
“That’s probably true, but your brother wasn’t even at the airfield today. He’s in Hollywood right now.”
“He still sucks, and this is entirely his fault. How am I supposed to get up into my attic with a broken ankle?”
“That’s a very good question,” Lance stated behind me, his tone more amused than angry. “How are you going to get up into my attic with a broken ankle?”
Shit. “I don’t know which one of you traitors notified the lawyer, but you are mean and I’m not talking to you anymore.” I pouted, crossed my arms over my chest, and scowled at my foot, which was trapped in a splint the paramedic promised would keep me from inflicting extra damage to my foot until a doctor could look at it and get it set properly.
Lance chuckled, and he wrapped his arms around me, resting his chin on my shoulder. “I’m grateful you didn’t do that skydiving, but hasn’t anyone told you jumping off anything higher than five inches is dangerous?”
As he didn’t sound angry, I risked glancing at him. Strangely, he was smiling. I could make a few guesses as to why, and it involved the current state of my body. “You’re going to do a bruise count, aren’t you?”
“As a matter of fact, yes, I am. I’m also doing a broken bone count and a scrape count. The going rate was one month per, was it not?”
I’d never have ownership of my soul if he counted all the scrapes I’d accumulated in the past twenty-four hours. “How are you counting scrapes? Is one patch a scrape, or are you counting the individual lines?”
“The individual lines, of course. That’s your punishment for hurting yourself. As for the informant, that would be your mother, who notified Paul, who texted me. I turned my phone on at the airport to receive a message that stated you had been a klutz and broke something. He even told me which hospital I should go to.”
“My foot. Or ankle. Or something thereabouts.” I pointed at it. “It hurts, and it’s not fair.”
“How does it hurt compared to your cheek?”
“Not as bad,” I admitted. “But I’m tired of breaking things.”
“I bet you are. Aside from your foot, are you all right?”
“Mom said I was hopeless and there was zero chance of her ever having a son-in-law because I’m stupid. Is she right?”
“I’m going to need an entire lifetime to figure out how to get revenge on you for what you did to that car, Miss Alice Relin. I’ve decided the only acceptable method of acquiring revenge involves marriage. It’s much easier to deal with you when you’re living with me on a permanent basis. Someone helpfully provided a ring and an instruction manual. However, I’m questioning why you used a bunch of cutouts from weird magazines to do it.”
My mother sighed and bowed her head. “I’m sorry, darling. You’re right. I failed my daughter in horrific ways. You said you’d left him a note, Alice.”
“I had!”
“Along with twenty pages of how women are supposed to encourage or hint at a desire for a proposal. I have to admit I’m pretty impressed, Alice. I had no idea you were that flustered over the situation. You got those pages from at least twenty different magazines. At first, I thought it was yet another shitty comic—something else we’ll be talking about later, you soul-stealing ginger. Then I looked at it, because I looked at every damned one of those things expecting to find a good comic in there. But no. Just terrible, shitty comics. So I get to the driver’s side and see this last comic and a box. I’m thinking finally! A good comic! Wait, a box? I was quite confused. So was everyone else, because Chloe, Julian, and Paul were hard at work making sure the entire comic collection was accounted for. That one wasn’t on the list. So I open the comic and see these pages. I had to have Chloe tell me what the hell I was reading. Do they really try to shovel that shit on you ladies? Because seriously? It was ridiculous.”
“Twenty different magazines with tips and tricks on how to get a boyfriend to propose. I figured you were a lawyer and would have better luck of making sense of it than me. But isn’t my ring pretty?”
“It’s very pretty. I left it in New York with Chloe because I didn’t want to lose it while fetching you.”
“See? I told you,” my step-father crowed. “She got it exactly right.”
“Did you go to the house?”
“Of course not. I wasn’t going to the house until I’d brought you back with me.”
Great. “Did you meet your brother?”
Lance laughed. “He’s behind me.”
Arnold came into my field of vision and waved. “Hi, Alice. He froze in the airport and needed someone to get him onto the plane, so I ended up accompanying him. He made it, and he was never so happy as the moment his feet touched solid ground.” Lance’s brother came around the chairs and sat beside my father. “I’m Arnold McCarthy. That’s Lance. We’re sorry to impose.”
“I’m not at all sorry, although I’m going to be a little sorry once she’s done here. I’m dragging her back to New York. Then she can explain herself and that wretched comic collection.”
I laughed at his disgruntled tone. “Wait until you see what else I’ve done. It gets so much worse.”
Lance sighed, gave me a hug, and came around to face me, taking his time looking over my foot. “What did you do?”
“I filled your car with candy hearts that say I love you on them. I was concerned you wouldn’t get the first message.”
He laughed. “All right. I’m not even going to complain about that, but you need to help get any sugar dust off the interior. I don’t need ants on top of my transmission problems.”
“Oh, not that car.”
“What?”
“The Corvette.”
Lance frowned. “Did they give you drugs already?”
I shook my head.
“What are you talking about? You filled the Corvette with comics.”
“But I filled the other Corvette with candy hearts.” I waggled my finger at Lance. “You do not drive the classic around willy-nilly. The other Corvette is for driving around willy-nilly. And your brother isn’t allowed to pay me back because it’s my present to you. You can rob him for other stuff if you want, but the Corvettes are my gift to you. It’s a bribe. A bribe! Yes, that’s it. It’s a bribe so you don’t kill me for what I did to your house. Things would be a lot easier if they’d already given me some painkillers.”
Lance lifted his hand and rubbed his temple. “When Paul warned me you were freaking out over the prank, I was not expecting you to transform into a nervous babbling brook, Alice. I’m not mad at you.”
“Yes, you are.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.”
“Why do you think I’m mad at you?”
“I filled your Victorian library with trashy romance novels, and I want to read them all,” I announced, rubbing my hands together. “I spent over a week getting a hold of every single trashy romance novel possible. My collection ranges from recent releases to the best the 1970s have to offer. So many bodice rippers. I can’t wait. I have a lifetime of reading romance novels ahead of me. It’s wonderful. I cleaned out entire bookstores of their collections, Lance. It’s a work of art. Such a classy library, such a raunchy selection. I’m so proud of myself.”
“Oh my god, Lance,” Arnold whispered. “She’s the devil. She’s the devil, and you let her get a hold of your soul. And since she’s a ginger, she’s never going to give it back. What have you done?”
“Alice, you didn’t fill the library with romance novels. It’s impossible. It would take months to get the library constructed.”
I beamed at him. “I’ve been a very, very bad girl, and you have been so shammed, Mr. Lance McCarthy.” I grabbed my phone, but before I could show him the pictures, Arnold took the device away. “Hey!”
“You’ll thank me later,” Lance’s brother promised.
“Alice Relin?” someone called out, and my step-father’s paramedic friend lifted his hand and put an end to the conversation. I sighed, bowed my head, and prepared for a long evening of misery.
At eight in the morning, the hospital released me. I disliked the idea of spending the next six to eight weeks hobbling around on one foot, but Lance smiled and accepted my misfortune with an annoying amount of cheer.
“Why are you so happy?” As I was due to take a plane, the hospital hadn’t given me the good painkillers, which wasn’t helping matters any.
“You can’t escape me, I get to carry you whenever I want, and you can’t escape me. Also, I’ve noticed you’ll be completely at my mercy and are unable to escape me. This situation is fantastic. It’s not a major break, and you’ll recover without any impairment. For now, you’re my captive prize. I’ve been counting scrapes. There’s thirty-six months on the tip of your nose alone.”
My mother laughed, shook her head, and kissed my forehead. “He’s going to take you back to New York now, Alice. We talked about it while you were being treated. He refuses to go to his house without you, and he isn’t planning on letting you out of his sight unless absolutely necessary. I’m too old to watch a young man make a fool of himself, and your father says I should leave well enough alone for a change. Your man is quite the strange man, but he’s a nice one from the looks of it. We’ll come out to visit you in a few weeks, and you won’t even have to jump out of a plane. I will be expecting you to take your exam, though.”
She would. “Really, Mom?”
“Really. Take that exam! We even said we’d pay for it. Just talk to Earl. He’d love to see you, and he’s a fair examiner. Mr. McCarthy, I’m expecting you to take her to her examination, or I’ll be cornering you and making you take skydiving lessons. I’m very, very good at convincing people to jump out of planes.”
Lance’s eyes widened. “If I promise to marry your daughter, will you spare me from skydiving lessons, please?”
“Sorry, Mom. I’m going to need time to get him to step on a brick before we try planes. Or even come anywhere near a cliff. You can’t chuck him out of a plane yet. But I’ll teach him the finer points of flinging himself at the ground and missing in theoretical ways so you can try to butter him up for an actual try.”
“I don’t like this game,” Lance complained. “I don’t want to fling myself at the ground and miss.”
“So you want to fling yourself at the ground and hit?” I asked. “You’d splat. The whole point of the game is to miss the ground, Lance. See, Mom? He’s totally not ready for this yet. He doesn’t understand that the whole point of the game is to miss the ground.”
Lance sighed but wisely stayed silent.
“You’re off the hook for now, but I will lure you into an airplane…” My mother looked Lance over, and she smiled. “Of course. It’s obvious. You can’t be her skydiving prince. You’ll have to be her pilot prince. I can’t fly planes for her all the time, so obviously, you will have to learn to fly so she can focus on flinging herself at the ground and missing.”
For a moment, I thought Lance was either going to faint or vomit. Fortunately, he did neither. “Mom, leave Lance alone. You’re not forcing him into piloting or skydiving unless he wants to.”
My mother sniffed. “I suppose I’ll allow it. For now. But I’m coming for you, Mr. McCarthy. My little skydiving princess deserves a prince.”
“Can’t I be some safely ground-bound prince of some sort? Please?”
“But why stay on the ground when you could fly?”
I laughed at the yearning in my mother’s voice. “You’ll get used to it, Lance. She was born to fly. It’s okay to be a penguin rather than an eagle, falcon, or some other regal bird.”
“A penguin, Alice?” Lance pouted. “Can’t I be a fierce predator? How about a fierce grizzly bear? No one sane messes with a grizzly.”
“Grizzlies are rather princely in the predator department. We could pretend he’s a grizzly bear, Mom! I like it.”
“Grizzlies are not nearly handsome enough. He can be a cat. He’s an attorney, and attorneys are ambush predators, so he must be a cat of some sort. He can be a clouded leopard. That’ll do. For now. Until I convince him to fling himself at the ground and miss.”
“I am beginning to understand how Alice could possibly be so ruthless when it comes to a prank,” Lance muttered. “It’s genetic. I should have known.”
My mother looked me in the eyes and said, “I’m going to grudgingly allow this, but if he doesn’t treat you right, I have an airplane and I’m willing to use it.”
“Your mom’s threats are pretty potent, Alice.”
I nodded. “That they are, so you better behave.”
“Don’t worry. It’s my new mission in life to never anger your mother. Can I take you home now?”
“You can, and you even get to wheel me out of the hospital. I’m too tired and lazy to pop wheelies today, so you have to do all the work.”
“I think I can manage that.”
Lance treated flying like he’d accepted an invitation to his own execution, and the thirty minute wait until boarding almost did him in. To keep him from hyperventilating or fainting, I shoved my hand in his face. “Count scratches,” I ordered.
Arnold laughed, and Lance did as ordered. I was pretty sure the sneaky bastard counted several more than once, but I let him get away with it. I’d earned a few extra months of losing my soul for having tripped and fallen in the first place.
Getting Lance to board was easier than I thought; thanks to my impaired mobility and crutches, I got to board first while he waited with Arnold. When it was his turn to actually board, he hurried to catch up and muttered about having been left behind.
“I had to drag him on the flight over here,” Arnold said, settling in his seat on the other side of the aisle closest to me. “Isn’t first class while temporarily handicapped nice? You got to board first and get all cozy without people bothering you. It’s like he thought the plane would just take off and fly away without him. We’re in the first boarding group, and he was worried he’d be left behind.”
“I’m never going to live this down,” Lance complained, sitting beside me. The seat design made it so we were close while having space. “I don’t like these seats. The cheaper seats let us sit closer together.”
“Lance, she’s right there. She needs the leg room, and you need a nap. Go to sleep. Please. Alice, tell him to go to sleep.”
“If you don’t sleep, I’ll smother you with my little pillow. That means I’ll have to get up, and do you know how bloody hard it’ll be to get up right now? If I have to get up, I’m not going to let you carry me anywhere. I’ll scream, and I may not have a healthy foot, but I have healthy lungs.” I pointed at his neck pillow and his microfiber blanket. “Cuddle up in your seat, put on your little eye mask, and go to sleep. You’re so tired you might lose IQ points, and they’re a part of what makes you attractive.”
Lance sighed but obeyed. Before the next boarding class stepped foot on the plane, he was out cold.
“Wow. I wasn’t actually expecting that to work,” I admitted. “Is that why you got that seat? Did you expect him to conk out?”
“I told him he was too tired to help you reliably, and if he tripped and hurt your foot more, he’d regret it later. Unlike him, I slept on the plane on the way over. He clutched the armrest and stared out the window.”
“That wasn’t very bright of him.”
“I think he was convinced the plane wasn’t going to actually crash by the time he landed, but he’s not a fan of turbulence.”
I leaned towards Lance to make sure he was actually asleep, and I smiled at his soft snore. “How did the prank with the Corvette play out?”
“It was pure brilliance. Paul told me you had masterminded everything and all they did was implement your instructions?”
“That’s right.”
“Initially he thought you’d had his car stolen from his garage, but as he started to unwrap it, he figured out the body shape was all wrong. His expression was amazing. There are pictures, but you have to wait until you’re home to see them. Once he got the car unwrapped, he started staring at Paul and asked where the hell he’d found a 1955 Corvette. Paul said he hadn’t, but that you had. Lance spent a solid ten minutes just staring at the car. I then told him it was a freakish coincidence about our father having owned it, as I hadn’t known the car was meant for him. We spent a solid hour talking about you and your crazy plan to get him a Corvette. I almost wonder if we had made a mistake telling him you’d been the one behind the Corvette. Those comics he hated? He lovingly unwrapped every single one of them, and he was torn between horror he was touching the damned things and not wanting to let them go. He then, rather bitterly, complained to Julian he’d have to read them all, and because you’d given them to him, he’d have to like them.”
“I haven’t even given him the nice comics yet.”
“I know. Paul told me. When will you give them to him?”
“Once I get him home. I’m hoping he’ll forgive me for the second Corvette.”
“I don’t think that’s going to be a problem. You two are going to have an epic fight over the fund, though. He’s determined to pay you back for everything.”
“Nope.”
“Epic fight,” Arnold repeated.
“If he wishes to take the fund and put it into a mutually shared bank account, he can do so, but I refuse to accept money for a gift. Nope. Refuse. Not happening. I’m ready to wage this war. I’ll even let him carry me to the location of the fight and make sure I’m comfortable for the duration.” I smiled. “I’ll have a great time. He can’t pay me back for a gift. It’s not happening. It’s a no strings gift, too. I was just making it clear I would be interested in a proposal of marriage is all.”
“Yeah, he figured that out from the ring and those clippings. He stared at Chloe that time, and he held the whole lot to her for a translation. He was so hopeful but he wanted a woman to confirm it.”
“Is it really that surprising?”
“You haven’t known each other long, and he was stunned you’d actually trust him that much.”
“Chloe must have been smug.”
“That’s one way to put it. She just gave him a hug and said he should be grateful you made it easy on him. That’s when Paul spilled the beans about your anxiety regarding the pranks and your worries Lance would be mad.”
“Ah. Is that why he was so cheerful at the hospital?”
“It was definitely a factor, but he was also relieved you weren’t too badly hurt—and that it wasn’t because of a skydiving accident.”
“I was stupid.”
“I wouldn’t say that. Unlucky maybe.”
“Very. I broke my ankle.”
“Well, don’t be surprised when he lives up to his threat about keeping a very close eye on you. For some reason, I think he means it.”
I giggled and watched Lance sleep while the other passengers boarded. “And he’s already sleeping on the job.”
“Well, he’s convinced the plane will eat us all, so he probably believes you can’t escape. I never said it made sense. I’m still trying to figure him out. He’s not what I was expecting.”
Lance had never been what I’d been expecting, but day by day, I’d become convinced he was everything I needed. “Trust me on this one. I know the feeling.”