Slow Hands

for him. He wasn’t even supposed to be on duty today. He’d taken the day off for a woman who didn’t trust him enough to let him escort her to a family wedding, much less to love her. But staring at the four walls of his apartment had soon driven him batty and he’d come to the station house, determined to do a little restocking and catch up on some paperwork.
    “Who is it?”
    The guy, one of the newer firefighters, wagged his eyebrows.
    And Jake knew.
    He shoved the case of sterile bandages he’d been holding back into the storage closet, slammed the door shut, and strode out to the front of the station. Maddy stood right outside, her beautiful, dark hair shimmering in the brilliant June sunshine. Her arms wrapped around her waist, she was dressed, not in her wickedly sexy bridesmaid dress, but in a simple jean skirt and brightly colored blouse.
    The wedding, he figured, must have been postponed. No surprise there. He couldn’t imagine his own sister going through with her wedding if something happened to their father. But given the identity of the bride and groom, he hadn’t been entirely sure.
    “Hey,” he said when he reached her side. “You all right?”
    She tilted her head back and looked up at him, a gentle smile widening those beautiful lips. “I’m fine.”
    “Your father?”
    “Fine, too.”
    Then they fell silent. She’d come here to say something—he didn’t have it in him to work up the hope that it could be something he truly wanted to hear. That she was wrong—so wrong—to put those self-protective walls around herself again. That she knew he’d never hurt her and was ready to admit she loved him, too.
    But she said nothing.
    “I guess the wedding’s been postponed?”
    She shook her head.
    “Oh. Do you, uh, still need an escort?”
    “Yes,” she murmured, then cleared her throat. “Yes. I need an escort.”
    He ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “I left my tux back at my apartment.” Glancing at his watch, he said, “Look, I’ll go get it and…”
    “No,” she said, putting her hand over his mouth to shut him up. “I don’t need an escort to a wedding. It hasn’t been postponed. Tabby called it off. For good.”
    Sounded like one of the smartest things that sister of hers had ever done.
    Maddy traced the tip of her finger over his lips, then his jaw and on down his neck before confessing, “But I still want the next fourteen days you owe me.”
    “What?”
    “And then I want fourteen thousand more.”
    The ground lurched beneath his feet. Or maybe it was just his heart flipping around in his chest. Because that had sounded an awful lot like…
    “What I need is an escort for life. I want to be on your arm forever, Jake, and I want you on mine,” Maddy admitted, all attempts to protect herself, evaporating under the bright summer sky. “I want you sleeping beside me and waking up beside me. Walking with me, and holding me. Laughing with me, crying with me, and keeping me from ever freezing up into that woman again.”
    “I love that woman,” he said. “I loved her from the beginning. And I love this one, too. I love every part of you, Madeline Turner.”
    Stepping closer, until her body brushed his, she sent all his nerve endings on alert, filling his head with her sweet scent and his ears with her tender words. “I love you, too.”
    Her whisper sent the world spinning again, everything falling into place, exactly where it belonged. Right and perfect and all he’d ever dreamed of.
    Maddy rose on tiptoe. “I love you so much and I don’t ever want to lose you.” She smiled, such a sweet, heartbreaking smile. “I’ve finally allowed myself to believe it.”
    “I’m so glad,” he whispered, bending to brush a soft kiss on her lips. She wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him back, her tongue mating with his, oblivious to time and place and anybody around them.
    When the kiss finally ended, she didn’t pull away, remaining wrapped in his embrace. “You should know, I won’t ever let you go. Even if the world ended tomorrow and we never saw each other again… I will never let you go. ”
    She didn’t have to explain. He understood completely. They were joined now. Through emotion and words and soon, he knew, through vows and family. Joined for life.
    “Maddy, didn’t you learn that the night we met?” he asked with a teasing kiss to her jaw. “I’ll never let you get away from me, either.” Then all teasing faded. “I