Love Wins Read online

  I gazed at him warily. “Yes.”

  “Ever think about going into business for yourself?”

  “I don’t have the head for business,” I admitted honestly. I pushed the peas around on my plate. “Paperwork confuses the fu—stuffing out of me. I’d much rather work with my hands.”

  “Your sister,” Darren said, pointing his fork at his wife, “has an exceptional business sense. She also hates her current job. And how fantastic would it be to give a great big FU to your father by the two of you creating your own contracting business?”

  “What’s ‘eff you’?” Emmet asked.

  Lucy shushed him, never taking her gaze off me. I stared back. We’d always been close, and we got along incredibly well. Hell, she hadn’t even been that pissed off that I’d kept such a huge secret from her. She stared back, and I could see everything all over her face. She thought it was a great idea, and more than that, she wanted to do it.

  “Oh my God,” Henry breathed. He leaned into me, hugging me one armed and kissing my cheek. “Shane, babe, that’s a brilliant idea! You’d do so well as your own boss.”

  My lips stretched into a smile the more I thought about it. Lucy and I wouldn’t have a problem working together. As long as we were clear on what responsibilities were whose, we’d be able to make it work. Darren was right that it would be the perfect way to show up the man who’d gotten rid of both his children for following their hearts. And more than that, both Lucy and I would be happy. I raised an eyebrow at Lucy, and her grin and nod told me she was on the same page. We’d have to talk about it, really talk, but it was doable.

  “Uncle Shane?” Emmett asked, yanking me out of my musings. I gave him a smile and my full attention.

  “What’s up?”

  His little face scrunched up like he was thinking. His gaze flicked back and forth between me and Henry a couple of times, and I could tell he was trying to work something out. I braced myself for what he would say. Then slowly, he asked, “Are you guys married like Mama and Dad?”

  I choked on air. I’d been out for about three weeks and was still getting used to it. I’d long ago taken marriage off the table in my own mind. Even after same-sex marriage had become legal, it wasn’t something I ever thought I’d do. To have an innocent five-year-old bring it up was a shock.

  “Your Uncle Shane and I haven’t discussed that yet,” Henry said smoothly as I fought for breath. He rubbed a hand hard between my shoulder blades, and his touch was soothing. After a couple of seconds, I was able to breathe better. Then Henry cocked his head to the side and studied Emmett. “Why? Do you think we should be?”

  I was about to turn a glare on Henry, but then I saw Emmett was carefully considering the question. I held my breath, waiting to see what he would say.

  “If you got married, you’d be my uncle too?” Emmett’s voice was very serious.

  “Yes,” Henry responded in a matching tone.

  “Then yes,” Emmett said with finality. He picked up his spoon and scooped up a huge bite of mashed potatoes. “You should be married.”

  I couldn’t help the grin. Out of the mouths of babes. Emmett didn’t care that we were two men. All he cared about was the fact that he’d get another uncle to spoil him rotten. If only the rest of the world looked at things as simply as children did. The world would be a much brighter place, that was for sure.

  Henry was grinning, his face just lighting up that he had my nephew’s approval. And in that moment, I felt whole again. It didn’t matter that my parents had disowned me. I had a family, and it was made up of people who loved me just as I was. I couldn’t ask for anything more.

  “We could do it on the beach,” I said quietly, turning to Henry. He sucked in a breath, his eyes going wide. “Right at that spot.”

  Silence reigned for a moment. No one moved or spoke. Then Lucy’s palm smacked down on my shoulder hard enough to sting.

  “Did you just propose to your boyfriend at my kitchen table?” she asked incredulously.

  I didn’t take my gaze off Henry. “Yes. I did.”

  His eyes were brimming with tears. “Are you sure?” I nodded, and he snorted out a small laugh. “Hell, you don’t do things half way, do you?”

  “You taught me that, naked guy,” I murmured back.

  Henry grinned and sputtered out a laugh. He used the back of one hand to wipe at his eyes. Then he cleared his throat and fixed me with a stare. “You do it right, and I’ll say yes.”

  The scrape of the chair on the tile was loud. I dropped to one knee, took his hand in mine, and looked up into the face of the man I loved. The man who loved me enough to strip naked on a beach so I could be free. Who proved love would always triumph over hate.

  “Marry me?”

  “Absolutely.”

  KRIS T. BETHKE has been a voracious reader for pretty much her entire life and has been writing stories for nearly as long. An avid and prolific daydreamer, she always has a story in her head. She spends most of her free time reading, writing, or knitting/crocheting her latest project. Her biggest desire is to find a way to accomplish all three tasks at one time. A classic muscle car will always turn her head, and weekend naps are one of her greatest guilty pleasures. She lives in a converted attic with an aquarium full of tropical fish and the voices in her head. She’ll tell you she thinks that’s a pretty good deal.

  E-mail: [email protected]

  Blog: kristbethke.com

  Twitter: @KrisTBethke

  Happily Ever After, After All

  By L.A. Merrill

  Once upon a time, Princess Aubergine dreamed of a fairy-tale wedding to the girl of her dreams. Things haven’t exactly worked out that way. Locked in a tower for ten years, Aubergine managed to scare off all the princes coming to rescue her. Now it’s up to her to do the rescuing—until a band of students from the local Ladies’ Academy happen upon her tower and devise a daring escape plan.

  ONCE UPON a time, in the country of Terracotta, Princess Aubergine dreamed of an epic romance and a fairy-tale wedding to the girl of her dreams.

  That was before her father told her princesses didn’t marry other princesses. It was certainly before he locked her in a tower, and definitely before she’d passed her twenty-fifth birthday. The princes from far and wide had long ago stopped venturing forth to win her hand—they’d caught on pretty quick after she started throwing rocks out the tower window—and Aubergine decided it was safe to assume everyone had forgotten about her and she could get on with her life.

  Tower life afforded a limited range of options, but Aubergine was a resourceful woman and not about to let circumstances deter her from following her passion. Just as soon as she figured out what it was.

  Her father, she had decided, was not so much evil or dark-hearted as he was a victim of fads. Disciplining one’s children by putting them in towers had been all the rage when she was a teenager, and the naming-little-girls-after-obscure-vegetables trend had been going on for years. (Then again, she had once thrown a rock at a prince named Rutabaga, so perhaps the trend had been a trial for both girls and boys.)

  The witch who ruled the neighboring kingdom was famous for having put her daughter in a tower. This was all Aubergine had heard about growing up, that and “how well it had worked out for everyone in the end.” Aubergine privately thought that depended on one’s definition of “well.”

  The tower was never meant to be a long-term solution. Aubergine’s father had thought a few weeks spent fifty feet in the air, dining on nothing but peaches and pears, would cure his daughter of this silly notion that princesses could marry other princesses, or indeed, anyone they wanted. A handsome prince would catch her eye—preferably one who was also smart enough to figure out a way to scale a sheer, rounded, fifty-foot wall—and they could all live happily ever after, without having to explain awkward things to disapproving fairy godmothers.

  Aubergine’s father had been accused of many things in his life. Forward-thinking perspicacity was not one of
them.

  And so Aubergine continued to age, the magical peach-pear tree continued to produce magical fruit, and Aubergine’s hair continued to grow, while she remained sealed inside a tower with no exit strategy and no rescue team in sight.

  One warm spring afternoon in her twenty-sixth year, Aubergine leaned on the window ledge of her tower, eating a peach and contemplating her options. Perhaps she could devise a flying machine out of dwarf peach tree branches and her blankets. Or grind rock slivers into cutting tools sharp enough to slice through the ridiculous amount of hair she had grown in ten years. Maybe the forest creatures—

  Aubergine’s train of thought was derailed by a completely unexpected sound. Voices, advancing through the woods. Women’s voices, at that.

  “Up ahead—mind that pokeweed, Miss Gaillardia—up ahead we have an unusual treat, ladies. It looks to be a very well-preserved example of early pre-Prunellian architecture.” The voice, clearly moving into full lecture mode, continued on about stone supports and quoining, whatever that was. Aubergine debated lobbing her peach pit at the advancing party, then thought better of it and settled for ducking below the window and spying through a crack in the mortar instead.

  A tall, sturdily built woman in long purple and blue robes presided over an attentive crowd of young women, all dressed for hiking and carrying sketchbooks and binoculars. Various implements hung about their necks on straps. They all looked frightfully competent. Aubergine was enthralled. Princes be damned; she wouldn’t mind being rescued by this lot any day.

  The instructor had made a concession to the terrain and tucked her robes into her belt and rolled up her sleeves, displaying stout boots and even stouter muscles. She pushed her glasses farther up her nose and posed a question to the group.

  “Can anyone tell me the design flaw in this type of structure?” she asked, clasping her hands behind her back and regarding the tower.

  A girl with two braided buns raised a hand, seemed to realize her teacher couldn’t see her, and spoke anyway. “There’s no door?”

  “Very good. Statements are not questions, Miss Vervain; remember that.”

  “Yes, Miss Persimmon.”

  “It’s totally a fire safety violation,” declared a blonde at the front of the group.

  It totally is, Aubergine silently agreed. She had often worried about this herself and had spent many a chilly night weighing warmth against safety. Safety always won.

  “Miss Persimmon! Miss Persimmon!” A dark-haired girl in the back waved her binoculars. “Miss Persimmon, there appears to be a species of vine growing inside the tower. You can see it through the aperture.”

  Aubergine cringed and tried, unsuccessfully, to make herself smaller.

  “Is there?” Miss Persimmon’s voice held a note of interest. “How fascinating! This could be a grand example of the lengths certain species of plant will go to in order to reach the sun. Lend me your binoculars, Miss Calendula, if you please.”

  Aubergine weighed the peach pit in her hand. It wouldn’t make a dent in this group, and throwing it would only confirm what they’d discover in a moment. Besides, didn’t she want them to see her? Had she not just been thinking they’d make a fine rescue team?

  “Good heavens,” Miss Persimmon said in quiet shock. “That’s not a vine. I do believe it’s hair. Human hair.”

  Nothing for it, then, Aubergine decided. She stood up, rested her forearms on the window ledge, and waved to the women below. “Hi,” she said.

  The women stared.

  “Nice day,” Aubergine offered. “As days go.”

  Miss Vervain ventured a wave.

  “Okay, well, bye, then.” Aubergine sank below the ledge, her sudden attack of shyness making her face hot and her hands sweat. She couldn’t understand it; she’d never been like this around the parade of princes.

  “Wait!” Miss Persimmon commanded. Aubergine was halfway back up to standing before she realized what she was doing.

  “Yes?” She peered over the ledge.

  “How long have you been here?” Miss Persimmon walked closer to the tower and stared straight up into Aubergine’s gaze.

  “Ten years, give or take,” said Aubergine. “I rather lost count.”

  “Are you a war criminal?” Miss Calendula asked excitedly.

  “No,” said Aubergine. “I’m a princess.”

  Miss Persimmon cursed under her breath. The other women looked even more interested now. They huddled up and began discussing solutions among themselves.

  “There’s a ladder back at the academy—”

  “Too short.”

  “If we tied two ladders together, and then—”

  “This is how you ended up with a broken collarbone last time, Purslaine.”

  “What about elephants?”

  “What about elephants?”

  Miss Persimmon ran her hands over the base of the tower, feeling the cracks between the stones. Her glasses slipped down her nose again.

  Aubergine leaned farther out of the window to watch her. “Are you going to rescue me?”

  “Very likely,” Miss Persimmon said, still examining the stones. “I’m surprised no one’s tried before now.”

  “Oh, but they have. I chased them off. They were all men, and I didn’t want to be rescued by a man. I’d have had to marry him. Shudder.”

  “Did you just say ‘shudder’?” Miss Persimmon shoved her glasses back up her nose and stared at Aubergine.

  Aubergine could feel herself blushing deeper. “Sometimes I vocalize my body language. To make it seem more real. Since no one can see me.”

  Miss Persimmon’s face had a strange expression on it. “Your Highness,” she said solemnly, “I promise, on my honor as a woman, you will be out of this tower by sundown tomorrow.”

  Aubergine’s head spun, and she abruptly pulled back into the tower room. Tomorrow. She could be free by tomorrow night. And then—and then—what?

  “Your Highness?” Miss Persimmon called.

  “Thank you, yes, I would like that very much,” Aubergine said, poking her face around the window again. “Please bring scissors.”

  Miss Persimmon smiled then, and there was a devilish twinkle to her eyes. Aubergine wondered if it was the sun reflecting off her glasses. She hoped it wasn’t.

  “Your wish is my command, Your Highness,” Miss Persimmon said.

  “Aubergine,” said Aubergine. “It’s just Aubergine, now.”

  “Good heavens, does it have to be?”

  Aubergine laughed. It felt like sunlight in her chest. “What else could it be?”

  “Anything you like, I expect. Jean. Aubrey. Gigi.”

  Miss Calendula, apparent self-appointed spokeswoman of the class, approached. “Miss Persimmon, we believe we have devised a sound rescue operation, comprising some light engineering and at least three chairs.”

  “Splendid,” Miss Persimmon said. “You may present it to me back at the academy. Lead on, Miss Purslaine, and mind your ankle on the rocks.”

  “Shouldn’t we alert the authorities?” one of the women asked.

  “We most certainly should not,” Miss Persimmon said briskly, shooing everyone ahead of herself. “I shall explain over tea. Keep moving. Ladies do not slouch while walking, Miss Crimini.”

  Aubergine leaned as far over the window ledge as she could without falling and watched the women thread their way back along their newly blazed trail. Miss Persimmon brought up the rear. She turned, just before they were all out of sight, and looked back at Aubergine and smiled. Aubergine smiled back and waved. By tomorrow night, she would be out of this tower.

  The thought—and Miss Persimmon’s smile—sustained her through the rest of the day. She collapsed back onto her hair and thought of all the things she would do once she was out. It was a surprisingly short list. Aubergine felt a lack of imagination on her part. It had been ten years; what would be left of her home as she had known it? Was her father still alive? She had begun to think, in a dark and private c
orner of her mind, that he must have died long ago. Why else would he have left her in this place so long? When the long fingers of twilight crept over the window ledge, Aubergine was still sitting amid the greasy, tangled cloud of her hair, staring unseeingly at the peach-pear tree and wondering if being out was really so much better than being in, if one didn’t have a clear picture of life on the outside.

  Aubergine’s hair was another facet of tower life that was not supposed to have happened the way it did. Most tower-dwelling girls’ hair grew long and strong and, most importantly, downward, the better to aid would-be rescuers on the ascent. Aubergine’s hair grew out. She’d always had a mass of curls, but after a few weeks without the ministrations of the royal hairdresser, her mass of curls had turned into an unruly bird’s nest. (A bird did, in fact, try to nest in it. Aubergine and the bird came to an arrangement.) As weeks turned into months, and months into years, Aubergine’s hair turned from an impromptu bird home to a ceiling-brushing madness to a wool-like padding that filled the room, until Aubergine was trapped as much by her own hair as she was by the tower. One thing she did know—in order to get out of this place, the hair would have to go.

  A small rock, lobbed through the window, broke Aubergine’s reverie. Coming out of her haze of thought, she briefly wondered if the princes were returning to seek their revenge at last. Then another rock landed beside the first and rolled up against her shoe. She picked them up and struggled to her feet.

  Outside in the gloom, a figure stood at the base of the tower. A last trickle of light glanced off the figure’s face, and Aubergine looked closer.

  “Miss Persimmon?” she called.

  “Oh good, you’re still awake.” Miss Persimmon’s voice faded in and out as she investigated around the sides of the tower. “Tell me, there seems to be a Removal of Agency spell on these stones, but I can’t quite tell the intended target. Do you know it?”

  “Are you a witch?” Aubergine asked with great interest.