It had all gone terribly wrong.

“I want to see the gorillas next,” an imperious voice rang out from below. The third wheel, on wheels. Darcy’s grandmother had invited herself along when Darcy let slip their plans during a visit to the nursing home.

“Probably looking for a new husband,” Darcy muttered, not unkindly. She pushed her grandmother’s wheelchair along the tarmac path toward the monkey house with ease. The old lady couldn’t have weighed more than eighty pounds soaking wet.

“I heard that,” Mrs. Cochrane snapped back. “Two of my three husbands had more hair than any of the brutes in the cages here. I like them well covered.”

Darcy shot Beck a sidelong glance, barely suppressing her laughter. The cold brought color to her pale cheeks, making her appear fresh-faced and younger than her twenty-five years. She looked happy, and that brought out his happy.

“How about some hot chocolate, Mrs. C?” Beck asked. “Warm those crabby old bones of yours.”

“Let’s hope you’re hung, young man, because you’re certainly not charming.”

Darcy broke into shocked laughter. “Grams, be nice. Beck didn’t have to bring you,” she said, adding a sly smile for Beck that sent his lungs on hiatus.

“Extra whipped cream,” the old bag muttered.

Beck winked at his girl and hustled off to get the hot drinks, but as he stood in line at the kiosk, his smile melted away. In less than two weeks, she’d be outta here, winging her way to the Lone Star State and this new job she seemed excited about. He could make sacrifices to the gods of Chicago—the Bulls, the Bears, whoever people prayed to on the I-90—but it would be useless. It was like wishing he could hold back the sunrise.

Feeling glum, he delivered the hot chocolates and took over pushing duties so Darcy could have her hands free to drink. After a spin around the monkey house and a pop in to see the giraffes, they watched the light displays choreographed to holiday tunes, followed by the ice sculpting. Or Darcy and her grandmother watched.

Beck watched Darcy.

The lights danced over her delicate features and picked up flecks of gold in her big, expressive eyes. She had traveled all over the world, lived a cosmopolitan life most people could only dream of, and here she was with him, impressed by a crappy light show and a kid with a chain saw. In that instant, all her passion and beauty overwhelmed him.

It was time to lace up the gloves and step into the ring.

“Stop staring,” she murmured out of the side of her gorgeously mobile mouth.

“Never.”

Blushing, she snagged her plump lower lip with her teeth. So damn pretty. He noticed with approval her breathing had picked up, so he leaned in and buried his cold nose in the warm, fragrant skin of neck.

“Problem catching a breath, miss? I can help. Qualified EMT.”

“You’re evil, Beck Rivera. And freezing.”

“I want you to stay in Chicago.”

She lowered her eyelids, and the twinkling lights on her dark lashes made them sparkle like decorative fans. “What are you doing to me?” she breathed, and when she opened her eyes again, they shone glossy with emotion.

“I refuse to believe you entered my life again only to walk right out a few weeks later. The gods couldn’t be that cruel.” His lips brushed hers, gentle, teasing, then a stronger press that made his intent clear. She was his.

Then. Now. Forever.

She sniffed and pulled a tissue from her pocket, then scowled at his inevitable smile. “Shut it, Rivera. I always get sniffly in winter.”

Her father had done a number on her, made it so she had a hard time letting anyone in. Now Beck was insinuating his way into the emotional nooks and crannies, finding those hard-to-reach places, shining a light. And just like he practiced out on the battleground of fire, no one would get left behind.

Over the sound system, a holiday classic filled the air with its smooth, velvet croon.

“I really can’t stay . . . But baby, it’s cold outside.”

“Gotta stop running sometime, Darcy.”

Darcy held Beck’s stark blue gaze and let the words sink in. Soured by her near-miss marriage and her father’s formerly tyrannical grip on her life, funereal bells tolled in her brain as soon as any guy started dictating the terms. “Always be moving” had served her well so far. Free agency suited her.

Beck might be different, but was it enough? He had dumped her once with no explanation, no apology, nothing. Of course, she refused to delve deeper. Asking implied caring.

So she did what terrified, fragile, in-denial girls everywhere did—she fronted with her stock answer. “Chicago’s not big enough for me and Dad.”

“Oh, I dunno. Third largest city in the United States. And you have other reasons for sticking around.”

“Such as?”

“Meddling friends. Terrifying, tatted guys who care about you. Evil grandmothers.” That one he mimed, unnecessarily as it happened, because Grams had nodded off. “A business you can do anywhere because you rock at it.” Pause. “Burn-the-sheets sex.”

Considering they’d never made it to a bed, that particular claim was not entirely legit. She turned into his chest to keep her voice from carrying in the clear night air—and oh hell, because she fit perfectly under his strong jaw—and sucked in a heady lungful of him. “Hmm, you might have something there. The pickings for burn-the-sheets sex are bound to be better in the third largest city in the United States.”

He gentled the back of her neck and kissed her, sweet and slow. His sexy jaw scruff conjured up a wash of sensation and sensual memories of how it had rasped her thighs during their steamy not-shower.

Gettin’ so warm inside . . .

“Let’s keep it PG, handsome,” she said, when he let her up for air.

“Pretty good? Think I can manage that.”

Another press of his lips, and the addition of his wickedly effective tongue, lifted her to a higher plane. This man of hers could kiss away every doubt, make her believe anything was possible. Even that she could live in the same metropolitan area as her father.

She was a much-sought-after body artist who loved her job and the freedom it gave her. She had built a good life, yet the idea of letting someone in—someone who might seem perfect on the surface, but could end up as manipulating and controlling as Sam Cochrane—seized her heart in a fist.

“Tell me why bustin’ out of Dodge is so important,” he whispered. “Because the way I see it, you have more reasons to stay than go.”

“I didn’t turn out how he wanted. The pliable daughter, the budding trophy wife. If I stick around in Chicago, he’ll find a way back into my life, and before I know it I’ll feel small again, just another cog in his machine. Look at how he tried to marry me off.”

“You should be thanking him.”

She gulped, unsure she’d heard that right. “Excuse me?”

He cupped his ear. “Do you hear what I hear?”

“You mean Mariah Carey warbling her way through one of my favorite holiday songs?”

“No, I mean the sound of your brass balls clanging, Darcy Cochrane. You’ve grown from a dependent girl into a self-reliant woman. And you have your father to thank because his dick moves set this great life of yours in motion.” He curled his hand around her neck and tunneled those rough-cast fingers through her hair, his tactile strength unbelievably sensual against her scalp. “Look at what he unleashed on the world. Look at you takin’ names, querida.”

God, this man’s support just slayed her. But as encouraging as that sounded, Beck was taking the product-of-her-environment argument a little too far. She owed nothing to her father. He had no say in how she turned out, yet . . . they were alike in so many ways. Stubborn, unyielding, hardheaded. She wanted to heal the rift between them, not go through life with this ball of negativity like a dead weight in her chest.