the main rugby body in Australia, doing a bunch of different stuff, but mainly talent scouting. American rugby players for Aussie teams.” He squeezed her hands. “I’m not leaving. I’m staying right where I am.”
Jane couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Really?” Her brain crowded with possibilities and questions all tumbling over each other. “Where are you going to be based?”
“I can base myself wherever I want. I was hoping California…” He smiled at her, and Jane’s heart fluttered madly. “There’ll be travel involved, but it’ll be mostly overnighters with some occasional longer trips to Europe.”
“That’s what the meetings were about?”
He nodded. “Yep.”
“But…” Jane shook her head, not daring to believe it could be that simple. In fact, knowing it still wasn’t. Cole being in America—in California—was a big hurdle to knock over, but there were still others. “I thought you wanted the sportscasting job?”
“No. Not really. It was there, and I thought it was my only option to keep me in the rugby realm, but the reality is, I want you more. And talking to Ronan in Denver was way more exciting than the prospect of being on someone’s idiot box every Saturday night. I’m here to stay, and I want to be with you.”
Jane’s pulse accelerated. That sounded damn fine to her, and it’d be so easy to just throw caution to the wind and go for it. But this was the time she had to get it right. If this thing was to happen—and she did want it to happen—then she had to start as she meant to go on.
“Okay…so you’re here. But there are other things to consider, Cole.”
“I know.” He nodded and moved forward again, their bodies still separate but only by the distance of their conjoined hands. “We’re going to have to tread carefully for Finn’s sake, take things slowly. I’m fine with being just Cole, just your friend, for as long as you think he needs. I know I won’t be able to stay over and we have to do this at his pace. I know that, and I’m perfectly fine with it. You get to call the shots here, Jane. You and Finn.”
She shook her head as the sound of another hurdle falling over ricocheted around her head. “It’s not just Finn you’re getting. It’s Tad, too. Who can be frustrating and unreliable and incredibly self-centered, but the thing is, he’s always going to be in my life and Finn’s life and your life, too, if this thing happens. And it can’t be acrimonious, Cole. It can’t be tense. I will not allow it. I will not turn Finn’s childhood into a battlefield.”
“Jane.” He lifted a hand and stroked it down the side of her face, and she wanted nothing more than to shut her eyes and rub her cheek into the caress. “If you think I would ever make a child’s life the hell that was mine, then you really don’t know me at all.”
And bang went another hurdle.
“It’s not just Tad you’ll be inheriting through me, you know. It’s his parents and whoever might one day be in Tad’s future. A…stepmom.”
Jane cringed at the thought, even though she knew it was possible. In fact, highly probable. Anxiety crawled up her throat, her breath catching there at the mere thought. As if he knew the consternation it caused her, Cole drew her gently into his arms, and she went, pressing her ear to his chest, hearing that reassuring thump of his heart as he rested his chin on her head.
“I’m here for that,” he murmured. “Whatever you need from me.”
Another hurdle tumbled as his voice rumbled into her ear so seductively that Jane actually sighed. She shut her eyes and burrowed in a little closer, forgetting for a moment that this was impossible. “His parents are really nice. They’ll like you.”
“I hope so. I want to be part of your lives, Jane, and if that means being part of Tad’s and his extended family’s, too, then bring it on. I didn’t expect to fall in love when I came to America, but I did, and that’s never happened to me before. Not like this. When I commit to someone, I commit. That’s why I want to marry you.”
Jane’s eyes sprang open. “What?” Her breath hitched. She took a step back, his arms falling away.
“I want to marry you.”
Leaning into his cane again, he got down on his left knee, his expensively tailored trousers looking bizarrely perfect there on her beautifully polished