Her Perfect Proposal

Oh, man, he’d pegged her so completely wrong.

Her tough, big-city woman persona was nothing but a shield for a vulnerable girl, and Gunnar’s desire to protect and serve had never been stronger.

“I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” He hugged her tight, wishing he could take back the last hour, trying desperately to make things better. Hell-bent on being the opposite of his father, he’d acted nothing short of a bully tonight, apparently just like Lilly’s father. It would never happen again. Ever. “I’m sorry, Chitcha, please forgive me.”

The soldier-like tension in her body relaxed. She leaned into his chest and rested her head on his shoulder. “I shouldn’t have been following you. I wasn’t even that interested.”

He kissed the top of her head. “Agreed. You absolutely shouldn’t have been following me. So no more games, okay?”

“No more games.” She looked up.

“No more snooping?”

“No more secrets?”

“Touché,” he said, just before capturing her mouth for a long and tender kiss as they stood under the light of the perfect half-moon. He was in a sticky situation, being on a committee that Lilly was dying to find out about, and just now promising not to keep secrets. How was he supposed to juggle that double-edged sword and not get injured?

Her Perfect Proposal

Lynne Marshall

www.millsandboon.co.uk

LYNNE MARSHALL used to worry that she had a serious problem with daydreaming—then she discovered she was supposed to write those stories! A late bloomer, Lynne came to fiction writing after her children were nearly grown. Now she battles the empty nest by writing stories that always include a romance, sometimes medicine, a dose of mirth, or both, but always stories from her heart. She is a Southern California native, a dog lover, a cat admirer, a power walker and an avid reader.

Special thanks to Flo Nicoll who always makes me dig deeper. And to Carly Silver for being a bright light and for being there whenever I need help.

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Acknowledgements

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

“Is this because I’m an outsider?” said the petite, new and clearly fuming visitor in town. She’d jaywalked Main Street in broad daylight, far, far from the pedestrian crosswalk. As if it was merely a street decoration or a pair of useless lines. Did she really think Gunnar wouldn’t notice?

Dressed as if she belonged in New York City, not Heartlandia, she wore some high-fashion fuchsia tunic, with a belt half the size of her torso, and slinky black leggings. Sure, she was a knockout in that getup, but the lady really needed to learn to blend in, follow the rules, or he’d be writing her citations all day long.

He took his job seriously, and was proud to be a cog in the big wheel that kept his hometown running smoothly. Truth was he’d wanted to be a guardian of Heartlandia since he was twelve years old.

“I won’t dignify that slur with an answer,” Gunnar said, though she was an outsider. He’d never seen the pretty Asian woman before, but that wasn’t the point. She’d jaywalked!

With the often huge influxes of cruise-line guests all disembarking down at the docks, and now with the occasional tour bus added to the mix, he had to keep order for the town’s sake. The tourists rushed to the local stores for sweet deals and to the restaurants for authentic Scandinavian food without having to fly all the way to Sweden or Norway. If he let everyone jaywalk, it could wreak havoc in Heartlandia. The town residents had to come first, and it was up to guys like him to regulate the influx of visitors. Plus, jaywalking was a personal pet peeve. If the city put in crosswalks, people should use them. Period.

He kept writing, though snuck an occasional peek at the exotic lady. Shiny black hair with auburn highlights, which she wore short, her bangs pushed to the side, and with the pointy and wispy hair ends just covering her earlobes and the top of her neck. Interesting.

Most guys he knew preferred long hair on women, but he was open to all styles as long at it complemented the face. The haircut and outfit were something you might see on a runway or in a fashion magazine, but not here. And those sunglasses... She had to be kidding. Did she want to look like a bee?

Even though her eyes were shielded by high-fashion gear, he could sense she stared him down waiting for his answer to her “Is it because I’m an outsider?” question. Not wanting to be rude by ignoring her, he came up with a question of his own.

“Let me ask you this. Were you or were you not jaywalking just now?”

“I’m from San Francisco, everyone jaywalks.” She leaned in to read his name tag. “Sergeant Norling.”

“You with the cruise ship?” It was too early for a new batch of tourists to set foot on the docks, though there was no telling when those buses might pull up.

She huffed and folded her arms. “Nope.”

“Well, you’re in Heartlandia now, Ms....” He stared at his citation pad waiting for her to fill him in. She didn’t. “Name please?” He glanced up.

“Matsuda. Lilly Matsuda. Can’t you cut me some slack?”

“I need your license.” Gunnar stared straight into where he imagined her eyes were, letting her absorb his disappointment at her obvious lack of regard for his professional honor. Something he held near and dear. Honor.

She wouldn’t look away, so he motioned with his fingers for her to hand over the license and continued, “Did you jaywalk?”

She sighed, glanced upward and tapped a tiny patent-leather-ultrahigh-heeled foot.

For the record, he dug platform shoes with spiky heels, and hers looked nothing short of fantastic with the skintight silky legging things she wore. Didn’t matter, though. She was a jaywalker.

“Yes.”

His mouth twitched at the corner, rather than letting her see him smile. The way she’d said yes, turning it into two syllables, the second one all singsongy, sounded like some of the teenagers he mentored at the high school.

She lowered her sunglasses, hitting him dead-on with deliciously almond-shaped, wide-spaced, nearly black eyes. Hers was a pretty face, once he got past the Kabuki killer stare.

He tore off the paper, handed it to her and waited for her response.

Snagging the notice for jaywalking she frowned, then glanced at it, and the discontented expression broke free with a surprisingly nice smile. “Hey, it’s just a warning. Thanks.” She suddenly sounded like his best friend.

“Now that you know the rules, don’t jaywalk again. Ever.” He turned to head back to his squad car, knowing for a fact she watched him go. He’d gotten used to ladies admiring him from all angles. Yup, there was definitely something about a man in a uniform sporting a duty belt, and he knew it. Just before he got inside he turned and flashed his best smile, but instead of saying have a nice day he said, “See you around.”

She had to know exactly what he meant—if she was sticking around this small city, he’d be sure to run into her again, and he’d be watching where she walked.

“Officer Norling?”

The petite Matsuda lady stepped closer, her flashy colorful top nearly blinding him. He gave his practiced magnanimous professional cop smile, the one he hoped to perfect one day when he ran for mayor. “Yes?”

“Know any good places to eat in town? Bars for after hours?”

“Just about any place here on Main Street is good. Lincoln’s Place does a great happy hour.” Was she planning on sticking around? Or better yet, was she trying to pick him up?

“You go there? Eat there? Drink there?”

His bachelor radar clicked up a notch.

She dug into her shoulder bag and brought out a small notepad and pen. “I’m looking for the best local examples of everything Scandinavian.”

What was she doing, writing a book? Maybe she was one of those travel journalists or something. Gunnar stopped dead, hand midway to scalp for a quick scratch. Or maybe she was one of those annoying type A tourists, who had to know it all, find the best this or that, snap a few pictures while never actually stepping inside or buying anything, just so they could impress their friends back home. She looked like the type who’d want to impress her friends.

“Yeah. My favorite lunch joint is the Hartalanda Café. And you can’t beat Lincoln’s Place for great dining. Got a crack new lady pianist named Desi Rask playing on the weekends, too, if you like music.”

She didn’t look satisfied, as if he’d failed in some way at answering her query—the question behind the question. Too bad he hadn’t figured it out. Maybe she was a food reporter for some big magazine or something and wanted some input from a local. “Well, thanks, then,” she said. “See you around.”

See me around? That’s what I said. So is she new in town, planning to stay here, or just here on assignment? His outlook took a quick turn toward optimistic without any specific reason beyond the possibility of Ms. Matsuda sticking around these parts. An exotic woman like her would be a great change from the usual scenery.

But wait. He wasn’t doing that anymore—playing the field. Nope. He’d turned a new page. No more carefree playboy, dating whoever he wanted without ever getting serious. If he wanted to be mayor of Heartlandia one day, he’d need to settle down, show the traditional town he knew how to commit.

Gunnar slipped behind the steering wheel, started the engine and drove off, leaving her standing on the corner looking like a colorful decoy in a Where’s Waldo? book.

* * *

Lilly stood at the corner of Main Street and Heritage, watching the officer drive away, having to admit the man was a knockout. Yowza, had she ever seen greener eyes? Or a police uniform with more laser-sharp ironed creases? This guy took his job seriously, which was part of the appeal, and he’d already cut her some slack on the citation. Hmm, she wondered, slipping her sunglasses back in place. What’s his story?

She’d been in town exactly three days, started her new job yesterday at the newspaper, and was already hatching her plan to buy out the owner, Bjork, and breathe new life into the ailing local rag. She’d taken a huge risk moving here, leaving a solid job—but one without room for advancement—back at the San Francisco Gazette in a last-ditch attempt to finally win her parents’ respect. Somehow, despite all of her efforts to overachieve, she’d yet to live up to their expectations. Why at the age of thirty it still mattered, she hadn’t quite figured out.

In her short time in Heartlandia she’d noticed things from her extended-stay apartment in the Heritage Hotel—things like a nighttime gathering at city hall of an unlikely handful of residents. Oh, she’d done her homework long before she’d moved here all right, because that was what a serious reporter and future newspaper mogul did.

She knew the newspaper was on its last breath, mostly copying and pasting national news stories from the Associated Press, instead of doing the legwork or being innovating and engaging. She recognized an opportunity to start her own kind of newspaper here, for the locals. The kind she’d want to read if she lived in a small town.

Before arriving, she’d gotten the lay of the land, or should she say landia? She snickered. Sometimes she cracked herself up.

She’d spent several months getting her hands on everything she could about Heartlandia. Their city website told a lovely, almost storybook history that didn’t ring completely true. Could everything possibly be that ideal? Nope, she’d seen enough of life, how messy it could get, to know otherwise. Or maybe San Francisco had jaded her?

She’d memorized the city council names and faces, noting they’d appointed a new mayor pro tem, one Gerda Rask. She’d also scoured old newspaper stories and dug up pictures of the locals, including police officers, firemen and businesspersons. The Heartlandia Herald used to focus on those kinds of stories, and there were many to choose from. Not anymore.

She knew more about this town than the average resident, she’d bet, which, if it was true, was kind of sad when she thought about it.

Turn and walk, Matsuda. Don’t let on to that taller version of a Tom Hardy look-alike that you’re watching him drive off. A man that size, with all those muscles, a cop, well, the last thing she wanted to do was get on his bad side.

* * *

Once the light changed, Gunnar drove on with one last glance in his rearview mirror. Lilly hadn’t budged. It made him grin. That one was a firecracker, for sure.

He’d heard old man Bjork had hired a new reporter. It was to save his sorry journalistic butt since running the Heartlandia Herald into the ground with bad reporting and far too many opinion pages—all Bjork’s opinion. He’d also heard the new hire was a big-city outsider and a she. Could the she be her?

Maybe the Herald did need a complete overhaul from an outsider since the newspaper he’d grown up reading was failing. Sales were in the Dumpster, and it bothered him. Over the past few years he’d watched his hometown paper slowly spiral into a useless rag. It just didn’t seem right. A newspaper should be the center of a thriving community, but theirs wasn’t.

Truth was old man Bjork needed help. Who cared what other people thought about world politics? Everyone got enough of that on cable news. Keep it local and engaging. That’s what he would have told the geezer if he’d ever bothered to ask for advice since they worked across the hall from each other, but the guy was too busy running the paper into the ground.

What with the new city college journalism department, why couldn’t they save their own paper? Heartlandia had always stood on its own two metaphorical feet. Always would. Fishermen, factory workers, natives and immigrants, neighbors helping neighbors. The town had remained independent even after most of the textile and fishing plants had closed down.

Only once had the city been threatened from outsiders, smugglers posing as legitimate businessmen. His own father had fallen for it. Once the original fish factory had closed, he’d been out of a job. Gunnar had been ten at the time and had watched his mother take on two part-time jobs to help feed the family. His father’s pride led him to take the job as a night watchman for the new outside company, and he’d turned his head rather than be a whistleblower when suspicious events had taken place. The shame he’d brought on the family by going to jail was what made Gunnar go into law enforcement, as if he needed to make up for his father’s mistakes.

It had taken two years before the chief of police at the time, Jon Abels, had taken back the city. Gunnar had been twelve by then, but he remembered it as if it had just happened, how the police had made a huge sweep of the warehouse down by the docks, arresting the whole lot of them and shutting down the operation. That day Chief Abels had saved the city and became Gunnar’s personal hero.

He drove back to the station in time to check out, change clothes and grab a bite at his favorite diner, the Hartalanda Café—he hadn’t lied to Ms. Matsuda about that—before he hit city hall for another hush-hush Thursday-night meeting of the minds. It had been an honor to be asked, and joining this committee was the first step on a journey he hoped one day to take all the way to the mayor’s office.

Sleepy little Heartlandia’s history lessons had recently taken a most interesting plot twist, and he was only one of eight who knew what was going on. The new information could change the face of his hometown forever, and he didn’t want to see that happen. Not on his watch.

* * *

Gunnar held the door to the conference room for Mayor Gerda Rask. She was the next-door neighbor of his best friend, Kent Larson, and a town matriarch figure who’d agreed to step in temporarily when their prior mayor, Lars Larsson, had a massive heart attack. She’d also been the town piano teacher for as far back as Gunnar could remember, until recently when her granddaughter, Desi, came to town and took over her students.

The city council had assured Mayor Rask she’d just be a figurehead. Poor thing hadn’t known what she was stepping into until after she’d agreed. And for that, Mayor Rask had Gunnar’s deepest sympathy, support and respect. When he became mayor, he’d take over the helm and transform the current weak-mayor concept, where the city council really ran things, to a strong-mayor practice where he’d have total administrative authority. At least that’s how he imagined it. Any man worth his salt needed a dream, and that was his.

The older woman nodded her appreciation, then took her seat at the head of the long dark wooden boardroom table. Next to her was Jarl Madsen, the proprietor at the Maritime Museum. Next to him sat Adamine Olsen, a local businesswoman and president of the Heartlandia Small Business Association, and next to her Leif Andersen, the contractor who’d first discovered the trunk that could change the town’s reputation from ideal to tawdry.

Leif had found the ancient chest while his company was building the city college. Though he was the richest man in town, he chose to be a hands-on guy when it came to construction, continuing to run his company rather than rest on his laurels as the best builder in this part of the state of Oregon. He hadn’t turned in the chest right away—instead he’d sat on the discovery for months. Once curiosity had gotten the best of him and he’d opened it, saw the contents, he knew he had to bring it to the mayor’s attention. After that, Mayor Larsson had his heart attack, Gerda stepped up and this handpicked committee was formed.

Gunnar nodded to his sister, who’d beat him to the meeting. She smiled. “Gun,” she said.

“Elke, what’s shakin’?”

She lifted her brows and sighed, cluing him that what was shaking wasn’t all good. He’d signed on to this panel, like he had to his job, to protect and serve his community. Since his family tree extended back to the very beginning of Heartlandia, and his father had slandered the Norling name, doing his part to preserve the city as it should be was Gunnar’s duty.

So far the buried-chest findings had rocked the committee’s sleepy little world. He’d heard how some places rewrote history, but never expected to participate in the process. He lifted his brows and gazed back at his kid sister.

As the resident historical maven and respected professor at the new city college, Elke’s services had been requested. Her job was to help them decipher the journal notations from the ones dug up in the trunk during construction. Apparently, the journals belonged to a captain, a certain Nathaniel Prince, who was also known as The Prince of Doom and who might have been a pirate. Well, probably was a pirate. The notations in the ship captain’s journal held hints at Heartlandia’s real history, but they looked like cat scratches as far as Gunnar was concerned. Good thing Elke knew her stuff when it came to restoring historical documents and deciphering Old English.

Across from Elke sat the quiet Ben Cobawa, respected for his level head and logical thinking, not to mention for being a damn great fireman. The native-born Chinook descendent balanced out the committee which otherwise consisted entirely of Scandinavians. But what could you expect from a town originally settled by Scandinavian fishermen and their families? Or so he’d always been led to believe.

Cobowa’s Native American perspective would be greatly needed on the committee. They’d be dealing with potential changes to town history, and since his people had played such an important role in the creation of this little piece of heaven originally called Hartalanda back in the early 1700s, they wanted his input.

“Shall we call this meeting to order?” Mayor Rask said.

Gunnar took a slow draw on the provided water. Judging by the concerned expression on his younger sister’s face he knew he should be prepared for a long night.

* * *

Lilly sidled up to the bar at Lincoln’s Place. A strapping young towhead bartender took her order. But weren’t most of the men in Heartlandia strapping and fair?

“I’ll have an appletini.” She almost jokingly added “Sven” but worried she might be right.

The pale-eyed, square-jawed man smiled and nodded. “Coming right up.”

She wasn’t above snooping to get her stories, and she wanted to start off with a bang when she handed in her debut news story, like her father would expect. She’d been casing city hall earlier, had hidden behind the nearby bushes, and lo and behold, there was Sergeant Gunnar Norling slipping out the back door. She’d watched him exit the building along with half a dozen other people including this new Mayor Rask.

She’d combed through old council reports on the town website and noticed a tasty morsel—“A new committee has been formed to study recently discovered historical data.” What was that data, and where had it been found?

The website report went on to mention the list of names. The one thing they all had in common with the exception of one Native American, if her research had served her well, were Scandinavian names that went back all the way to the beginning of Heartlandia, back when it was founded and called Hartalanda. Of course, the Native Americans had been there long before them. Yup, her type A reporter persona had even dug into genealogy archive links proudly posted at the same website.

These people weren’t the city council, but they had been handpicked, each person representing a specific slice of Heartlandia life.

She’d met the handsome and dashing Gunnar Norling today, and the idea of “getting to the bottom” of her story through him had definite appeal. Her parents had trained her well: set a goal and go after it. Don’t let anything come between you and success. Growing up an only child in their multimillion-dollar Victorian home in Pacific Heights, Lilly’s parents had proved through hard work and good luck in business their technique worked. As far as her father was concerned, it was bad enough she’d been born a girl, but for the past five years, since she’d left graduate journalism school, they’d looked to her to stake her claim to fame. So far she hadn’t come close to making them proud, but this new venture might just be the ticket to their respect.

A half hour later, nursing her one and only cocktail, she was deep into conversation with the owner of Lincoln’s Place, a middle-aged African-American man named Cliff. It seemed there was more to Heartlandia than met the eye once you scratched the Scandinavian surface.

“Looks like you get a lot of tourist trade around here,” she said, having studied the bar crowd.

“Thank heaven for the cruise ship business,” Cliff said, with a wide and charming smile. “If it wasn’t for them, I’d never have discovered Heartlandia.”

“Are you saying you cruised here or worked on a cruise ship?”

“Worked on one. Thirteen years.”

“Interesting.” Normally, she’d ask more about that assuming there might be a story buried in the statement, but today she had one goal in mind. She took a sip of her drink to wait the right amount of time before changing the topic. “So where do the locals go? You know, say, like the regular guys, firemen and police officers, for example.” She went for coy, yeah, coy like a snake eyeing a mouse, looking straight forward, glancing to the side. “Where do they hang out after hours?”

He lifted a long, dark brow, rather than answering.

“I’ll level with you, Cliff, I’m the new reporter for the Heartlandia Herald. I’d like to bring the focus of the newspaper back to the people. I’ve got a few different angles I’d like to flesh out, and I thought I’d start with talking to the local working Joes.” Funny how she’d chosen “flesh out,” a phrase that had certain appeal where that Gunnar guy was concerned.

He nodded, obviously still considering her story. And it was a tall tale...mostly. She did have big plans to bring the human interest side back to the paper, but first off, she wanted a knock-your-socks-off debut. Introducing big-city journalist Lilly Matsuda, ta-da!

“There’s a microbrewery down by the river and the railroad tracks. To the best of my knowledge, that’s where the manly types go when they want to let off steam.” He tapped a finger on the bar, smiled. “Here’s a tidbit for you. Rumor has it that in the old days, down by the docks in the seedy side of town, right where that bar is today, an occasional sailor got shanghaied.”

“Really.” The tasty morsel sent a chill up her spine. She had a nose for news, and that bit about shanghaied sailors had definitely grabbed her interest. Though it was an underhanded and vile business, many captains had employed the nasty trick. The practice had been an old technique by nefarious sea captains. First they’d get a man sloppy drunk. Then, once he’d passed out, his men would kidnap the sailor onto the ship and the unsuspecting drunk would be far out at sea when he came to and sobered up. Voilá! They had an extra pair of hands on deck with no ticket home, and they didn’t even have to pay him. With Heartlandia being on the banks of the gorgeous Columbia River, a major water route to the Pacific Ocean, the story could definitely be true.

Wait a second, old Cliffy here was probably just playing her, telling her one of the yarns they told tourists to give them some stories to swap when they got back on ship.

“Yes indeed,” Cliff said, touching the tips of his fingers together and tapping. “Of course, a lot of the stories we share with our tourists have—” he pressed his lips together “—for lack of a better word, let’s say been embellished a bit. No city wants to come off as boring when you’re courting the tourist trade, right? So we throw in those old sailor stories to spice things up.”

She appreciated his coming clean about pirates shanghaiing locals. “I hear you. So you’re saying the shanghaied stuff may or may not be true?”

He tilted his head to the side, not a yes or no. She’d let it lie, take that as a yes and try a different angle.

“Hey, have you noticed any after-hour meetings going on at city hall? Or am I imagining things?”

He cast a you-sure-are-a-nosey-one glance. “Could be. Maybe they’re planning some big tercentennial event. I think the town was established around 1715.”

“Tercentennial?”

“Three hundredth birthday.”

“Ah, makes sense. But why would they keep something like that a big secret?”

“Don’t have a clue, Ms....” He had the look of a man who’d had enough of her nonstop questions—a look she’d often seen on her father’s face when she was a child. Cliff suddenly had other patrons to tend to. Yeah, she knew she occasionally pushed too far. Thanks, Mom and Dad.

“Matsuda. I’m Lilly Matsuda.”

He shook her hand. “Well, it was a pleasure meeting you. I hope to see you around my establishment often, and I think you’ve got what it takes to make a good reporter. Good luck.”

“Thanks. Nice to meet you, too.”

After Cliff moseyed off, attending to a large table obviously filled with cruise-ship guests on the prowl, she scribbled down: “Microbrewery down by the river near railroad.” She’d look it up later.

She’d been a reporter for eight years, since she was twenty-two and fresh out of college, and had continued part-time while attending grad school. Had worked her way up to her own weekly local scene column in the San Francisco Gazette, but could never make it past the velvet ceiling. She wanted to be the old-school-style reporter following leads, fingers on the pulse of the city, always seeking the unusual stories, and realized she’d never achieve her goal back home, much to her parents’ chagrin.

When the chance to work in Oregon came up, after doing her research and seeing a potential buyout opportunity, she’d grabbed it. Statistics showed that something happened to women around the ages of twenty-eight to thirty. They often reevaluated their lives and made major changes. Some decided to get married, others to have a baby, neither of which appealed to her, and right now, since she was all about change, moving to a small town and buying her own paper had definite appeal.

Lilly finished her drink and prepared for the short walk—no jaywalking, thank you very much, Sergeant Norling—back to her hotel.

Once she bought out Bjork, she could finally develop a reputation as the kind of reporter she’d always dreamed of becoming—the kind that sniffed out stories and made breaking headlines. If all went the way she planned, maybe her dad would smile for once when he told people she was a journalist and not a famous thoracic surgeon like he’d always wanted her to become.

Her gut told her to stick with those discreet meetings going on at city hall, and to seek out a certain fine-looking police officer partaking in them. He may have almost written her a citation, but he might also be her ticket to journalistic stardom.

Tomorrow was Friday night, and she planned to be dressed down and ready for action at that microbrewery. If she got lucky and played things right, she might get the decidedly zip-lipped Gunnar Norling, with those amazingly cut arms and tight buns, to spill the proverbial beans to the town’s newest reporter.