Chapter Nineteen
L
ate-afternoon sun was pushing past the drapes when the doorbell rang. Cassie could have groaned in annoyance.
“Do you want me to get it, Mama?” DJ. called out.
It would be another neighbor, requiring another explanation. Much as she wanted to run and hide, it wasn’t a job to foist on her children. “No, I’ll get it.”
Pulling open the door, she prepared herself by breathing deeply. But then she forgot to exhale.
Blake and his sons were lined up solemnly across the width of her porch. Unable to do anything other than stare, she felt her heart shattering into a thousand bits at the longing in Blake’s eyes. His voice was like music in a deep silence, and it took her a moment to understand the words.
“We’ve come calling, ma’am.” Blake pointed to his boys. “To ask your hand in marriage. We’re a package deal, you see. If you take one, you take all of us.”
“But...” she stumbled over her words—along with her heart, which had become irretrievably lodged in her throat. “I don’t...”
“You can’t say no,” Mark announced.
“Please
don’t say no,” Todd amended.
“Say yes,” Kevin said encouragingly, for once looking like the young teenager he was. “We...we need you.”
“Please come home,” the twins begged.
Turning uncertain eyes on Blake, she fought for courage and the truth. “You don’t understand. I have something to tell your dad...that...”
“If it’s about the good old days, I’ve already heard enough. Spent some time discussing it with one of your friends from high school days. He didn’t have anything to say worth listening to. Nothing that makes any difference to me.” There was a fierce light in his eyes, and she was suddenly reminded of a warrior protecting his lady. “By the way, Tommy Brewster won’t ever be bothering you again.”
Cassie’s lips trembled, and she knew that tears sparked her lashes.
“I love you, Cassie Hawkins, and I won’t take no for an answer.”
Somewhere Cassie registered that her children had crowded behind her to hear Blake’s proposal. As he pulled her into his arms, whoops and hoots of glee filled the quiet Texas sky. Cassie glanced down once more at Blake’s boys, sons of her heart, and knew her life wouldn’t have been complete without them, either.
While their children celebrated, Cassie felt the noise recede as Blake slid an engagement ring over her finger. “I’d planned to do this on the Champs Élysées, but somehow it’s even more fitting here, where I met you.” His grip on her hand increased. “I love you, Cassie. I didn’t know it then. But I know it now, and I’m never letting you go.”
“I’ll hold you to that.” Tears of joy escaped, to slide down her cheeks. “I don’t deserve you, Blake.”
“You deserve the world, Cassie and I’m going to give it to you, one city at a time.”
“What about all our little dependents?” she managed, past the knot of emotion choking her.
“They’ll be the best-traveled kids in the world—starting with London.”
“Not Paris?”
He smiled then, tucking her against his side, now and forever. “Afraid not. Paris is reserved for honeymoons. And I love ’em all, but they’re not going on our honeymoon.”
“Our honeymoon?” she echoed.
“Where else but Paris? The Eiffel Tower, the Left Bank...”
“And the Champs Élysées,” she filled in softly.
“After Paris, we can meet the kids in London for more traveling.” He gestured at the tree-shaded porch around them. “And we’ll want to keep this house to escape to in the summers when we don’t feel like trotting around the world. Especially if your mother won’t move out to L.A.” His voice gentled, thickened. “You need to hang on to this part of your roots. It’s where we started our memories, too.”
“It sounds like a dream,” she breathed, unable to believe it was real, unable to believe he’d dispelled her nightmare forever.
“But I need you to make it come true. I want us to soar together.” He spread his arms out to include the children. “All of us. Don’t ever run away again, Cassie. Together, we have the world.”
“Having you is all I need,” she confessed. “And all I want. Are you sure this isn’t a dream?”
He laughed then, holding her at arm’s length as he pulled them into a spin. “We have plenty of volunteers to pinch you and see if it’s a dream.”
She fell into his impromptu dance, knowing he would always carry her to unknown heights. “I love you, Blake Matthews.”
He answered with a grin, whirling her in the circle of their happy children. Leaning forward, he sealed the words with a kiss, their embrace as enduring as the love they shared, their future as bright as the sun-drenched skies above.
ISBN : 978-1-4592-6066-5
HIS-AND-HERS FAMILY
Copyright © 1998 by Bonnie K Winn.
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