The hope turned to promise. To fierce yearning. Holding his gaze, she turned her head to press a kiss to his palm. “Oh, I care, Bruce.”
“You make me want to risk loving someone. And opening myself up to the risk of losing everything again.”
Her eyes misted. She slid her hands to his chest and felt the beat of his heart, and remembered the scar on his back. “Our past helped to make us what we are. Knowing that happiness can be taken away doesn’t mean we shouldn’t grasp it. It means we should treasure it.”
“I don’t want to let this chance slip away, Emma. I don’t want to say goodbye again.”
“Would it scare you if I told you I loved you?”
Tipping back his head, he heaved a sudden, unsteady breath. “Oh, Emma.” When he looked at her once more, his expression was intense, strained, a poignant mixture of longing and hope. “It would terrify me if you said you didn’t.”
Her fingers tightened on his shirt as she lifted her face. “I love you, Bruce. Whatever you do, whatever you look like, wherever you go, I'm still going to love you. I thought I had known what love was, but what I feel for you is so deep, and so rich, and so necessary...I couldn’t stop it, even if I tried.”
A tremor went through him. With a muffled groan, he brought his mouth to hers in a kiss that unleashed old dreams and desires and made them possible, a kiss that revealed new visions and made them real.
Joy blossomed inside her and she stood on tiptoe, clasping her arms around his neck, molding herself against him as the jacket he had draped around her shoulders slid to the floor. He lifted her, and she clung to him, reveling in the power of the bond that had been there from the start. How had she known? Throughout it all, how had her heart recognized him as the man she was meant to love?
The words were there, in his lips, his hands, his body. She hadn’t realized she was hearing them until she felt his breath on her ear. “I love you, Emma.” He kissed her cheek, her nose, her eyelids, letting her slide down his body until she stood on the floor. A smile of aching sweetness curved his mouth. “I love every reckless, stubborn, hot-tempered passionate inch of you. And I love the compassion you had for a shy man, and the defiance you had for a bold man. And all the other aspects of you that will take a lifetime to learn.”
“Lifetime?”
He caught her hands and laced her fingers with his. “Starting tonight. When I take you home, I want to stay, Emma. Share those sunsets, and sunrises and everything in between.”
She hesitated. “Would you be happy at the cabin?”
“As long as you're there.”
“We're going to need more bookshelves.”
He grinned. “Once I clean out my apartment, we might need an extra room.”
“I love the way you look at me over your reading glasses.”
“And I love the color of your hair in the firelight. We'll have lots of fires.” He dipped his head and captured her mouth once more, his lips and tongue promising a different kind of heat. He moved their joined hands between them, rubbing his knuckles over her breasts.
Emma swayed, her world spinning as a tremor of need surged through her, so powerful it made her gasp.
He pulled back and looked at her, his eyes gleaming. Man to woman, hunter to hunted, love that was beyond the power of words. His hand moved again. And he smiled.
“Bruce?” She barely recognized the trembling, husky voice as hers. But she recognized the jungle cat sensuality in his smile. Her pulse pounded, her breath caught. “Bruce!”
He swept up her bow, her quiver, and his jacket in one smooth movement, then looped a firm arm around her waist and steered her toward the terrace doors. “I love you, Emma, but I have a sudden, overwhelming urge to continue this discussion somewhere more...private.”
So did she. Oh, so did she. “It’s a long way to the cabin.”
“Then it’s lucky you stole a car with a siren, sweet thing.”
Epilogue
T
he mist was thick this morning, hiding the golds and reds that had begun to appear among the somber pines on the far shore of the lake. Frost glittered from the yellowed patches of grass on the hillside, a powdery breath of the season to come. Pulling her robe more tightly around her, Emma moved closer to the window.
“Is it still there?”
She smiled. “Oh, yes. It’s there.”
Glinting in the slanting sunlight, the white Cessna rocked gently at the end of the dock. The paperwork had taken almost two months to go through. The plane was a newer model than the one she had lost, and she hadn’t had the chance to learn its capabilities or its personality quirks yet, but it was everything she could have wanted. Wanted, not needed. From the first moment she had slid into the pilot’s seat and taken the controls, she had realized that more than the plane had changed. Once it had been her way to escape. But now...
Bruce stepped behind her and crossed his arms over hers, enveloping her in warmth. “Are you taking it up today?”
Her smile softened as she relaxed into his embrace. There was nothing in her life that she wanted to escape. “Maybe later, after you get home.”
He lowered his head, propping his chin on her shoulder. “I could always stay here with you and play hooky.”
“On your first day at your new job? What kind of example would that set?”
“I don’t care. My wife is very wealthy, you know.” His hand felt around until it slipped into the opening of her robe. “What do you say? Want to go flying?”
“Mmm. I've got a conference call scheduled for 9:00... Ah.” Tingles chased across her skin. “That feels so good.”
He nosed aside her collar to nuzzle her neck. “I don’t mean the kind of flying you do in your new Cessna.”
“I know.” She turned in his arms, linking her hands behind his head as she planted a lazy, lingering kiss on his mouth. “You're insatiable.”
“Nope. Just crazy about you.”
She smoothed a curl off his forehead, then ran her fingers through his hair. The sun-bleached streaks were growing out, leaving rich, burnished gold. His tan had faded, but the blue of his eyes was somehow more brilliant. Perhaps it was the love that shone so clearly each time he looked at her. “I'm crazy about you, too.”
“Despite what I'm wearing?”
There was a trace of uneasiness beneath the surface of his teasing. Emma straightened his tie and studied him carefully, knowing her answer was important to him. “Actually, you look sexy as hell in that outfit. How long is your lunch break?”
He burst into laughter and gave her a hug that made her consider disconnecting the phone. “You really don’t mind my new job?”
“No, Bruce. I don’t. When I said for better or worse, I meant it.”
“Is this the 'worse' part?”
She lifted up to rub her nose against his. “No, it is most definitely not the 'worse' part. Every day, when I wake up beside you and know I'll be back in your arms that night, it just keeps getting better.”
“It does, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, it does.” With one last kiss, she slipped out of his embrace. “But for now, my insatiable husband, we both have work to do.”
Sighing noisily, he picked up his coat from the back of a chair and let her walk him to the door. “Well, what else have you got planned for the day, besides that ridiculously early conference call?”
“I thought I’d call Hugh.”
“The Hugh from the gas station Hugh?”
“The very one. I'm going to ask him to recommend a contractor to put on that extra room we were talking about.”
“I certainly don’t have any complaints about the pilot he recommended last summer. But why start the room now? Can’t stand tripping over my books anymore?”
She tightened the belt of her robe, fidgeting with the ends for a moment. “How would you feel about having another person live at our cabin next spring?”
He paused, his coat hanging from one arm. “You don’t mean Simon, do you? I'm not sure he’d be comfortable around me, but if it’s what you want—”
“No, not Simon. He told me that Xavier’s arranging a job in Chicago for him when he gets out. It’s with an ex-con who owns his own business and evidently is as tough as he is fair.”
“I hope he can straighten himself out.”
“So do I. But he already knows that it’s up to him.”
He finished putting on his coat and reached for her hands. “Would you rather have your brother here?”
“Not really. I think it would be best for him if he had a chance to establish his independence.”
“I'm sure he will...” His gaze sharpened. “Who’s the room for, if it’s not Simon?”
She stepped closer, reached for his hand and placed it over her stomach. She had meant to tell him last night, but they’d watched the sunset, then sat in front of the fire, and the words had gotten lost in the loving. And there was so much loving.
“Emma?”
“I love you, Bruce. Have I told you that yet today?”
“If you count body language, you shouted it clearly about an hour ago.”
“Well, I do love you. And I love our child.”
Understanding spread over his face. His fingers splayed. “Our child?”
She nodded, her smile watery.
With a whoop that echoed from the cabin’s rafters, he scooped her into his arms and whirled around. “Oh, Emma! When?”
“Next May.”
“May!” He rained smacking kisses on her nose, her forehead, the corners of her eyes, wherever he could reach. “A new life, another beginning. It really does keep getting better, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, it does.”
He whirled around again until she buried her face against his neck. “May. That’s only seven months away. We have to make plans. Maybe we should get a place in town...” He paused, his eyebrows lifting. “May?”
“Yes.”
“But...”
She tipped her head back and smiled. “The due date the doctor gave me works out to exactly nine months after my last Cessna blew up.”
“But you told me it was the wrong time of the month. I remember.”
Her eyes gleamed. “I lied.”
“You lied?”
“It was a reflex action, considering the circumstances.” Her smile grew. “Do you mind?”
He backed up until he could collapse onto the couch with her on his lap. “Mind?” He yanked off his coat and tossed it to the floor. “My wife presents me with the ultimate gift of love and she asks me if I mind? Emma!” He ran his hands over her body. His long, strong fingers trembled. “I treasure you, and the happiness you've brought into my life. I'm going to cherish our child—” His voice broke. His palm settled over the place where their new life grew and he kissed her with all the passion that their love had taught him to grasp.
And on his first day at the job, the new sheriff of Bethel Corners was late for work.
* * * * *
ISBN: 978-1-4592-8734-1
True Lies
Copyright © 1995 by Ingrid Caris
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