His Baby Surprise
Page 17
Knowing she’d been hurt, he pushed aside his own pain at her doubts. “No. I convinced the Cooks to let me adopt Faith because I love her.”
In the end, that was all the convincing Debbie’s mother had needed—that and an assurance that she would be part of the baby’s life, too. If Priscilla had flat-out turned down his proposal, he wouldn’t be raising his baby girl alone. He had more than an extended family to help him; he had the whole damn town of Trout Creek.
“I never mentioned you,” he continued. “I had no idea if you would accept my proposal or not. If you still feel this way about me, that I can’t be trusted—that I’m a user—why did you accept?”
She lifted her slender shoulders in a brief shrug, and her eyes glistened with tears. “I love you, Brooks.”
He bit his bottom lip so that he wouldn’t automatically say the words back. And he fisted his hands in his pockets so that he wouldn’t grab her. Instead he reminded them both, “But you don’t trust me.”
“It’s not you I don’t trust.”
“Are you sure you don’t think I’m still that idiot I was back in high school? Or the playboy hothead before I took that last fall on the ice?”
“No, I know you’re a good man.”
“Then why don’t you trust that I want you?” he asked, his frustration building.
“I don’t trust happiness,” she explained. “I thought I had it before, only to have it all fall apart. I just need to be sure that you’re marrying me for me, not because there’s a baby involved.”
“I love you, Priscilla,” he said, finally pulling his hands from his pockets. He stepped closer to her. “Sure, I know that you’ll be the best mother that little girl could have, but I’m not marrying you for her. I’m marrying you for me—because you make me happy.”
She gasped again, that little betrayal of her doubt. “I do?”
His hands trembling, he cupped her face. His voice shook with everything he felt for her as he told her, “You are the most incredible woman I’ve ever met. You’re sexy and smart and compassionate—and passionate. You’re more than I deserve—”
“No, Brooks—”
He stemmed her protest with a finger on her silky lips. “But because I know that, you make me try harder, so that someday I might deserve you.”
Her lips moved against his fingers as she breathed his name again.
“You make me better than I ever thought I could be,” he added.
“I don’t deserve you,” she murmured. Then she rose up on her toes and pressed her mouth to his.
He tasted her tears and felt a rush of guilt that he’d made her cry. But when he opened his eyes to look at her, he had never seen anyone as happy as she was. She glowed with joy and love and trust.
“No,” he agreed. “You deserve so much more. But I’ll get that for you. I’ll get you whatever you want.” He should have waited to propose until he’d bought her a ring. “I’ll get you a diamond,” he promised. “And a house.”
She shook her head. “I already have everything I want. You.”
“And Faith?”
“Of course I want Faith,” she assured him. “Every time I picked her up, I felt like she was mine. I felt like we all belonged together.”
“Here in Trout Creek,” he said.
“You’re sure?” she asked again. “You hated living here when we were growing up. You felt suffocated.”
That pressure was off his chest now. “I’m certain. So certain that I already bought the Icehouse.”
“You’re taking on an awful lot of responsibility, Mr. Hoover,” she cautioned.
He breathed deeply and easily. “I can handle it. With you as my wife, I can handle anything.”
ISBN: 978-1-4268-5249-7
HIS BABY SURPRISE
Copyright © 2010 by Lisa Childs-Theeuwes.
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