by Jamie Denton
“No,” she said. “There’s no one else.”
He didn’t think so, but it sure made him feel a whole lot better hearing her say it.
He circled the table and crouched in front of her, taking both of her hands in his. “Then what’s stopping you from saying yes, you’ll stay? Dammit, you need me…Amanda.”
The name felt foreign to him. To him, she was Maggie.
Her eyes filled with a tenderness so touching, his heart ricocheted in his chest, then beat a heavy, slow rhythm.
“Three little words, Cale. Just three of them.”
Her meaning registered. “Oh. Those.”
“Hmm. Yes.” A teasing light brightened her gaze. “Those.”
“Don’t you know, sweetheart? Don’t you know I’d move heaven and earth for you?”
Her smiled softened. When she looked at him, he didn’t doubt for a minute she loved him.
“Of course I know,” she said gently. “A girl just likes to hear them.”
The words she longed to hear lodged in his throat. He could do this, he thought. He had to, since she wasn’t giving him much choice in the matter. “You’re not going to make this easy, are you?”
She answered by lacing the fingers of her good hand with his in a silent offer of encouragement.
“My dad loved my mom,” he started slowly. “He loved her so much that when she died, he stopped living. He tried at first, but we knew he was faking it and after a while, he gave up completely.
“There’s another reason I was late tonight,” he continued. “A call came in that Brady and I took. It was one of our frequent flyers, a regular. She’s dying of lung cancer and there isn’t anything I can do to save her.”
Compassion lined her features. “I’m so sorry.”
“It wasn’t that I couldn’t help her,” he explained. “We could’ve taken her to the E.R., and they might have been able to take whatever measures necessary to keep her alive. But she and her husband wouldn’t let us. He said the greatest gift of love he could give his wife was to let her find peace.
“I don’t want to end up like my old man did when my mom died, giving up the way he did. On himself and us kids.”
She reached for him and traced her fingers lightly along his jaw. Determination and love shone in her eyes as she leveled her gaze on him. “You said I need you. Why, Cale? Why do I need you?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
He swallowed, hard, and stared at her. He cleared his throat, not once, but twice. “You need me to love you…for the rest of your life.”
Her smile wavered slightly. “And?”
He drew a deep cleansing breath into his lungs, not because he needed courage, but because he wanted to guarantee his next words were spoken loud and clear.
“I love you,” he said confidently. “I love you, Amanda Hayes. Stay and let me show you just how much I do love you.”
Her eyes filled with unshed tears, but the smile curving her luscious mouth chased away any lingering fear that might have remained in his heart. “Yes,” she whispered.
“Yes? Yes, you’ll stay?”
Her head bobbed up and down, then she wrapped her arms around his neck and plastered her body against his.
After a moment, she pulled back to look into his eyes. “I love you, Cale. And yes, I do need you to love me. In fact, I’m counting on it.”
Love filled his heart and spread deep into his soul. He loved this woman with every ounce of heart, his body, his soul. This crazy, lovable, woman who’d come crashing into his life and turned it upside down with her own special brand of love. A love he didn’t doubt for a second was healthy, and real. A love he’d never been able to imagine for himself…until now. Until Amanda.
Epilogue
Three months later
AMANDA ADORED Sunday mornings when Cale was off duty. Who wouldn’t be crazy about beginning the day with fresh croissants, plump red strawberries and gourmet coffee in bed, while sharing the Sunday paper with the man of her dreams? No Sunday morning would be complete if they didn’t make love, either. A sexy, pleasurable bonus, in her opinion.
She put her half-empty mug on the bedside table, then readjusted the pillows behind her for the third time. She tested the padding, finally rid of the odd lump that had been pressing into her back.
“Amanda?”
“Hmm?” She rifled through the newspaper stacked between them for the entertainment section, since Cale had beat her to the crossword puzzle this morning.
“What’s a four-letter word for determined?”
She looked at him, but his attention was on the puzzle. “Grit,” she offered. Since when did he need her help with a crossword? He usually leaned over her and spouted half the answers before she had a chance to fill in the squares herself.
“Nope. Ends with an L.”
She thought for a moment. “Will?”
He nodded absently, but she caught the hint of a grin teasing the curve of his mouth.
Relocating to California had been a lot less complicated than she’d imagined. Rather than selling her Manhattan loft, she’d decided to keep it as an investment and rent it out with the assistance of a property management company. Her father and stepmother hadn’t been thrilled with her moving across the country, but she’d held her ground as she always did when something was important to her. Once her parents had met Cale and realized how incredibly happy he made her, they accepted her decision.
Bored with the Hollywood happenings, she tossed the entertainment news aside for the home and garden section. Decorating and gardening had become two of her new favorite pastimes recently. There was something incredibly seductive about having a man shoveling dirt beneath the warm sunshine. When he’d shed his T-shirt, she was powerless to keep her hands off all that rippling muscle and sweat-moistened skin. Even with her imagination, she never dreamed making love in a garage could be so erotic.
She let out a little contented sigh at the recent memory, then reached beneath the sheet with her foot and smoothed her toes along Cale’s bare thigh. A much more interesting prospect than the latest in dry-brush techniques she’d been reading up on.
“You should know this one.” He sounded bored, as if the muscle in his leg hadn’t flinched from her touch. “James Bond flick. Blank Only Live Twice.”
“You.” She shoved the newspapers onto the floor and scooted closer to Cale. “As in I want to do you,” she added huskily. “Now.”
Instead of tossing the puzzle aside to take her up on her offer, he surprised her by burying his nose even deeper in the paper. If it hadn’t been for his sharp intake of breath when she pressed her lips to his abdomen, she would have thought he’d become immune to her.
“Now here’s a hard one.” His voice was strained and she smiled. Cale? Immune? Never.
Reaching beneath the sheet, she took him in her hand. “Yes,” she whispered, then traced the outline of his navel with her tongue. “Very.”
A groan erupted from deep in his chest. “Hitched? Is there a five-letter word for that?”
He sounded so pained, she looked up and frowned at him. “How about a six-letter word for sex?”
She tried to snag the paper from him, but he quickly moved it out of her reach. “Amanda, I’m serious.”
She knew him well enough by now to understand he was determined about something. Well, she might cooperate, but no way would she play fair.
Rising to her knees, she straddled his hips so the moist lace of her panties was wedged tightly against his erection. He eased out a hiss of breath through gritted teeth when she rocked slowly against him. “So was I,” she said with meaning. “Hitched, huh?”
He nodded.
She wiggled her bottom against his thighs and almost groaned herself when the lace rasped against her sensitized skin. “Any letters?”
“M,” he managed hoarsely. “First letter.”
“Marry.” She smoothed her hands along his rib cage to his back, leaning forward to intentionally brush
her breasts against his chest. “Too easy,” she told him. “How about a real challenge?”
He tossed the puzzle and his pen aside, then ran his hands down her back to cup her bottom and urge her closer. “If it was that easy, you would’ve figured it out by now.”
Curious, she tipped her head back, and her breath caught at the tenderness in his eyes. “Figured what out?”
He placed a quick hard kiss on her lips. “Think about it.”
That sexy smile of his distracted her. “What is there to think about?” she said after a moment. “You’ve been playing stupid about simple crossword clues any twelve-year-old would’ve known.”
He chuckled and held her tighter. “And the answers were…?”
“Will. You.” Her eyes widened and her pulse rate took off like a shot. “Marry.”
He loosened his hold to lift the edge of her pillow, revealing a small, deep-blue velvet box tucked beneath. “I thought for sure you’d find it when you fluffed your pillows,” he said, plucking the box from the mattress. “But when you didn’t, I had to think fast.”
Slowly, he opened the box. Nestled inside the velvet sat a princess-cut diamond flanked by a pair of triangular-shaped opals in a platinum setting. He slipped the ring from the box and lifted her left hand. “I love you, Amanda. Will you marry me?”
Her heart filled to overflowing. “Yes,” she told him without an ounce of hesitation. “I will.”
The ring fitted perfectly. Just as perfectly as she and Cale fitted into each other’s lives, she realized. He captured her lips in a thorough, bone-melting kiss, leaving her with no doubt exactly where they were headed—straight to paradise.
ISBN: 978-1-4603-7192-3
SLOW BURN
Copyright © 2003 by Jamie Ann Denton.
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