The cries got louder.
Hayley blew out a breath. “Okay, okay…I’m coming…”
“I’ll go with you.”
She sat up and raked her hair back off her face. “I can do it.” She slid away from him and rose to her feet beside the bed. “Go get your coffee.” The door to the small master bath was only a few steps away. She went in there and shut the door.
A minute later, when she emerged, he was still stretched out on the bed, gloriously naked, those gorgeous muscular arms of his laced behind his head—and Jenny was still crying. “I want to go with you.”
“Well, all right, then. Come on.” She darted a glance around the room. “Where’s my robe—and my slippers?”
“The kitchen, I believe.”
She scooped up her nightshirt and pulled it on as Marcus got up, grabbed his jeans and took a quick turn in the bathroom. She went ahead to Jenny’s room.
“Okay, okay. I’m here. Settle down.”
Marcus appeared in the doorway. “That girl has a set of lungs on her.”
“She’s hungry.” Hayley scooped up the squalling baby and started unbuttoning as she sat in the rocker. She put Jenny to her breast. Blessed silence descended. Hayley grinned up at Marcus, who stood by the crib. “Nothing so sweet as the sound of a baby not crying.”
“I don’t mind the crying.”
“You’ve always been more patient than I am.”
His eyes were moss-green right then. He approached. She tipped her face up to him as he touched her hair. “No. I don’t think so. There’s no one as patient as you.”
The words seemed weighted with special meaning. She turned her face into his touch, so she could press her lips into the center of his palm.
He smiled at the kiss and then brushed the backs of his knuckles across her cheek. “I’ve missed you. Missed you so damn much.” He curved his hand, so lightly, on Jenny’s mostly bald head. “And her.”
Hayley’s throat clutched. She gulped to relax it. “I missed you, too.”
“I should have come for you sooner, worked out all my old garbage sooner. I know it.”
Her baby drew on her breast, the sensation, once so painful, brought only a glow of contentment now. “I was waiting,” she said. “But I really didn’t know what for. Somehow, I didn’t expect you to come….”
“God. I hope you’re glad that I did.”
She nodded. “I am, Marcus. So very glad.”
He was quiet. He seemed not to know what to say next.
She could relate to that. And it was okay with her. Sometimes it was hard to find the right words….
“I think I’ll go get that coffee,” he said.
“Good idea.”
He left her.
Jenny finished at one breast and Hayley settled her at the other. Marcus came back. He stood over by the bureau, sipping from the red mug he’d claimed as his own back at Christmastime. When Jenny was through eating, Hayley rocked her until she needed changing.
“Let me…” Marcus set his mug on the bureau.
So Hayley handed Jenny over and left him to do diaper duty. She returned to her bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed.
Eventually, he came in and sat beside her. “She’s asleep. Looking like an angel…”
Hayley nodded. “Yeah. No doubt about it. They’re adorable when they’re sleeping.” She sent him a smile.
But he didn’t see it. He was looking straight ahead, at the open door to the hallway. “I keep thinking I’m going to figure out how to say this….”
She didn’t know what to tell him, how to encourage him. Since no words came, she put her hand on his knee and gave a reassuring squeeze.
He put his hand over hers. It felt so good. Cherishing. Right. He said, “I was furious, when you accused me of lying to you.”
“Oh, yeah. I remember.”
“You hit a nerve. Because I did lie. In more ways than just by not telling you that Adriana was after me again.”
Hayley gulped and silently reminded herself, yet again, that she had to let him say this in his own way and in his own time. The urge was so powerful, to cut in, to start protesting that she didn’t need to hear it, that it was all right. That he was here and she was glad he’d come for her and that was enough.
But it wasn’t enough. She did need to hear it. Whatever it was. However much it hurt. She needed to hear—and he had to say it.
The truth was important. The truth, or rather, the lack of it, was the reason they’d just spent all these weeks apart. They’d come so far. No way could she let herself deny the truth now.
He said, “About two weeks ago, she started calling me again. I refused to take her calls. I erased her messages without even listening to them. Except for the first one, the one where she said that she knew you had left me and she couldn’t wait for me to come to my senses so that she and I could pick up where we’d left off….”
Hayley had been staring at the door to the hallway. When his voice trailed off, she turned her head and met his waiting eyes.
“You okay?” He gave her hand a squeeze.
She blew out a breath. “I keep telling myself not to hate her. But I do. She betrayed you, left you flat, broke your heart so bad. Walked away without so much as a backward glance. She divorced you because she wanted to marry someone else…and now she waltzes back on the scene and can’t understand what’s wrong with you that you aren’t waiting for her with open arms.”
His mouth kicked up at one corner. “Yeah. Well. It never occurs to Adriana that things won’t go her way. She wants what she wants when she wants it. And if she doesn’t get what she wants, as a rule, there’s hell to pay.”
“Sheesh. Tell me about it.”
“I’m trying to.”
They both laughed then.
Hayley said, “Sorry. Continue. Please.”
After a moment’s thought, he did. “Last night, she came to the house. I took one look at her and I knew. I understood.”
Hayley’s heart started thumping as if it would beat its way out of her chest. She sucked in a slow breath. She waited for the worst.
He said, “I realized the truth. At last.”
“Oh, God,” she heard herself whisper on an indrawn breath.
And then he said, “I realized that I love you, Hayley. I’ve loved you for a damn long time. Since before you walked away from me last spring.”
Her heart had stopped, just froze in midbeat. There was a rushing in her ears and her cheeks burned like hell’s own fury. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”
He lifted her hand and he kissed it. “Damn it. I love you. Have loved you. You came into my life and you were—you are—like sunshine. Something bright and clean and sweet and good.”
She swayed toward him. “Marcus?”
“Yeah?”
“Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you just say so?”
He let go of her hand—but only to wrap his arm around her shoulder and draw her close against his side. “I thought I just explained that.” Their lips were inches apart. She felt his breath, warm, scented of coffee, saw that shining rim of blue around the green of his eyes.
“I know you did,” she whispered. “Tell me again.”
“Because I’m too damn proud. Because I couldn’t let myself admit how wrong I’d been, to think that what I’d had with Adriana was love. I didn’t know squat about love. Didn’t know what the real thing could be. Until you.”
She rested a hand on his warm chest, felt the strong, even beat of his heart beneath her palm. “Oh, see. Now, I am really liking the sound of this.”
He stole a quick, sweet kiss. “I had a feeling you might.”
“So…as soon as you saw Adriana again, that’s when you knew that you loved me?”
“That’s right.”
“Life is so strange sometimes.”
“It damn sure is.”
“You probably should have agreed to see her sooner. It would have saved us both a whole lot of
misery.”
“Yeah. If I’d only known.”
“Oh, Marcus. I love you, too.”
He curled a finger under her chin. “I know you do. And I love to hear you say it.”
“I’ll never stop saying it.”
“Good. It’s a fine thing for a man to hear—when the right woman says it.”
“I love you, love you, love you, love you.” She clasped his shoulder and brought her mouth right up to his. “Now’s the moment you should kiss me.”
“My pleasure.”
He claimed her lips. She sighed and opened. It was a perfect kiss. Slow and deep and wet, full of heat and tenderness. A kiss that promised a lifetime of joy. And truth. And mutual trust.
When he lifted his mouth from hers, she let out a happy sigh. They dropped back across the bed in unison, and turned their heads to grin at each other.
He said, “So I’m hoping this means you’ll come home with me now.”
“Oh, yes. Absolutely. We love each other. And we’re a family, you and Jenny and me. Of course I’ll come home with you. Now I know you’re mine, that you’re with me and you’ve got no doubts, I can handle anything. Even that ex of yours, if I have to.”
“I don’t think Adriana will be bothering us anymore.”
“Well, we can hope,” she teased.
“Seriously. After last night, I don’t think she’ll be coming around. I think she finally got the message—and yeah, I know. With her, you can never be absolutely sure. But I know she heard me loud and clear when I told her that I love you. I asked her not to bother us anymore.”
“And…?”
“She said she would leave us alone.”
“Wow.”
They grinned at each other, both of them more than satisfied.
She scooted closer. “I don’t think I’ve ever been happier.”
“Good.”
“Also, my feet are freezing.”
“Then let’s get under the covers.”
He took off his jeans and she got rid of her nightshirt and they snuggled up under the blankets together. He gathered her close. She tucked herself against him, her hand curled near his heart, her head beneath his chin.
She closed her eyes. She had it all. Everything she’d ever wished for, during all the Christmases of her lonely childhood. She had a family—a sister and a brother, a sweet little niece and a whole bunch of Bravo relatives all over the country.
She had Marcus and Jenny. She belonged to them and they belonged to her.
“Dreams do come true,” she whispered drowsily.
He made a low noise of agreement and she felt his lips brush the crown of her head.
Home in her husband’s loving arms at last, Hayley sighed in contentment and drifted off into a deep and peaceful sleep.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-0979-8
A BRAVO CHRISTMAS REUNION
Copyright © 2007 by Christine Reynolds
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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A Bravo Christmas Reunion Page 16