“You threw me for a loop, Emily Fortune. From that very first afternoon you looked at me in Tanner’s office. And even though I’d told myself you never would, you recognized me from the day of the tornado. From then, right up until the morning you stood in my apartment, crying in front of me because you were devastated that you weren’t pregnant, you’ve kept me off balance. One minute you’re a corner-office advertising whiz and the next you’re a girl who cartwheels in the grass—”
“Badly,” she inserted on the sad half laugh that bubbled out of her.
“—who blushes when I tell her she’s beautiful, but can seduce me with nothing more than a look. Whether it’s been my own doing or not, nothing much has come easy in my life. But it was easy falling in love with you.”
She went still. Her gaze latched on to his.
He was shaking his head, even as he took another slow step toward her. “You’re a Fortune. You’re rich. Educated. Way more than I deserve.”
“You’re the one who deserves everything,” she whispered. “I’m the one who—”
“Had a plan.”
She pressed her lips together, gathering what shreds of composure she could. “I’m thirty years old, Max. Who gets to be thirty years old before they fall in love for the first time in her life? After the tornado, I knew I couldn’t wait around any longer. If I was going to have someone of my own—a child of my own—I had to take action.” She gulped down a harsh breath. “If I’d only come to Tanner’s office and met you earlier. Realized that the perfect match for me that I’d never believed existed…did—” She broke off. Shook her head.
He’d stopped in front of her. Close enough to touch. But not touching. “You shouldn’t have to give up your dream of becoming a mother for anyone, Emily. Not even me.”
She sucked down the pain. “Don’t,” she whispered. “I know everything ended that day at your apartment. We don’t need to do it again.”
“I sure as hell hope not,” he agreed roughly and grabbed her wrists, pulling her hands out of her pockets.
The daisy bracelet he’d given her dangled from her clenched fingers.
Max saw and exhaled a long, shuddering breath. He slowly worked it out of her clutch, even though she held on tightly, as if she were afraid to let go. “This I what I can give you,” he said, holding the bracelet in front of her. “If there are diamonds, they’re a long way off. And if admitting Anthony wasn’t mine was hard, facing a future without you in it is a million times worse.” He lifted her hand and dropped the bracelet in her palm. The little white daisy glinted before it disappeared beneath her fingers that he folded over it. Then he wrapped his hand around hers and looked into her eyes—her lovely peridot eyes that were shimmering with tears as she stared up at him.
“I don’t know anymore how to feel about having kids, but I do know that I love you, Emily. And maybe, if we just give this a chance—this thing between us—I’ll be able to figure it out along the way, because I can’t stand knowing you don’t have everything you want. So if it comes to a choice between having you, and all of your plans, whatever they are, or not having you at all—” his voice went hoarse “—the past few weeks of hell has shown me there’s no choice at all.”
Her forehead crumpled. “But I lied to you. How can you ever trust—”
He slid his hand through her silky hair, tilting back her head and she went abruptly silent, lips parted. “You didn’t tell me everything,” he said huskily. “And it hurt like hell. But things were moving fast. Full disclosure was probably more than either one of us could expect.”
“Now you’re just excusing it.”
“I didn’t tell you I fell in love with you that day we went flying.” He watched her pupils dilate at the admission. “Didn’t tell you everything about Anthony.” He brushed his thumb over her cheek. Saw the way her eyes flickered. “We both could have said more than we did and we didn’t. The question is whether that ends now and we move forward or not.”
“Forward?” The word was little more than a breath. “You still want to see me?”
“See you.” He smiled faintly. “Laugh with you.” His thumb grazed down her satin-smooth cheek. Brushed over her lips. “Make love with you. Live with you.”
Her eyes widened. “Live with me?”
“That’s usually what husbands and wives do,” he murmured with painful casualness.
Her lips parted. He felt her trembling and gathered her against him, sliding his arms around her and feeling almost whole again for the first time in weeks when her hands crept up between them, her fingertips dazedly touching his cheek.
“I’m not that great of a catch,” she warned. “In the interest of full disclosure and everything. I still don’t have a job. And Wendy kicked me out of the kitchen at Red when she was trying to teach me how to bake chocolate croissants. I’m probably worse than Mrs. Sheckley when it comes to baking.”
“You’re also a bed hog.” He closed her fingers in his hand and kissed her fingertips. “Which is fine with me as long as I’m the one in the bed you’re hogging. Plus, I’ve gotten sorta fond of Mrs. Sheckley’s baking. Now stop trying to debate this and just tell me you’ll marry me.”
“Now who’s sounding bossy?”
“Emily—”
Emily stared into Max’s face, hardly daring to breathe, her heart was so full. He’d once told her that her future was waiting for her to live it. She didn’t know anymore what that future would hold. But she finally knew that it didn’t matter.
Because the future was right now, and he was holding her in his arms so closely that she could feel the unsteady beat of his heart against hers.
“Yes,” she whispered tremulously, going on her toes to press her lips against his. “Yes, Max, I’ll marry you.”
Epilogue
“Whoa. Hold up there, buddy.” Max reached out and caught Anthony by the scruff of his neck before he could plow over the empty flower stand stored in the cramped office where they were holed up, earning a mutinous look from the two-year-old. He chucked the little boy lightly under his chin and tickled the front of his belly, turning mutiny to chortles in the blink of an eye.
Max grinned and straightened the bow tie the kid was wearing, but it still remained hopelessly skewed, and he gave it up, not particularly caring. That’s what they got for trying to put a toddler in a tuxedo and tie, even miniature-size ones.
“Okay.” Jeremy strode into the room. “Got the license.” He patted his lapel pocket. “Got the rings.” He grinned at little Anthony. “Got the best men.” His grin traveled to take in Max. “Got the groom.”
“As long as there’s a bride,” he muttered, running his finger beneath the collar of his shirt, then having to go check the mirror again to make sure that his own tie wasn’t lopsided.
“There’s a bride all right,” Jeremy assured. He shot his cuffs, looking as comfortable in his formal wear as Max wasn’t. “Saw her with my own eyes.” He grinned. “Good thing I’m married to your sister.”
“Good thing Emily’s your cousin,” Max reminded.
“Second. Third. Something like that.” Jeremy chuckled.
“Good God, it’s a zoo out there.” Scott, Emily’s second oldest brother, rushed into the room. He, too, was wearing a tux.
“Get used to it,” Max advised. “Yours and Christina’s wedding won’t be any different.
Scott made a face. “After today, I’m thinking eloping sounds good.”
“But you won’t.” Tanner had overheard as he and Emily’s other two brothers, Blake and Michael, came into the room.
“Nope,” Blake agreed. He was Max’s age and his dark eyes were amused. “You won’t disappoint the woman you love any more than I’d ever want to disappoint Katie.”
“You guys gonna wax poetic about love or are we gonna get this wedding going, so we can move on to the party?” Michael, the eldest of Emily and her siblings, made no secret that he had no interest in such things. In the past week since all of the Fortun
es had come to Red Rock to celebrate Christmas and prepare for his and Emily’s New Year’s Eve wedding, Max had seen for himself that Michael—demanding and blunt—was pretty much a carbon copy of John Michael. “I’m ready for the company of any pretty ladies who go for a guy in a monkey suit.”
“I’m ready,” Max admitted. Not because he wanted to get to the reception, which Emily had planned with military precision along with the elaborate wedding, but because he wanted to get on with the honeymoon. And that was something he’d planned. Keeping the details a surprise from her hadn’t been easy, though. Not only was Emily bossy; she was relentless when there was something she wanted to know. And her methods of persuasion had been becoming increasingly…persuasive lately.
“All right then.” Jeremy picked up Anthony, who happily started plucking at the white petals on his boutonniere. He was used to his “uncle” Jeremy since Kirsten and he had never stopped maintaining contact with him. Max’s sister wasn’t part of the wedding party, but as his only family, she’d be sitting in the front pew on his side of the church, directly across from Emily’s parents, and would be ready to help distract Anthony, along with Coop and Kelsey who were supposed to be in the row behind his sister.
In fact, once the Reverend Peterson came into the office, lined them up and marched them out to the front of the church where violin music played, Max could only think that the church pews were filled only with Fortunes of one sort or another. Cousins. Uncles. Nieces. They weren’t only in the pews, they were in the wedding party.
Even now, Emily’s sisters appeared and began gliding up the aisle, looking striking in deep blue dresses.
He caught Mrs. Sheckley’s eye where she was sitting next to his sister in the front pew. She beamed at him, smiling just as brightly as Emily’s mother.
And then the music changed, sliding seamlessly from a host of violins to a church organ.
Everyone in the pews shuffled, rose and turned to watch. Max thought his heart might just bust out of his tux as he waited for her to appear.
And then, there she was, taking her father’s arm as she turned toward Max. Her hair was pulled back in a sleek ponytail and she looked slender, ethereal. And so incredibly beautiful that the entire church seemed to inhale as one at the sight of her.
Her gaze was locked on his face, a smile on her own as she walked down the aisle with her father. Turning her head a little so John Michael could kiss her cheek just as they’d rehearsed the night before when she reached Max’s side.
Unlike the rehearsal the night before, though, Max was almost shocked to see the dampness in the older man’s eyes as he placed Emily’s hand in Max’s. He gave Max a sharp nod, then turned and joined his wife in the pew. Max figured it wouldn’t be long before John Michael adjusted to the fact that his daughter had struck out on her own, doing freelance advertising—though the afternoon before he’d been bugging Emily to at least consider the idea of working for FortuneSouth again. Particularly since he’d decided that a satellite office in Red Rock was just what the company needed.
Max was vaguely aware of the minister talking but he was too busy drowning in the smile that Emily was giving him over her bouquet of daisies. And then she was handing off that bouquet to Jordana and taking Max’s hands in hers, turning to face him. His thumb roved over her wrist, feeling the sterling daisy bracelet there, as it had been nearly every day since the Fourth of July.
The minister was going on about the duties of marriage and Emily’s eyes sparkled up at Max. “Have I told you today that I love you?” she whispered.
“Once or twice.” Particularly that very morning in their bedroom on the hillside house where they lived.
Reverend Peterson slid them a disapproving look but plowed on.
“Are you going to tell me where we’re going for our honeymoon, yet?” She still kept her voice low. “For all I know, I’ve packed all the wrong clothes.”
Reverend Peterson cleared his throat, giving them another look. He held up the Bible in his hands that he was reading from, and continued.
“A picnic,” Max whispered. “In each state from here on up to Canada.”
If anything, Emily’s smile deepened. “Flying, I assume?”
“In a plane just built for two.”
“Bliss,” she whispered. Her dimple flashed and her eyes glowed. “Did you borrow Mrs. Sheckley’s picnic basket?”
His hands tightened on hers. “And the blanket,” he murmured, looking into her eyes and feeling like he could see forever there. “I promised her that we’d do our best to carry on her family tradition…”
* * * * *
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ISBN: 9781459230378
Copyright © 2012 by Harlequin Books S.A.
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