by Cindy Dees
“Do you hate me for running out of the house because I was upset that you called me a cripple?” she pressed, frantic to make him see the truth.
He jolted. “Hell, no! I never should have said that. I was frustrated. I understand why it upset you. Why would I hate you for that?”
She stared deep into his eyes, searching for comprehension in them. “Don’t you see? I never hated you, either.”
He frowned. “But—”
She interrupted him. “Am I right that, at some level, part of why you came to the ranch on this mission was to get my forgiveness for whatever wrong you perceived you’d done to me?”
He thought about it for a second. Comprehension broke across his features. He nodded slowly.
“When I saw you tonight,” she continued, “my first thought was to hope I could get you to forgive me for wrecking your arm and your career.”
She leaned forward, her body thrumming with need for him to understand. “But, Mac. Neither one of us needs to forgive the other. What we both have to do is forgive ourselves.”
His hands squeezed hers painfully tight. “Suzie.” His voice was hoarse and he paused to clear it roughly. “Suzie, are you telling me that, after everything that’s happened, you don’t blame me for the things that have happened to you?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you ever since you got here! I chose to get in that surveillance van ten years ago, and I chose to be bait this time around to lure out Ruala. What really counts is how you feel about you. In here.” She touched his chest over his heart.
He frowned as if he wasn’t quite sure he bought it.
She pressed the point. “You said it before. We each make our own choices. Life throws us all curve balls we don’t expect, and we just have to deal with them and move on as best we can.”
He looked at her a long time. The fire hissed quietly while he considered her words. He ran a hand through his hair, a sure sign that he was struggling with some disturbing thought.
Panic hovered close to the surface, just beneath her skin. Her future, their future, hung on what he was thinking. “Talk to me, Mac,” she urged.
“Dammit, Susan. Every time I come into your life I bring you disaster. If I were going to do the right thing by you, to act on that sense of obligation you keep accusing me of being lost in, I’d get up right now and walk out of your life forever.”
“Because you love me,” she stated flatly.
“Yes. I love you enough to leave, so you’ll be safe from any further harm from me.
She whispered past her constricted throat, “Love is never safe, Mac. It’s the biggest risk of all. And whether you like it or not, I love you. I’ve already taken the risk. Leaving me won’t change that. It’ll only cause me pain.”
He turned his anguished gaze on her. His words sounded literally torn out of his throat. “I don’t want to leave you, dammit. I want to get down on my knees right now and beg you to marry me. To ask you to spend the rest of your life with me and make babies with me and grow old together.”
He buried his head in his hands.
She waited him out, praying he’d work it through.
Finally he looked up again. “I can’t be noble any more. I can’t do the right thing and walk away again. It’s killing me.”
A tiny, little warm feeling started way down in her toes and started to grow upward. “You don’t have to walk away to be noble, Mac. Sometimes staying is the courageous choice.”
He visibly absorbed her words into himself. Something relaxed around his shoulders like a weight was lifting from them. He spoke carefully. “I don’t know how to convince you that I want to take care of you because I love you, not because I’m hung up on some twisted sense of duty.”
It was her turn to stare in shock.
“Do you really mean that?” she whispered.
“God, yes! I love you. Just for you. No strings attached, just the way you asked me to a couple weeks ago.”
Her skin started tingling and a flush heated her cheeks.
“I can’t lie to you,” he said low, each word ripped from his gut. “I won’t ever completely forgive myself for any part I’ve had in causing you a single second of pain. That’s just the way I am. But it’s not the basis of my feelings for you. Can you accept that?”
The warm feeling in her heart transformed into blinding light, shining like the sun, illuminating her soul from the inside out.
“Mac,” she said carefully, “I’ll never forget watching you take that beating for me. I’ll never forgive myself completely for it. I’ll carry that memory around with me till the day I die. But—” she took a deep breath and then plunged ahead “—I believe it’s possible for a relationship to have its scars and not only survive but be strong and wonderful and beautiful.”
He reached out and touched the scar on her neck lightly. “Just like people,” he murmured.
She reached up out of habit to hide her scar.
Mac intercepted her hand and drew it to his mouth, kissing her fingertips. “Baby, I even love your scar and your wrecked knee. I love everything about you.”
“I love your scars, too,” she answered quietly. She touched the place over his heart lightly. “I especially admire the ones in here. But can you live with them?”
A slow smile broke across his face. “Yeah. I think I can.”
And then he slid off the couch and took a knee at her feet. “Susan Monroe, I need you worse than life itself. I want to spend the rest of my life healing your heart. Marry me. Please.”
Tears filled her eyes as the light overflowed her soul, bursting forth in a brilliant glow of love around them that would never dim. “Only if you’ll let me heal your heart, too, Mac.”
She flung herself into his arms, toppling them both over onto the floor. He hugged her close, cushioning and absorbing their fall, protecting her the way he always did.
She sprawled on top of him, alarmed. “I didn’t hurt your arm, did I?”
“Who the hell cares about my arm?” he growled. “Are you going to marry me or not?”
“Oh, yes, Mac. Yes, I’ll marry you!”
And the healing for both of them began.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-7768-1
A GENTLEMAN AND A SOLDIER
Copyright © 2004 by Cynthia Dees
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All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
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Table of Contents
“How do you plan to keep me alive until I can testify against this guy?”