He loved her.
Good Lord, how had he missed it? How had he not seen it? How could he have denied it?
It was simple, really. He’d been blind to his growing feelings for her because he hadn’t wanted to take the risk of loving and possibly losing again. He hadn’t wanted to admit he could love again. He’d told himself he was going to convince her to stay for the sake of the twins. But he wanted Leah to stay for his sake.
He loved her!
Because he hadn’t been able to admit it to himself or to her, she thought she was simply convenient. She’d even told him on New Year’s Eve that she didn’t want a marriage of convenience. But it hadn’t sunk in because he’d been too angry and hurt to hear it.
When he’d lashed out at her that night, he’d probably destroyed any trust that had built between them. How could she trust him when she didn’t know how he felt, when he’d never told her she’d become the sun in his life, his reason for looking forward to each new day?
When she had accused him of thinking of her as a replacement, maybe it had hit a little too close to home. He had seen her and the twins as something that could fill his life with everything he’d lost. But she wouldn’t be a substitute for Gwen; she wouldn’t be a wife for the sake of his needing a wife.
She was Leah—special, courageous…
She’d had the courage to turn down his offer of marriage because it had been made for convenience’s sake rather than out of love. And if he told her he loved her now…
That was a risk he’d have to take—if he wanted to be fully alive again, if he wanted to have a future with Leah. Somehow, he’d make her believe him.
It was almost eight o’clock when Jeremy finally finished his rounds at the hospital. This afternoon he’d wanted to rush to Leah right away. But he’d needed time to think about what to say to her. He’d needed time to finish his work for the day, so if she accepted his proposal, he could stay with her tonight. All afternoon he’d concentrated on patients, but in between he’d worried about Leah’s reaction—if she would believe what he had to say.
When he pulled up in front of her house, he switched off the ignition and took a deep breath, knowing this was the most important moment of his life.
As he went to the porch, he could see a lamp glowing in the living room. He knocked and waited.
When Leah opened the door, she looked surprised, and then guarded.
“Can I come in?” he asked.
Stepping back, she let him inside. “Adam and Brooke are sleeping,” she said.
“I came to see you.”
Her eyes widened, and he wished he could wipe the wariness from them and take her in his arms. Instead, he unsnapped his jacket, took it off and tossed it over the chair as he’d done so many times in the past few weeks. Leah stood there watching him, looking as if she were ready to grab the twins and run at a moment’s notice. He’d done this to her…to them.
“I don’t know where to start,” he said honestly.
“What are you going to do about Brooke and Adam?”
She looked like a lioness ready to fight for her cubs, and he admired that about her, along with everything else. “I don’t want to talk about Brooke and Adam. I want to talk about you and me.”
Her expression didn’t change, and he realized she’d put her defenses firmly in place. There was only one way to break through them. He had to lay everything on the line. “I love you, Leah, and I want to marry you.” He rushed on. “I’m sorry if I gave you the impression that you and the twins would be replacements. Yes, you’d fill a gaping hole in my life, but you and Adam and Brooke are so much more important than that. I want to marry you because I love you. I want to spend my life with you because there’s no one else I can imagine spending it with. And I want to be more than a father. I want to be your husband. I want you to walk with me through snow and sunshine. I want you to be my partner.”
Taking her hands in his, he went on. “If you have any doubts, if you think I’m only doing this because of Brooke and Adam, I promise you that isn’t true. I will spend the rest of my life proving to you that I love you. Can you forgive what I said on New Year’s Eve? Can you believe me?”
Tears welled up in Leah’s eyes, and one rolled down her cheek. He was afraid she was crying because he’d destroyed her feelings for him. He was afraid…
“Oh, Jeremy. I love you, too. I—”
Realizing she wasn’t crying from sadness, but possibly from joy, he didn’t wait for her to finish, but gathered her into his arms and kissed her with the passion that always caught fire so easily between them. When she wrapped her arms around his neck, she kissed him back as fervently as he kissed her. And he knew she wanted him in her life as much as he wanted her in his.
Reluctantly, he pulled away, but held her tightly. “Will you marry me?”
Her smile was sweet and tender and loving. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”
But he still had a worry to lay to rest. “What about the interview? What about your dream of working in New York or Washington? If that’s what you really want…”
Resting a slender hand on each of his shoulders, she leaned back to gaze into his eyes. “I love you, Jeremy, and I want to be your wife. My roots are here. Brooke’s and Adam’s roots are here. Maybe I can start working again at the Museum in Whitehorn—when Brooke and Adam don’t need me quite as much.”
“But will that be enough?” he asked.
She nodded, then stood on tiptoe to kiss him again. After his lips caressed hers, after his tongue mated with hers, after his heart raced with desire and all the possibilities for the future, he ended the kiss to say, “Maybe we’ll both want to explore New York or Washington someday. Maybe we’ll both want to show Brooke and Adam more than Whitehorn. We can do that, too.”
“We’ll decide together,” she said softly.
“Together,” he agreed, then enfolded her in his arms again, filled with thanks and gratitude that he’d found her and she’d found him. And together they’d found their future.
Leah awakened in the dark, smiling. Jeremy’s strong arms were wrapped around her, his broad chest warmed her back, his jaw rested on the top of her head. When he’d asked to come in earlier, she’d prepared herself for the worst. She’d been miserable thinking about a life apart from him. But after he’d gazed at her with such sincerity in his green eyes and told her he loved her, told her he wanted to spend his life with her, she’d known deep in her soul he was telling the truth. Jeremy had always told her the truth.
“Are you awake?” he whispered.
She turned under the covers to face him. Although they couldn’t consummate their love in the physical sense, they had touched and kissed and talked and held each other, creating bonds that could never be broken.
“I like having you hold me while I sleep,” she said.
Taking her hand, he brought it to his cheek and kissed her palm. “I love holding you. I love being here with you.”
Moonlight glowed through the window, and she could see a question in his eyes. “What?” she asked.
“When can we get married?”
“When would you like to get married?”
He tucked her hand against his chest. “As soon as we can arrange it. Saturday, maybe? Or is that too soon? Do you need more time?”
She slid a little closer to him until their noses almost brushed. “I don’t need more time. But I would like to get married here on the res—in the church we visited on Christmas.”
“I’d like that, too.” After a pause, he asked, “Are you ready to leave the res? Do you want to come live with me? We could find a new house somewhere else.”
“I like your house, Jeremy. It doesn’t matter where we live. I’ve discovered something over the past few weeks. Home isn’t necessarily a place. For me now, home is you, and with you is where I belong. We can rent this house to someone who needs it, someone who can take care of it, the way my grandmother and my mother did.”
Wrapping his ar
ms around her, he rubbed her nose with his. “Do you know how special you are?”
“I know how special we are.”
Jeremy kissed Leah’s cheek and then her temple and then her lips, sealing their love, sealing their commitment, sealing their happily ever after.
Special thanks and acknowledgment to Susan W. Macias and Karen Rose Smith for their contributions to the Montana Mavericks series.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-7548-9
A MONTANA MAVERICKS CHRISTMAS
Copyright © 1999 by Harlequin Books S.A.
The publisher acknowledges the copyright holders of the individual works as follows:
MARRIED IN WHITEHORN
Copyright © 1999 by Harlequin Books S.A.
BORN IN WHITEHORN
Copyright © 1999 by Harlequin Books S.A.
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