The Last First Kiss (Harlequin Special Edition)

by Ferrarella, Marie

  “No, it’s not. Most doctors would have called a family member, or, if the person was really sick, they would have called an ambulance and had the person taken to a hospital.” This was definitely above and beyond the call of duty.

  This, she realized, was something a friend did for another friend. Or a lover, a little voice whispered in her head.

  “I’d rather not have you haunting my hospital,” he quipped.

  That was the kind of flippant thing she would have said to him. Kara picked at the sheet, pulling it in tighter around herself. She kept her eyes down as she asked, “I really said…you know?”

  “Yes, you really said ‘you know,’” he confirmed, amused.

  Kara blew out a breath. “I’m surprised you’re still here, then.” He looked at her, puzzled. “Hearing something like that from me, I would have expected you to run for the hills.”

  “Why?” he asked. “Love shouldn’t make a man run. Your mouth, on the other hand, well, that’s another story.” He paused for a moment. He had nothing to lose by pushing this and hopefully everything to gain if she stopped playing games and told him the truth. “Why are you so afraid of love, Kara?”

  “I’m not afraid of love,” she denied indignantly with a toss of her head. She instantly regretted the latter.

  “You’re also not much of a liar,” he observed. “I’m waiting.”

  It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him he could wait until hell froze over, but she knew him well enough to know he would. And besides, he didn’t deserve that. Not after he’d been so selfless.

  So, with a sigh, she answered his question. It wasn’t easy. “When my father died, I saw my mother all but completely fall apart. I was never so scared in my life.”

  He could well imagine. “But she didn’t, did she?” he pointed out.

  “No, but—” That wasn’t the point. The point was the horror her mother had felt. The horror of being left behind to live, to take one step after the other, in a world that no longer contained the man she loved. The only man she’d ever love.

  “And she has her memories of life with your father, doesn’t she?” Dave continued.

  “Yes,” she grudgingly admitted. And then her eyes widened as she looked at him. “Are you going to tell me that ‘it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all’?” He wouldn’t even dare think about that now, she silently threatened.

  His broad shoulders rose and fell in a careless shrug. “Alfred, Lord Tennyson seemed to think so,” he told her. “Who are we to disagree?”

  That was all well and good in poetry, but this was real life. And real life brought with it scars. “I don’t want to ache the way my mother ached.”

  “She ached because she’d loved. There are far worse things than death,” he told her.

  She couldn’t imagine there being something worse to endure than the death of a loved one. “Such as?” she challenged.

  “Being alone,” he told her simply. Being alone the way he’d been alone—until she returned to his life. That was when he came to understand what he’d been missing all along. Her. “There are no guarantees in life, and no one lives forever.” He looked at her and knew that there was only one way to play this. It was all or nothing. He didn’t usually take risks, but then that was why his life was all but flat-lining. It was time to take that risk. “All I can do is promise to love you for the rest of my life.”

  She had to be hearing things. “You love me?” Kara asked incredulously.

  Why did she look so surprised? He would have thought that she at least suspected as much. “That didn’t occur to you? Say, around the second time we made love?”

  Why would she have thought that? Unless, of course, he thought she was that naive. “Men don’t have to be in love to make love,” she told him.

  “Granted. And God knows I didn’t want to be, not with you,” he told her honestly. “But I don’t seem to have a choice in this.”

  She was still very much stuck in first gear—afraid to believe what her heart wanted to believe. “You love me?” she repeated, mystified.

  “I thought we already established that.” He smiled. Okay, this was for the record. “Yes, I love you. And I’d like to keep on loving you. I stopped pretending two days into this charade and finally admitted that little fact to myself. Now, you can take your time making up your mind how you feel—”

  It was beginning to sink in, but she was still afraid to embrace the thought. “Hey, with medical care costing what it does these days, I’d be a fool to turn down the opportunity to have my very own doctor on call 24/7.”

  His eyes pinned her down. “And that’s the only reason?”

  “No, it’s not the only reason.” She sighed. “You already know I love you,” she said, staring down at the comforter. She felt more naked than she had when she’d thrown the comforter back. This admission left her completely exposed. It wasn’t a position she relished.

  He ran his fingertips along her cheek, sending butterflies into both their stomachs. “I’m going to need you to convince me a little more when you’re feeling stronger.”

  “Whoa, feel that?” she cried.

  “Feel what?” he asked, puzzled.

  Her eyes teased his. “My strength. That was my strength, coming back.” She put her arms out to him, and he took her into his own. “You know what this means, don’t you?”

  He was a little wary of giving her an answer. With Kara he never knew what was safe and what played right into her hands. “What?”

  “That our mothers were right. About matching us up.” She rolled her eyes. “They’re going to be impossible to live with from now on.”

  He grinned, brushing a strand of hair back from her face. “I wasn’t planning on living with them.”

  The way he left that open had her asking, “Who are you planning on living with?”

  He looked into her eyes and wondered why he hadn’t seen this before. But then, maybe he had. Maybe he’d been aware of this all along and that was why he never became involved with anyone else.

  “You.”

  There went her heart again. Going off like fireworks on the Fourth of July. “You want to move in together?” she questioned, surprised. “Isn’t that a big step for you?” She knew how cautious he was, how much he liked his own space. And here he was, asking her to share that space with him. Did it get any better than this?

  “That’s the usual step two people take after getting married.”

  “Married?” It did, it really did get better than this, she thought—provided she wasn’t hallucinating. “I think my fever’s back.”

  “Well, then I’ll just have to nurse you back to health again.” He brushed his lips against her forehead. Just as he thought. It was cool.

  Kara was staring at him, wide-eyed. Trying to absorb what he was saying to her. Afraid to take it to heart and yet, she knew she already had. “You’re serious.”

  “I’m a doctor,” he told her innocently. “Making people healthy is what I do.”

  “Idiot,” she cried. He knew perfectly well what she was referring to. “I’m talking about asking me to marry you.” She pinned him down in earnest, putting the question to him. “You’re asking me?”

  He nodded. “I’m asking you.”

  She didn’t want him parroting her. “I want the words, Dave. I want to hear the words. The official words.” She held her breath, her eyes on his lips.

  “Kara Calhoun, will you marry me and keep turning my boring life upside down?” His eyes crinkled at the very end.

  Oh God, he was really asking her. Really asking her. It was all she could do to keep from screaming out the single word. Her eyes danced as she said, “Well, if you put it that way—yes!”

  He let
go of the breath he’d been holding. Kara was nothing if not unpredictable.

  “We’re going to have to tell our mothers,” he reminded her.

  “I know. How about right after the first baby?” she suggested, entwining her arms around his neck. “Until then, we can just keep it a secret.”

  He knew she didn’t mean it, or at least thought she didn’t mean it. But it cost him nothing to go along with it.

  “Works for me,” he murmured just before they sealed the bargain with a very long kiss.

  It occurred to Kara, just before she sank into the kiss, that she’d had her last first kiss that evening right after the birthday party.

  Her feeling of contentment and joy knew no bounds. She was counting on it remaining that way for the next fifty years or so.

  Epilogue

  “So was I right, or was I right?” Paulette Calhoun asked smugly as she adjusted her baby-blue dress, her eyes meeting her best friend’s in the mirror.

  Lisa Scarlatti shifted slightly in the limited space right outside the room where the bride was getting ready. Technically this was a room, too, but someone was going to have to show her the floor plans before she was convinced of that.

  She paused, allowing her best friend to have her moment. After all, it had been her idea that had started this wonderful ball rolling. “Doesn’t leave me much of a choice, does it, Mother of the Bride?”

  Paulette turned, her blue dress brushing against the mint-green one Lisa had on. “There doesn’t really need to be a choice, Mother of the Groom, does there?”

  “Go ahead, gloat.” Lisa laughed softly. “You have every right to.”

  Paulette inclined her head. “Thank you. I fully intend to, and yes, I know.” She took a deep breath after glancing in the narrow mirror one last time. “Well, I’m ready—how about you?”

  Lisa’s smile was radiant. “I’ve been ready for this for the last thirty years.”

  “Thirty?” Paulette echoed. “Dave’s thirty-two.”

  “I decided not to push the first two years,” Lisa deadpanned.

  “Very understanding of you.”

  They entered the next room together, and the moment Paulette saw her daughter, she felt her eyes begin to sting. Kara was in her wedding dress and had just put on her veil.

  “Oh God,” Paulette moaned, taking out her handkerchief, “I told myself I wasn’t going to cry.”

  “Mother, don’t you dare.” The words were half a warning, half a plea. It wasn’t as if her mother hadn’t seen the dress on her before. She’d been there for the last fitting and had helped her with it just this morning.

  “She’s right,” Lisa told her best friend. “Tears are contagious.” As if to prove it, she dabbed at her own eyes, which had become moist. “So don’t cry.”

  “I won’t,” Paulette promised, even as another tear spilled onto her cheek.

  Kara shook her head, then readjusted her veil. “You’re hopeless, Mother.”

  Paulette came closer. It was happening. It was finally happening. “And you are the most beautiful sight I have ever seen.”

  “Think Dave will think so?” Kara asked as she examined her reflection in the mirror one last time. Her floor-length gown nipped in at the waist, then flowed out with yards of satin and lace. The strapless bodice had delicate beadwork woven all through it.

  “If he doesn’t, he’s no son of mine,” Lisa assured her.

  Just then, there was a knock on the door, followed by a deep voice asking. “Everything all right in there? It’s almost time to make this official.”

  “Dave!” Kara cried, pleasure and relief in her voice. There was a small part of her that had been afraid he’d change his mind at the very last minute and make his escape, taking off for parts unknown. But he hadn’t. He was here. Her smile widened.

  Horrified that her son might come in, Lisa quickly opened the door a crack and angled her body through the space. Once outside, she firmly shut the door again, blocking access with her own slender body.

  “Dave, don’t take this the wrong way, but go away!” she ordered. She tugged on her son’s arm to lead him away from the door. “It’s bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding.”

  His smile was tolerant as he looked at his mother. He owed her a lot and he knew it. “Then I’ll just go to the altar and wait for her there.” He raised his voice so that Kara could hear him through the door. “I’ll be the impatient guy in the black tuxedo next to the priest.”

  “I’ll be sure to look for you,” Kara called out.

  A moment later, strains of the wedding march began to filter into the small room.

  “They’re playing your song, darling,” Paulette told her daughter.

  Kara took a deep breath. “Okay, here we go,” she murmured, suddenly feeling butterflies in her stomach. “Just promise me something, Mother.”

  Paulette squeezed her daughter’s hand as more tears slid down her cheeks. “Anything.”

  Kara opened the door. The music swelled. “Promise me that you two won’t start playing matchmakers with your grandchildren until they’re at least in their twenties.”

  “Well, I won’t,” Paulette promised solemnly as they left the little room. “But I’m afraid I really can’t speak for Lisa....”

  * * * * *

  ISBN: 9781459223158

  Copyright © 2012 by Marie Rydzynski-Ferrarella

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