He nodded into her hair. "I didn't worry about that end of things. I didn't think it was important. There were other factors that were a lot more crucial. I wanted you and that night before you left Hawk Springs I'd proved to myself that I could make you want me. You'll never know how hard I hung on to that knowledge during this past year. I prayed you'd remember it, too."
"I was stuck with the memory, believe me," she confessed on a soft, muffled laugh.
His fingers worked gently on her spine. "I'm glad. In addition to telling myself I could make you want me, I knew I could trust you, and God knows after what I'd been through in my first marriage, trust was important to me. I knew you'd do everything you could to make the marriage work once you'd committed yourself to it and to me. I knew the kind of commitment you were capable of making because I'd seen what you'd done for your brothers. I was sure you'd do even more for a husband and a family of your own. I thought all I had to do was tie a few knots around you to make you realize you belonged with me. I was certain you'd adapt easily to the ranch. You'd grown up on a farm and you knew what life in the country was all about. It wouldn't come as any great shock to you if someone accidentally tramped horse manure onto the back porch."
"In other words," Devon dared to say teasingly, "you thought you had everything worked out logically and for the good of all concerned."
He groaned and hugged her so tightly she squeaked. "I'm afraid so. But that day after the Dennisons' party I heard Rita talking in the kitchen, telling you that you were trapped. It suddenly hit me that I didn't want you to feel trapped. I wanted you to stay with me because you wanted to be with me. I wanted you to love me. And when I realized that, I knew I loved you, too. Then I started to really worry."
"I didn't hear any last-minute offers of a reprieve," Devon couldn't resist saying. "You didn't suggest we talk things over or wait until we were sure of what we were doing."
"I said I started to worry," he told her bluntly, "I didn't say I changed my mind."
She smiled into his shirt. "No, of course not."
"Devon, I would have gone through with this marriage even if I'd had to hog-tie you and drag you down the aisle. I couldn't have taken the risk of letting you go away again. But today I realized I needed to know the exact truth. I wanted to know where we stood with each other so I could start working on making you fall in love with me. But I haven't known how to ask. I've spent most of the day trying to figure out a way to bring up the subject. Then you went and started blathering on about this honeymoon being a mistake, and all of a sudden it was all out in the open."
"I'm glad," she murmured. "Just think, we might have spent our whole honeymoon wondering if we were in love."
He pushed her a little away from him so he could smile down into her face. "Somehow, I think we would have figured it out before the week was over."
"Maybe, but personally I'm glad we've got it figured out tonight." She put her arms around his neck. "Although, to tell you the truth, we both should have figured it out long ago. Any man and woman who wait a year for each other must be feeling something fairly strong."
"Either that or they're just not too bright," Garth offered with a slow grin.
She answered his smile and then shook her head. "I told myself you were a man and you wouldn't wait a year for any woman. When I knew you'd waited for me, I should have realized you loved me."
"Don't ever doubt it again." He kissed her with a rough, hungry passion that told its own story. "I don't know how I survived that year. I don't know how I survived the past three weeks, for that matter. I give you fair warning, sweetheart. I'm never going to let you go again. You belong to me."
"I couldn't leave you again, Garth. Home for me is wherever you are. It always will be."
He muttered her name against her mouth and then he was lifting her high in his arms. He carried her back into the room, laying her down on the bed with great care. Devon reached for him, welcoming her husband into her heart, and Garth came to her with all the strength, tenderness and passion that characterized his nature.
There were few words between them this time as the loving excitement flowed around them. It was a time of mutual claiming and silent promise. Devon was enthralled with the overwhelming sense of possessing and being possessed, of loving and being loved completely in return. Hearts, minds and bodies pulsed, shuddered and finally flamed in a release that left Devon locked securely in Garth's arms. When it was over she curled trustingly into his embrace, held close to his side.
For a long while they lay quietly together in the warm Hawaiian night, letting the peaceful aftermath cradle them. Garth's rough fingertips moved in an absent caress on Devon's arm. His eyes were gleaming with love and gentleness as he looked down at her.
"I haven't had the nerve to ask if you're pregnant," he admitted softly.
Devon stretched luxuriously beside him. "No." She smiled. "But it would be okay if I was. Better than okay. I've decided I would very much like to have your baby."
"Devon." He exhaled deeply, holding her with fierce pleasure and thankfulness. "I love you so much."
The silent communion of trust and love was broken sometime later when Garth stirred lazily and asked, "Hungry?"
Devon's fingers tangled lightly in the hair on his chest. "No. Are you?"
He shook his head, watching her with deep pleasure. "No. Not yet. We can get a bite later or have something sent up from room service."
"Room service!" Her shock was only part pretense. "You'd actually indulge yourself with room service? What a waste of money, Garth. Shocking."
"I figure we've already blown so much cash on this trip to Hawaii, a few more bucks for room service won't matter. Besides—" he turned onto his side and gave her a meaningful smile "—I don't feel like leaving this room tonight. I'm willing to pay for the privilege of having you all to myself."
Devon shivered with delight at the look in his eyes. She moved languidly, invitingly against him. "I don't feel like going out for dinner either."
"Good." He nodded and bent his head to brush his mouth against her lips. "We'll spend tonight here, then. Tomorrow we can hop a flight over to the big island. I understand there's an interesting cattle ranch there and there's also some land for sale. I saw the ads in the back of the in-flight magazine."
"A cattle ranch! Land for sale?" Devon shot bolt upright in bed. "What do you think you're up to, cowboy? This is our honeymoon. We're not here to shop for land or tour cattle ranches. I didn't drag you all this way just so you could look at property and cows on our honeymoon. You can do that anytime. I'm the one who arranged this trip. I'm the one who organized the whole thing. We're going to spend the week honeymooning my way and that's final! We're going to eat pineapple and poi and watch hula dances and swim in the sea. Look at property, my foot. Of all the nerve..." She broke off abruptly as she realized he was laughing down at her.
"I've decided I have to make a few demands. I don't want you getting the idea you can wrap me completely around your little finger," Garth teased.
"What?" She feigned total astonishment.
"You know damn well that's what everyone back in Hawk Springs has decided. Bev, Ryan, Steve, Cal and everyone else think you're definitely the power behind the throne at Hawk's Flight. They think you've got me dancing on your string. That you can get just about anything you want out of me. That I'll do anything for you."
Devon smiled enticingly up at him. She sank her fingertips into his hair. "Well?"
"Well what?" He kissed the tip of her breast and watched in satisfaction as the nipple began to harden.
"Are they right?"
"Umm. Probably." He kissed the other breast.
"You don't look all that worried about it," Devon noted.
Garth grinned, a wicked, sexy grin that was part male arrogance, part teasing indulgence, part desire and one hundred percent love. "I'm not. Because it works both ways."
"You think you can get just about anything you wa
nt from me?" she murmured with deep interest.
"As long as I have you, I have everything I want." Garth ended the conversation very decisively by covering Devon's mouth with his own.
Devon sighed with pleasure, put her arms around her husband and did what she always did around Garth Saxon. She surrendered to the inevitable.
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