A Fortune Wedding
Page 17
Her throat tightened. “You just disappeared.”
“If I’d come to you again, I never would have left. I couldn’t have. And I needed to, for you and for me, both. I needed to make myself give you the space. You need to get comfortable with your life. And I realize you may not be there yet, but I’ve got enough work to do here to keep me busy for a good long time. Not too busy to miss you, but love also means patience, and I do love you, Frannie, I do. I always have.”
He put a hand to her cheek. “I’m sorry that somehow got mixed up so you didn’t feel like I was giving you what you needed. Just take your time, build your empires, do what you need to do, but I’ll be here. And if you could see your way clear to letting me be at your side while you’re doing your empire building, you’d make me a really happy man.”
She threw her arms around him and pressed her face to his neck. “Oh, Roberto, I love you so much. I’ve always known it, but the second Lyndsey pointed that gun at you, all I could think was that I’d been a fool to ever push you away. And then you disappeared and I thought you were gone forever.”
“I’m never going to be gone again. I’ll always be at your side. I want to marry you and make you happy. I want to get back everything we missed out on, and if we can have more kids, what the hell, let’s do it.”
The light turned to gold as the sun hit the horizon—the magic hour.
Frannie cradled his face in her hands. “Roberto, I love you. There’s nothing I want more in the world than to spend the rest of my life with you.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” He kissed her.
And in that magic hour, they sank to the grass as one.
Epilogue
Torches flickered above the masses of blackfoot daisies and purple sage in the gardens of the Double Crown. Fairy lights twinkled in the cedar elms. Music drifted through the air. It was a night for magic, for promises. Silk and white roses, the time-honored words: to have, to hold, to love, to cherish, forsaking all others, from this day forward.
It was magic and moonlight and Roberto drew Frannie away to a small path that wound among the honey mesquite.
“Our guests,” Frannie protested.
“They’ll have you for the rest of the night.” He leaned in to press his lips to the shadowed hollow above her collar bone. “I only want five minutes alone with my wife.”
Frannie shivered. “Tell me it’s real,” she murmured.
“It’s real.” He wrapped an arm around her waist and swept her close to him for a lingering kiss. “But I’ll be happy to prove it to you every day for the rest of my life.”
“Mmm. Every day?” she murmured against his lips.
“Maybe every other day. I am pushing forty, you know.”
She laughed. “You’re so decrepit.”
“Remember, you said in sickness and in health. I have witnesses.” He pointed across the gardens to where the reception was being held.
Old friends and new, the two families together again, this time tied by an even stronger bond. Frannie felt a bubble of joy swell in her chest. “Come on, let’s go walk around and talk with those witnesses.”
“As long as you promise I get you to myself tonight.”
She gave him a smacking kiss. “I promise you get me to yourself for life.”
“Hey, no hiding out there alone all night, you two,” scolded Maria Mendoza as they walked back to the reception area. She and José were at the edge of the dance floor, swaying to the sounds of Ol’ Blue Eyes singing “All of Me.” Beyond, Lily and William Sr. danced together as he held her hand his against his chest.
Roberto bowed to Frannie. “Would you like to dance, Mrs. Mendoza?”
“I’d be delighted, Mr. Mendoza.”
She’d never been happier, Frannie thought as she stepped into his arms. Across the floor her brother Ross danced with his girlfriend Julie Osterman, and nearer, Isabella and J.R. laughed as they tried to practice the foxtrot with Jane and Jorge. Dress rehearsal for their own wedding in just a few weeks, no doubt.
And at a table nearby, Frannie saw her firefighter cousin, Darr, making faces at a tiny girl in a frilly white dress, his dark blond hair mixing with her golden curls. His beautiful wife, Bethany, sat beside them, smiling.
“Oh, let’s go say hello,” Frannie begged, tugging Roberto over to their table. “Hey, Darr, got a hot date?”
“Bethany was playing hard to get,” he said, bouncing his four-month-old daughter on his knee.
“Bethany’s strictly B-list these days,” his wife corrected, but the expression in her eyes was fond.
“Miranda, meet Auntie Frannie and Uncle Roberto. Can you say auntie, smart girl?” Darr asked.
Miranda burbled obligingly and stared raptly up at them with her cornflower-blue eyes.
“She’s beautiful, Bethany.”
“Did you hear that, Randi? She called you beautiful,” Darr cooed.
Frannie laughed. “I think someone might have Daddy wrapped around her little finger.”
Bethany’s lips twitched. “I shudder to think how it’s going to be once she starts dating.”
“It’ll be fine, Randi, won’t it?” Darr said. “Because it won’t happen until you’re thirty, will it?” He tickled her chin until she giggled delightedly.
“They look happy,” Roberto commented as they wandered away, drifting back toward the gardens.
“If you like babies, just wait a couple of months, we’ll have them coming out of our ears,” Frannie said. “Darr and Bethany’s, Josh’s, Nick and Charlene’s—” she nodded to her cousin’s now very pregnant wife “—and ours.”
“Good babysitting practice for when—” He stopped and stared at her. “Did you just say what I thought you said?”
Frannie nodded, watching his expression morph from surprise to joy.
He picked her up and whirled her around. “Tell me it’s real,” he demanded.
“It’s real,” she laughed.
“We’re going to have a baby? When?”
“About six and a half months. I think it happened that night you took me out to show me your ranch. I guess that property’s good luck.”
“You’re good luck,” he murmured, pressing a kiss on her. “After all, you’re my fortune.”
ISBN: 978-1-4268-3444-8
A FORTUNE WEDDING
Copyright © 2009 by Harlequin Books S.A.
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