by Beverly Bird
Kate clapped a trembling hand to her mouth. “Go away.”
Something wild erupted inside him. “That makes no sense! What kind of sense does it make for me to leave? We’re good together. We’re great together! We balance each other.” He thrust a finger at her. “I’m good for you, whether you want to admit it or not. You haven’t done that sniffing, tsking thing in days now. See? I loosen you up.”
She couldn’t take anymore. Kate shot to her feet. “I’m not some sex toy!”
Raphael’s jaw dropped. “Who said anything about sex? I didn’t get to that part yet.”
Don’t, Kate thought desperately, please, please don’t.
“But as long as we’re on the subject, I dare you to stand there and tell me that part wasn’t terrific, too. It was better than terrific. Don’t forget I was there in that bed with you, honey, and on the sofa, and on the floor. And I’m here to tell you that you thought it was pretty great then.”
She was dying inside. Yes, Kate thought helplessly, she was simply going to die. “I am worth more than that,” she said with exquisite care.
And then he understood. It was a woman thing. She was going to go and do female logic on him. “Yeah,” he said cautiously. “I didn’t say you weren’t.” He thought about it. “No, I never said you weren’t. I said you were a great cook. I said—”
He broke off and ducked when a magazine from the coffee table somehow made it into her hand and came sailing across the room at him. “Now what the hell was that for?”
“Get out!”
“Not until we finish this!”
“We are finished!” No, she thought, they weren’t. Not until she pulled his limbs off with her bare hands.
Kate threw herself at him. In some distant part of her mind, she knew she was crying again, great gulping sounds of it. But fury rocketed through her at the same time. She pounded her fists against his chest. “I don’t want half a loaf! Damn you, I’m not so goofy in love with you that I’m going to settle for crumbs! I’m worth more than that!”
Everything inside him went still. “You’re in love with me?”
“I’m not just going to come over once in a while and make dinner for you and—and organize your mess of a life and jump into bed with you while you go out with other women, the kind you don’t have to coddle!”
“You’re in love with me?” He managed to catch one of her wrists.
She twisted it free and hit him again. “For your information, I think I’ve done a damned fine job of dodging bullets this past week! I’ve been spectacular at it! I wasn’t even scared most of the time!”
“You’re swearing again.” He wiggled his brows at her. Damn, he felt good.
“I don’t know where you ever got the idea that I couldn’t take it, all your…your slimeballs and creeps—but if you think that, then you don’t know me at all!”
“Let’s get back to the part about you loving me.”
“I don’t want to be someone you keep on the side, all tucked away because I have to be protected from the harsher side of your life! I am not a liability!”
He finally caught both her wrists, grinning. “No, but you’d make a great wife.”
“I’m—” She broke off, her blood draining, the room tilting. “What did you say?”
“Are you finished coming unglued?”
“I never come unglued.”
“Honey, that was unglued.” He grinned. “I like it. It does things to my heart.”
Kate drew herself back and away from him while she still had some pride left. She blew an errant curl off her forehead and hugged herself. She was not going to read anything into that comment. He was just referring to her…her capabilities again.
Those she was painfully sure of.
“I would make a very good wife.” She sniffed. “However, if it’s all the same to you, I’ll save those talents for…” She would not cry again. Damn it, she would not.
“Yeah?” he prompted.
“For someone who wants me to share his life.” She drew her spine straight. “His whole life.”
“Is being scared to death for you allowed?” Suddenly, he was sober. His heart burned. “Kate, I meant what I said yesterday. It would kill me if anything happened to you, if anybody went after you.”
She was shaking inside. “You didn’t say that yesterday.”
“Yes, I did.”
“No.” She shook her head hard. “You said you weren’t going to let it happen. That you’d make everybody think I didn’t matter so it wouldn’t happen. Then you lied to me all day about Beth and Allegra.”
Raphael frowned. “I didn’t lie to you about Beth and Allegra.”
“You definitely lied to me.”
“I just didn’t have time to discuss it! I had an investigation to wrap up!”
“You were protecting me!”
The heat around his heart roared up to fill his head. “I’ve been doing that since this mess started! I hid newspapers from you! So get used to it! I figured the truth was going to hurt you, that you were going to try to blame yourself somehow—which you did—and I was going to be able to give you my full attention when it happened!”
Kate opened her mouth and closed it again. Her temper cracked and flew out of her. And down deep, at the core of her, there was, indeed, hope. It trembled.
“That’s why you didn’t tell me what you were thinking all day?”
His eyes narrowed warily. “Yeah.”
“You called for Beth—Lilly, I mean—and Janaya’s DNA after we got to headquarters so I wouldn’t hear you.”
“What of it?”
She nodded shakily. “Uh…nothing. Okay. I can accept that.” He cared.
“Then you’ll marry me?”
The floor dropped out from beneath her feet. “What?” she whispered.
She wasn’t going to make this easy, he thought. But then, why should that surprise him?
Then suddenly he realized it was the easiest thing in the world.
“I want you in my home. In my life. All the time. Every day, every morning, every night.” She gave a small cry. He didn’t know if that was good or bad. He decided to go for the practical approach. It had always reached her before. “You said you loved me.”
She nodded, shook her head, then nodded again while his heart stopped. Then she clapped a hand to her mouth and a tear spilled over to trace down her cheek. “I do. Oh, I do.”
“That’s the natural, accepted progression of these things, Kate. When you love someone, you marry them.”
“You love me?” The hope swelled into her chest and hurt.
He threw a hand up. “Well, what do you think this has all been about?”
“You love me.” She breathed it. And in that instant, she felt beautiful.
“I love you.” He waited. And then she smiled, brighter than the sun. “I’ll never stop worrying that someone’s going to hurt you. I’ll never stop calling you five times a day to make sure you’re okay. But I can live with it. If you can.”
She would cherish it.
Kate began to say so. Oh, there was so much she needed to say! But suddenly, there was a commotion outside, below her opened window.
She’d know that bark anywhere.
Kate ran to the window. She pushed up the screen and leaned out. Raphael put a hand on her shoulder and leaned out behind her. Belle stood in the alley, at the bottom of the fire escape. When she saw them, she barked again once, sharply. She wagged her tail, then she waddled off—all two or three extra pounds of her.
“Now how in the hell does she do that?” Raphael muttered. “You know, vanish from one place then turn up in another?”
“We don’t need her anymore,” Kate whispered. And something happened to her blood, a quickening, a tingle. She came inside and closed the screen. “She saved my life.”
Raphael pulled back from the window, then he took her into his arms. “No. She saved mine.”
ISBN: 978-1-4592-1743-0
I
’LL BE SEEING YOU
Copyright © 2000 by Beverly Bird
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* Wounded Warriors
† The Wedding Ring