by Gina Wilkins
He rolled, pinning her beneath him. “We should make sure, don’t you think?”
He was hard and hot against her thigh, letting her know just how badly he wanted her. She arched against him. “Show me,” she demanded.
He kissed her deeply. Lingeringly. And then he moved lower, tasting her cheek, her jaw, her throat. Her breasts. She buried her fingers in his luxuriant dark hair, her eyes closing, her pulse racing. When his mouth moved lower still, she gasped and arched upward, her heels digging into the soft sheets.
If there was anything he’d forgotten, he proved very talented at improvising.
“Please,” she gasped, tugging at his hair. “I need you.”
He gathered her close. “I need you, too,” he admitted. “I’ve never needed anyone like this before.”
“I love you.”
“I love you,” he repeated, holding her eyes with his own as he slid slowly, deeply into her. “Forever, Bailey.”
She wrapped her legs around his hips, holding him tightly. “Forever,” she whispered. And then he began to move, and the power of speech left her completely.
SOME TIME LATER, Ian cradled Bailey against his heart and reflected that he had wasted much of his first twenty-five years on earth. He had never known what it was to truly live…until tonight.
Making love with Bailey had been like nothing he’d ever known before. True, his experiences had been rather limited, but he had no regrets about that. He’d been waiting for Bailey to show him what it was like to love. To be loved.
“This is what she meant,” he murmured.
Bailey lifted her head. “What who meant?” she asked drowsily.
“My mother. I told her once that I didn’t understand all the fuss about romance, why so many people seemed obsessed with it when there were so many more important things to think of. She just smiled and said that someday I would understand that there is nothing more important than love. Nothing in this life—or beyond.”
“She must have been thinking of your father when she said that,” Bailey murmured. “She loved him so much. She never really got over his death.”
“I know. She taught us to love him, too, even though we never had the chance to meet him.”
“She gave you this, you know.”
“What?”
“This.” Her hand pressed against his chest, over his steadily beating heart. “The night you were born, she made a wish that you wouldn’t leave the earth without finding love. I think that’s why you’re still here. Why you—and Anna—have been given a second chance.”
“Anna was waiting for Dean and I—I was waiting for you,” he murmured, struck by the possibility that she was right.
Her eyes glowed. “Yes,” she said with some satisfaction. “You were waiting for me.”
He drew her closer. “I couldn’t have asked for a more precious gift.”
She tugged his head down to hers.
They both jumped when someone knocked loudly on the bedroom door. “Bailey?” Mark called out from the other side. “Hey, Bailey, are you in there? Are you all right?”
She groaned. “I’m fine, Mark. Go away.”
“C’mon, Bailey, you can’t stay out here by yourself. We’re all worried about you. Come into the inn with me, okay?”
“She’s fine, Mark,” Ian called out on a quick, devilishimpulse. “Go away.”
There was a sudden silence outside the door. And then the sound of a throat being loudly cleared. “Yeah, okay. Er, sure. I’ll, uh, see you tomorrow, right?”
“Good night, Mark,” Bailey said. Then she dissolved into giggles as he made a noisy and rapid exit from the cottage.
“You,” she told Ian with a mock scowl, “are bad.”
“So I’ve been told. Did I embarrass you?”
“Are you kidding? You’ve ruined my reputation. You know what you’ll have to do now, don’t you?”
“Make love to you again,” he said promptly.
She threw her arms around his neck. “That’ll work.”
IT WAS ALMOST DAWN when Bailey woke. There was just enough light in the room for her to see Ian, standing by the window, looking out. He wore only his slacks, and his arms were crossed over his chest, as if he was cold. He looked to be very deeply wrapped up in his own thoughts.
Bailey slipped out of bed and walked toward him, wondering what was bothering him. What she could do to help.
He turned at her movement. He stood very still as she approached.
“Ian?” she asked, reaching out to touch his arm. “Are you all right?”
He let out a long, deep breath. “You’ll think I’m being foolish.”
“No. Tell me.”
“I was afraid you’d wake up… and you wouldn’t see me,” he admitted, his voice rough. “That I would reach for you…and you wouldn’t even know I was here.”
There were those pesky tears again. She blinked them furiously away and forced herself to smile as she stepped into his arms. “You won’t get away from me that easily, Ian Cameron,” she murmured. “I’ve brought you back, and I’m going to keep you.”
His arms locked around her, almost driving the breath from her lungs. “Bailey,” he said hoarsely, hiding his face in her hair. “I love you.”
She held him tightly. “I love you, too, Ian. Forever.”
WARM WATER CASCADED over Ian’s shoulders, slid down his chest and arms. Bailey followed one drop from his neck to his navel, marveling at everything she saw between. “I won’t ever get tired of looking at you,” she murmured. “I’ve never seen anyone more perfectly formed.”
Her compliment seemed to embarrass him. His cheeks reddened from more than the steamy water coming out of the shower head. He muttered something incoherent and very male.
Bailey smiled, testing his right bicep with appreciation. “Nice,” she purred.
He growled and looked down at her hand. Then went still. “I had a scar there.”
She lifted an inquiring eyebrow. “A scar? Where?”
“Here.” His left forefinger traced a path along his right arm, from his elbow almost down to his wrist. “I ripped my arm open on a sheet of jagged metal. OI’ Doc Cochrane had to sew it back up. It left a scar.”
She studied his flawless skin. “It isn’t there now.”
Ian lifted his right knee. “There was another scar here,” he said, pointing to his kneecap. “I fell on a piece of glass while playing tag with Anna.”
“You were an accident-prone child, weren’t you? But I don’t see any scars, Ian.”
He shook his head, leaning back against the tiled wall. “I don’t understand any of this.”
“Maybe we aren’t supposed to understand. Let’s just be grateful.”
He touched her face. “I am grateful. For you.”
She smiled and kissed his palm. “Good. Don’t ever change your mind.”
“Never.”
“You are going to marry me, aren’t you?”
He sighed. “Is it the women who propose marriage in your time, Bailey?”
“Our time now,” she reminded him. “And, yeah, sometimes they do. When they get tired of waiting for the men to get around to it.”
“You’ll have to teach me more about your rules,” he said lightly enough, but his eyes were troubled.
She searched his face. “You’re not going to turn out to be a male chauvinist or anything, are you, Ian? Because I warn you, if you expect me to be some mealymouthed little woman,’ I’m going to have to disappoint you.”
“I don’t understand half of what you just said, but I think I get the gist of it. I don’t expect you to be mealymouthed, Bailey. I’ve always admired your candor. But I’m still loath to be wholly dependent on you. I want to learn about your world. To make my own way.”
“Then you will,” she said steadily. “What do you want to do, Bran? Oh, sorry. I mean Ian.”
“Maybe you should keep calling me Bran. It’ll save a lot of uncomfortable questions. As for what I want to do, I’m an innkeepe
r,” he answered simply. “I always have been. But this inn isn’t mine now—to be honest, it never was. What do you think about finding a new place with me?”
“An inn?” She bit her lip, intrigued. “With your experience at managing an inn, and mine with antiques and computer bookkeeping, we should be able to make a go of it,” she murmured.
“Does that mean yes?”
She smiled and pressed her wet body to his. “Yes,” she said. “But let’s find a place where we won’t be in competition with Dean and Anna. Just to keep harmony in the family.”
“Good idea.” He quickly lost interest in business.
A few moments later, Bailey decided breathlessly that Ian was the one with the truly spectacular ideas.
“BAILEY?” Ian murmured later as she clung to him in the now-cool shower, gasping for breath.
“Mmm?”
“I’ll marry you.”
She smiled. “I know.”
BAILEY HAD JUST finished tying her sneakers when she heard a knock from the front of the cottage.
“Bailey? Bailey, are you in there? Damn, this place is a mess.”
Bailey stood with a gasp. “That’s Dean!”
Ian paused with one hand at the top button of his shirt. His dark eyes flared with a mixture of anxiety and anticipation. “They’re home,” he murmured.
Bailey was already halfway across the room. She unlocked the bedroom door and threw it open. “Dean!” she said, finding her brother standing in the mangled outer doorway. “What are you doing here? You aren’t supposed to be back for another week.”
“Anna had a feeling that we should come back early,” he said, scowlingly studying the vandalism of his newly finished cottage. “Looks like she was right. Aunt Mae and Cara just told us what happened while we were gone.”
Bailey stepped into his arms for a hug. “There are a few more things you need to hear,” she warned him.
He groaned. “I was afraid of that.”
“Oh, this is even worse than I imagined,” Anna wailed, stepping into the cottage and surveying the mess with appalled eyes. “I wish I’d been here when that terrible man showed up. I’d have given him a piece of my mind.”
“Why in the world did you stay out here alone last night?” Dean asked, looking at Bailey in bewilderment. “Aunt Mae and Cara couldn’t understand why you wouldn’t take a room in the inn.”
So Mark hadn’t told them that she hadn’t been alone.
Bailey cleared her throat. “I, er, didn’t spend the night by myself,” she explained. “Someone was with me.”
Looking bewildered, Dean frowned. “Someone? Who?”
“Congratulate me, Dean. I’m in love.”
He sighed, and appeared to brace himself for the worst. “Okay, who is he?” he said. “Really, Bailey, I hope it’s not another—”
Anna cut him off with a choked cry.
Knowing what Anna must have seen, Bailey turned toward the bedroom door.
Ian stood there looking at his sister. His dark hair tumbled over his forehead. His dark clothing was wrinkled. There was a bruise at the corner of his mouth.
Bailey thought he had never looked more handsome.
Anna must have agreed. She covered her mouth with her hands, and her eyes filled with tears. “Ian?” she whispered.
He took a step toward her. “Hello, Anna.”
“Oh, my God.” She threw herself at him. Her hands were all over him as she feverishly convinced herself that he was real, that he was here, that he was alive.
“Oh, my God,” she kept saying, over and over. “Ian!”
He pulled her into his arms and hid his face in her hair, the same glossy dark color as his own.
Her own eyes damp again, Bailey leaned her head against her brother’s shoulder.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Dean breathed. “He’s come back.”
“For me,” Bailey told him with a beaming smile. “I love him, Dean. And he loves me, too.”
Dean shook his head. “I never even imagined—”
“There were some things you neglected to tell me about your wife, weren’t there?” she asked him a bit too sweetly. “Can you imagine what I’ve been through for the past couple weeks?”
“Oh, yeah,” he said fervently. “Trust me, I understand. If I’d had any idea that you and he—” He shook his head. “I don’t know why I’m so surprised. I should know by now that there are no rules.”
Bailey laughed softly. “That’s what I’ve decided. Isn’t it wonderful?”
Dean looked at his wife’s glowing face. “You won’t ever hear me complain.”
Anna flew across the room and threw her arms around Dean’s neck. “It’s Ian!” she said. “Dean, it’s Ian. And he’s alive!”
Dean laughed and hugged her. “I know, darling.” Tucking her into his left arm, he held out his right hand to Ian. ‘It’s good to finally see you.”
Ian took his hand warmly. “It’s good to be seen.” He released Dean’s hand and pulled Bailey to his side. “I hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to marry your sister.”
“I don’t mind. We should definitely keep this in the family, I think.”
Anna clapped her hands in delight. “You’re getting married? Ian, you’re in love with Bailey?”
There could have been no misinterpreting the smile Ian gave Bailey. Her knees almost melted with the sheer beauty of it. She clung to his arm.
“I love her,” he said deeply.
“And I love him,” Bailey asserted, her voice trembling.
“Mother was right,” Anna whispered. “We both found true love. Charles couldn’t keep us from it.”
“Bailey found our mother’s diary, Anna,” Ian told her. “We’ll read it together, shall we?”
“Oh, man,” Dean muttered, running a hand through his hair. “I don’t even want to think about when our kids want us to help them draw a family tree.”
Anna laughed. “Remember our pact, darling. We don’t dwell on the past, and we don’t worry about the future. We savor the present.”
He smiled and kissed her. “I forgot. You’ll have to remind me occasionally.”
“Gladly.”
“Looks like I’m going to have to contact those disreputable acquaintances again,” Mark Winter commented as he strolled through the front doorway, his deceptively lazy green eyes focused on Ian. “In need of more forged papers, Dean?”
“Most likely,” Dean agreed with a crooked smile. He shook Mark’s hand. “What are you doing here so early?”
Mark looked a bit dazed. “I stopped by to ask Cara out for a date.”
Dean sighed. “Again?”
“Yeah. And, Dean? This time, she accepted.”
Dean laughed and cuffed his friend’s shoulder.
Bailey smiled up at Ian. He covered the smile with his lips.
Forgetting the others, Bailey kissed him back, thinking happily of love and miracles and very special wishes. And knowing that her own had just been granted.
February 14, 1912
I was able to have dinner with the family this evening, to celebrate the children’s birthday. Gaylon carried me to the table. I’m grateful to him for the excellent care he has given me these past difficult months. I know Charles resents the time his father spends with me.
Ian and Mary Anna are sixteen. Almost grown now. I am thankful that I had this much time with them, though I will not be with them much longer. I grow weaker by the day. Even sitting at the dinner table for an hour has exhausted me.
I can’t write long, and my handwriting is growing illegible. Yet I want to complete this one last entry. Someday, my children will read these words, and I want them to know that my last days were not unhappy ones. That my last thoughts were of them.
James came to me in my dreams last night. I told him how reluctant I am to leave our children. They still need me so much. I want to know that they will be happy. James told me that he was very proud of me for the way I’ve raised them. That he kn
ows I have done my best for them. Even my marriage to Gaylon—he understood that I thought it was best for the twins. At least they will have someone to guide them during the remainder of their youth. I won’t be leaving them alone.
James assured me that I needn’t worry. Our children will be fine, he said. They will each find love. Precious, lasting, lifelong love that will bring them great joy and many years of happiness. James laughed when he told me that their love will come to them in a way that I could not even understand now. It was so good to hear his laughter again.
He is waiting for me. He told me that he grows impatientfor me to join him. Now that I know our children will be happy, I find myself eager to go. I’ve missed James so desperately. Being with him again is all I could ask for myself now.
I’m very tired. I shall close now. I don’t expect to write again. Ian, Mary Anna, if someday you find this book and read my words, know that I love you. That I have always loved you. That I always will. Tell your children about me. Love them as I have loved you.
Be happy, my darlings. Someday we will be together again.
With all my love, Mother.
eISBN 978-14592-7830-1
A WISH FOR LOVE
Copyright © 1996 by Gina Wilkins.
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All characters in this book have no existence outside the Imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure Invention.