by Mary Buckham
"Do you want me to start at the top of the list or just hit the highlights?" His own voice sounded testy, frustrated.
She tried to pull out of his grasp but he wouldn't let her. The roses fell to the floor.
"Isn't it a bit pointless to discuss any of this?" she sliced at him with her cool tone. "You did what you had to do. You obviously accomplished your mission or you wouldn't be here."
"I hurt you." More than he ever wanted. It kept him awake at night. Kept him from finding any semblance of peace. "I never meant to hurt you. It happened, but it didn't mean I wanted it to happen."
"I know." The words fell like ice crystals—splintered facets of fragility waiting to dissolve.
She knew? But wouldn't forgive him?
He almost gave up right then and there, until he noticed her hands. Maybe by instinct, or desperation, he glanced at her hands and felt the first inkling of hope since he'd seen her. Her words might be overly calm and aloof, but her hands, pleating the plain fabric of her skirt, were anything but.
He pulled her closer, willing her to look at him.
"There's something else I needed to tell you." He saw her brace herself as if for a blow and wondered if he was doing the right thing. But if he never once said the words, never once took the risk, neither one of them would ever know what might have been. "I want us to be together, Jane. To start fresh, with the past behind us."
Jane had thought she couldn't hurt anymore, couldn't feel through the numbness that had encased her since she had awakened on a private jet—alone except for one of Lucius's faithful team members who gave her no more information than that she was on her way back home and the effects of the drug given her to make her appear dead would wear off after a few hours.
Well, they hadn't. The coldness had remained. The sensation of things not being quite real had persisted. The feeling of utter hopelessness had weighed down upon her until she had wanted to break with the bending. Until now.
"Don't." She held her hands before her as if to ward off a physical attack. "Just don't…"
His features looked as anguished as she felt. But that wasn't possible. He'd made his choices months ago.
"You lied to me." She hated that it sounded like a whimper, but she knew she couldn't survive hope again. "You used me and let me believe I was going to die."
"I know. I know. Every day I've gone over and over what other options I had available. What else I could have done."
"You knew it was Elena behind the attacks."
"I guessed Eustace was involved. But I knew there had to be someone else. When Elena walked through the door so much finally made sense. But all the time I was hoping to get you away before I had to resort to using the drug."
"Why didn't you let me know?"
"If I had let you know you would never have been as convincing as you were." His words fell like leaden weights. "Elena had to believe you were dead. That I would kill you or she would have done it herself. I couldn't risk that. I couldn't risk you."
She stepped back. This time he released her, letting his arms fall to his sides. Why was he forcing all the pain she'd begun to bury back to the surface? Why couldn't she just hate him and be done with it?
"Jane?" The word sounded like a plea. But this man was not the one who had begged for his life. She was. "You've got to understand that deceiving you, hurting you that way was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life."
Hadn't she known that even then? Known that if he killed her he'd also be killing a part of himself? She'd worried about it then, when she was facing death, but she hadn't thought what acting as if he'd killed her would have cost him. Was costing him if she gauged the deepness of the creases around his eyes, the tension radiating from his body. Is that what he'd meant in saying that if she'd loved him she should have trusted him? Trusted her own realization that he'd never hurt her?
She hadn't let herself see beyond her own feelings of betrayal, of pain, to think that he, too, might be hurting.
Suddenly she felt too tired to deal with any of it. She was on her home turf now. Safe. Secure. Boring, yes, but the intrigues that surfaced at the library involved abusing break time or petty insults exchanged, not lives lost and hearts broken.
She'd had a choice once. Not much of one, but he had given her a choice. Now she had another one. Stay in her safe, sane world, or step out on an impossibly shaky limb with Lucius McConneghy.
"Does it make any difference what you did and why?" she said at last.
The words hung between them until he stepped forward, his hands shoved into his pockets, his expression as intense as it had been on the night they'd first made love. "Yes. It does make a difference. It can—if you'll let it."
"Have you forgotten that I'm still a Sioux Falls librarian and you're from an obscure department in an obscure corner of the Pentagon?"
"Not anymore."
"What do you mean?"
"I quit."
He was doing it all over again, tilting her world on end, one sentence at a time.
She looked at him, really looked at him, wondering if she'd heard him quite right. "What do you mean you quit?"
"I mean I turned in my letter of resignation, cleaned out my desk drawers and walked away."
"Why?"
It was his turn to stare at her, his features softening, the smallest of smiles touching his lips. "I didn't want to make my wife a widow. I didn't want her to deal with the McConneghy tradition even for one day."
"Your wife?" She knew she sounded addle-brained but that wasn't unusual around him.
"I assumed you'd want to get married." He gave a small shrug. "Though I'd be willing to live together. At least until our firstborn is due to arrive. Which I hope happens as soon as we can make it happen."
"Our firstborn?" Now she was downright stuttering.
"Of course." He stepped beside her, reaching out to pull her to him again. "I always thought three was a good number but we can have more or less if you want."
"This isn't real." She could only stare up into those gray eyes she'd once thought cold. "You're not real. I don't know why you're doing this but I want you to stop."
"Not until you say yes." He shook her, ever so gently, as if wakening her from a long sleep. "I want you in my life, Jane. I need you in my life."
"But…"
"But?"
The old Jane might have buckled. Taken what he was offering and been happy. But it wasn't enough. Not anymore. Plain, ordinary, everyday Jane she wasn't. Not anymore.
"It's not enough," she said, shaking her head.
He looked stunned, but she held her ground. This was too important to give up on. Way too important.
Suddenly he grinned and his voice sounded raw with emotion. "I love you, Jane. I love you until I ache with it. You are the best thing that's ever come into my life and I hurt you. I won't ever forgive myself for that. For what I put you through. But I still think we have a chance. If you'll let us."
Did she dare trust him? Trust his words?
"I love you, Jane Richards. Only you." He said it with the solemnity of a vow and she could feel her heart begin to beat again. "I'll always love you. I want to build a life with you, a good life, with children and cats and dogs and gray hairs and rocking chairs."
She thought he meant it.
He wrapped her in his arms as if afraid she'd bolt. She could hear the beat of his heart beneath her cheek, inhale the scent that was only his. "You're the strongest, bravest, most giving woman I've ever met."
Was he talking about her?
"You're beautiful and kind, your smile lights all the corners of a room and your kisses make my knees weak."
He thought of her like that?
"I want to wake up next to you every morning and go to sleep next to you every night."
"And you want to get married?"
"As soon as we can."
It was true then. It really was. She wanted to pinch herself to make sure it was real.
She heard the sound of laught
er and hand-clapping coming from behind the nearest stack of books.
"You go, girlfriend," Marion shouted. Followed by Sue. "This is so much more romantic than some dumb princess in some faraway place."
Jane simply looked up into gray eyes. Loving, caring, smiling gray eyes.
"Friends of yours?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Then we'd better ask them to the wedding."
He didn't wait for a response. But she heard more clapping erupt as he bent to kiss her.
Then she knew it was real and that it would last a lifetime.
* * * * *