Irritation bloomed on his face. “I should have known you wouldn’t react the way I expected you to. You’ve always surprised me, so why should now be any different?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m trying to tell you that I was wrong. That I love you. That I want you—but if you’re not going to believe me why bother?”
“I didn’t say I didn’t believe you—” She broke off, stared up into his eyes and saw, along with sparks of exasperation, the love she’d always hoped to see. “You love me?”
“Now will you sit down?” he asked.
“I think I have to,” she said. She was shaking all over and her heart was pounding so quickly it sounded like a frantic drumbeat in her ears.
Once she was perched on the couch, Jack started pacing. He glanced at her and said, “You were right.”
“Always a good start,” she said. “Right about what?”
“Pretty much everything.” He paced away from her, then whirled around and came back. “I was hiding. Not just from pain, but from life. I didn’t really see that despite how many of you kept trying to tell me. I guess it’s not easy for a man to admit he’s been a damn coward.”
“I didn’t say you were a coward.”
“No,” he agreed, “that’s one thing you didn’t say. But it’s true anyway. Hell, Rita, seeing Kevin again, it shook me. Then the wedding, him and Lisa, you and me... It was like an overload or something. My brain just exploded.”
“So you told me to leave.”
“It seemed like the right thing to do at the time—”
She started to speak but he cut her off for a change.
“—but it wasn’t. Damn it Rita, I’ve missed you. Your voice, your scent, the taste of you. Hell, I miss that loud laugh of yours so much I keep thinking I hear it echo around me.”
“Loud?” she repeated.
He grinned. “Loud. And sexy as hell.”
Rita took a breath and held it, really hoping this was going to keep going the way she wanted it to.
“That day in the desert almost finished me and did a hell of a lot more to Kevin.” Jack stopped pacing, stared into her eyes and said, “But he got past it. Moved the hell on, found a life, while I was still stuck in the past, trying to rewrite history.”
“Oh, Jack.” She was glad to hear that he had done some thinking, but she hated hearing him put himself down like this, too. It was, she thought, the way of family. I can call my sister names but if you do it, we go to war. Well, that’s how she felt here, too.
“Just let me get all of this out, okay?” He pushed one hand through his hair. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking the last few days and last night, it all sort of came together.”
“How?” She needed to know. Needed to believe that this was all real and that somehow he wouldn’t go back down that dark road he’d been so determined to stay on.
“The dream came again.”
And she hadn’t been there to help him through it. Pain for what he’d been through chimed inside her as she pushed off the couch to go to him. “Jack...”
“No,” he said, smiling. “It wasn’t the same at all this time. In lots of ways. And it doesn’t matter right now. All that does matter is that I finally figured something out.”
She looked up into his eyes and for the first time, noticed that he seemed different somehow. There weren’t as many shadows in his eyes. He looked...lighter. As if at least a part of the burden he carried with him had slipped off. And that gave her hope.
“What, Jack? What did you figure out?”
“That I was an idiot. Telling you to go when I should have been begging you to stay.” His gaze moved over her face like a touch. “Hell, Rita, I should have been thanking the Fates for bringing you back to me and instead, all I could think about was if I loved you and lost you it would kill me.”
Tears blurred her vision but she blinked them back. She didn’t want to miss a moment of this. “So,” she said wryly, “to keep from losing me, you lost me.”
“Yeah.” He sighed. “Like I said. Idiot.”
“Agreed.”
He laughed shortly. “Well, thanks.”
“Hey, who knows you better than me?” She asked and reached up to smooth his hair back from his forehead.
“Nobody,” he said, voice hardly more than a whisper. He laid both hands on her shoulders and stared directly into her eyes when he said, “Forgive me, Rita. I was too messed up to see what I had. What I lost. I told you once that you had to leave before I loved you.”
“Yeah,” she said, the memory of that pain filling her. “I remember.”
“That was a lie, too.” He rested his forehead against hers. “I loved you the minute I saw you on that beach. When you smiled at me, my heart dropped at your feet. I didn’t want to acknowledge it and that’s the idiot part.” He slid his hands up to cup her face and wiped away a single tear with his thumb. “But my heart is yours, Rita. Always has been. I love you.”
She sucked in a gulp of air and held it. “Say it again.”
He grinned. “I love you. More than I ever thought possible to love anyone.”
“Jack...”
He frowned a little. “Is that an irritated sigh, or a dreamy one?”
Rita smiled up at him. “Dreamy. With just a little bit of irritation tacked on to the end for what you put us all through.”
“That’s fair,” he said, nodding. “Rita, I want to stay married to you. I want to raise our daughter and however many more kids we have together. I love you. Always will. I’m sorry I hurt you. Sorry I hurt my family. My friends.”
She reached up to cover his hands with hers. “I love you, Jack.”
“Thank God.” He sighed in relief. “You’ll never be sorry, Rita. I swear it.”
“I never was sorry, you dummy,” she said and went up on her toes to kiss him.
Jack took her mouth like a drowning man taking his first clear breath. She leaned in to him, wrapped her arms around his neck and held on as he picked her up and swung her in a circle, their mouths still fused together.
Finally though, breathless, he broke off and grinned down at her. “I love you.”
“Keep saying it,” Rita told him. “I want to hear it. A lot. In fact, I’m going to send Kevin and Lisa a thank-you card for inviting us to their wedding.”
“Oh!” Jack let her go long enough to walk to a table, pick something up and come back to her. “Hey, that reminds me. I brought this along for you to see. Kevin sent me an email this morning. I learned my lesson there, too, and opened it right away. Then I printed it.”
Rita’s eyes blurred again as she looked down at the picture of Kevin and Lisa, standing side by side. The picture was captioned “Got my new legs. I’m an inch taller than I used to be. Thanks again, Jack. For everything. Give us a call sometime.”
She looked up at Jack. “That’s so great.”
“Yeah, it is.” He took the picture, tossed it to the table again, then held her hands in his. “And one of these days, I’ll thank him for waking me the hell up in time to save the only thing that matters to me.” He cupped her cheek with one hand. “You, Rita. I love you.”
“I love you back,” she said and felt her world completely right itself and steady out. He’d been worth the fight. Worth the pain. Worth everything to get to where they were now.
Bending down, he kissed her baby belly and then stood up to face her. “You know I told you I’ve been doing a lot of t
hinking the last couple of days and I wanted to ask you something. How do you feel about naming our daughter Carla? After my mom.”
Rita’s heart melted. It was perfect. It was all so perfect. She stepped into his embrace. “I think I love it. You’re back, Jack. Really back, aren’t you?”
“Yeah.” He gave her a smile. “I’m finally home. You’re my home, Rita. I know that now.” His arms closed around her and she felt the steady thump of his heart beneath her ear. She had Jack. She had her daughter. She had everything.
The ship’s horn sounded and Rita jumped. “Hey, we’ve got to get off the ship before it sails.”
He only tightened his hold on her and laughed. “No, we’re not getting off.”
Confused, she stared up at him. “What do you mean?”
“Just in case you didn’t kill me,” Jack said, grinning, “I arranged for Gina to come to town to run the bakery for two weeks. My dad’s coming out of retirement to run the company and you and I are sailing to St. Thomas.”
“You can’t be serious,” she whispered, a little panicked, a little excited.
“Absolutely serious.”
“But, I don’t have any clothes...”
“We’ll buy whatever we need.” Then he kissed her and admitted, “But I’ll say I’m going to want you naked most of the time.”
Oh, boy. A tingle of anticipation set up shop low down inside her. But could she really just leave? On the spur of the moment?
“But—” Was this happening? When she woke up that morning, she’d been alone and afraid she would stay that way. Now, she had Jack, a dream vacation and the life she’d always wanted being handed to her. How could she keep up?
“Oh,” he said, that tempting smile curving his mouth again, “Gina said to tell you she had lots of ideas on how to ‘fix’ your bakery.”
Rita’s eyes narrowed on him. “Oh, you’re going to pay for that,” she promised.
“Can’t wait,” Jack said and bent to kiss her again. “You brought me back to the world, Rita. Let me show you some of it.”
And just like that, it was all right. She’d go with him anywhere.
“Show me, Jack. Show me everything.” Love shone so brightly all around them it was blinding, and Rita would never stop thanking whatever Fates had brought them back together.
“Come with me,” he said and dropped one arm around her shoulders, pulling her in close to his side as he led her out to the balcony. And there they stood, wrapped in each other’s arms, looking ahead as they sailed into the future. Together.
* * * * *
If you liked this story of pregnancy and passion, pick up these other novels from USA TODAY bestselling author Maureen Child:
DOUBLE THE TROUBLE
TRIPLE THE FUN
HAVING HER BOSS’S BABY
A BABY FOR THE BOSS
SNOWBOUND WITH THE BOSS
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And don’t miss the next LITTLE SECRETS story CLAIMING HIS PREGNANT BRIDE by Sarah M. Anderson.
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Read on for a sneak peek of DOWN HOME COWBOY by New York Times bestselling author Maisey Yates.
When rancher and single dad Cain Donnelly moves to Copper Ridge, Oregon, to make a fresh start with his teenage daughter, the last thing he wants is to risk his heart again. So why can’t he keep his eyes—or his hands—off Alison Davis, the one woman in town guaranteed to complicate his life?
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Down Home Cowboy
by Maisey Yates
“HEY, BO,” CAIN called, looking around the kitchen and living room area for his daughter, who was on the verge of being late for her second week on the job. “Are you ready to go?”
He heard footsteps hit the bottom landing, followed by a disgusted noise. “Do you have to call me that?”
“Yes,” he said, keeping his tone and expression serious. “Though I could always go back to the full name. Violet Beauregard the Walking Blueberry.” She’d thought that nod to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was great. Back when she was four and all he’d had to do was smile funny to get her to belly laugh.
“Pass.”
“I have to call you at least one horrifying nickname a week, all the better if it slips out in public.”
“Is there public in Copper Ridge? Because I’ve yet to see it.”
“Hey, you serve the public as part of your job. And, unless you’re being a bit overdramatic about how challenging your job is, I assume you see more than two people on a given day.”
“The presence of humanity does not mean the presence of culture.”
“Chill out, Sylvia Plath. Your commitment to being angry at the world is getting old.” He shook his head, looking at his dark-haired, green-eyed daughter who was now edging closer to being a woman than being that round, rosy-cheeked little girl he still saw in his mind’s eye.
“Well, you don’t have to bear witness to it today. Lane is giving me a ride into town.”
Cain frowned. He still hadn’t been in to see Violet at work. In part because she clearly didn’t want him to. But, he had assumed that once she was established and feeling independent she wouldn’t mind if he took her.
Clearly, she did.
“Great,” he said, “I have more work to do around here anyway.”
“The life of a dairy farmer is never dull. Well, no, it’s always dull, it just never stops.” Violet walked over to the couch where she had deposited her purse yesterday and picked it up. “Same with baking pies, I guess.”
“I have yet to sample any of the pie you make.”
“I’ll bring some home if there’s any leftover,” she said, working hard to keep from sounding happy. At least, that’s how it seemed to him.
“Are you ready to go, Violet?” Lane came breezing into the room looking slightly disheveled, Cain’s younger brother Finn close behind her, also looking suspiciously mussed.
A
bsolutely no points for guessing what they had just been up to. Though he could see that Violet was oblivious. If she had guessed, she wouldn’t be able to hide her reaction. Which warmed his heart in a way. That his daughter was still pretty innocent about some things. That she was still young in some ways.
Hard to retain any sort of innocence when your mother abandoned you. And, since he knew all about parental abandonment and how much it screwed with you, he was even more angry that his daughter was going through the same thing.
Though she was actually a little more well-adjusted than he’d been.
Sometimes he was almost tempted to take the credit for that.
“Ready,” Violet responded.
Even though it was a one-word answer, it lacked the edge usually involved in her responses to him. He supposed being jealous of his brother’s girlfriend was a little bit ridiculous.
“Have fun,” he said, just because he knew it would irritate her.
He had lost the power to make her laugh. To make her smile, with any kind of ease. So, he supposed he would just embrace his ability to irritate.
At least he excelled at that.
“Wait,” Finn said, walking past him and grabbing Lane around the waist, turning her and kissing her deep.
It was all Cain could do to keep from groaning audibly. Between his horndog younger brothers and his incredibly happy other brother he felt like sex was being thrown in his face constantly. Except not in a fun way that involved him having it.
Just him watching other people get it.
Lane and Violet left, and Finn walked back into the living room. “I’m going to marry that woman,” he said, the self-satisfied grin on his face scraping at Cain’s current irritation. He had a feeling he and Finn had the same smile. But it had been so long since he’d actually smiled it was hard to say.
“Have you asked her yet?”
“Not officially. But I’m going to. I want to spend the rest of my life with her.”
“That’s a long time. Trust me. Married years are different than regular years.” He had way too much experience living with somebody who didn’t even like him anymore. Way too much experience walking quietly through his own house so that he could avoid the conversation that needed to be had, or avoid the silence that seemed magnified when the two of them were in the same room.
Little Secrets--His Unexpected Heir Page 16