She didn’t see a gangplank or even a board that she could use to get on the boat, so she picked up some pebbles and threw them at first one window, and then another. After about five minutes, when her arm had begun to tire, he stepped out on the deck and yelled, “Cut it out.”
For a second she merely let her eyes feast on him as he stood there barefoot in a pair of tan shorts and a white T-shirt, scowling in displeasure. He turned to go back inside, and she called to him.
“Jake. May I come aboard? Please. I have to see you.”
He whirled around and balanced himself against a post, as if groping for strength. “Allison. Where did you—”
“Jake, please hear what I have to say.”
He gazed down at her from the distance as if making sure she was not an apparition. “Wait a minute.”
He put in place a wooden plank, held out his hand, and waited for her to join him. “Don’t be nervous,” he said. “I’ll catch you if you fall.”
With those words ringing in her ears, the trip up to board the small yacht no longer unnerved her. She reached the boat, and he took her hand. She didn’t know how long they stood in the spot staring at each other. She wanted to touch him, to hold him, but how could she?
Finally, in an effort to break the silence, she said, “I brought you some crab cakes and buttermilk biscuits.”
At last, a smile covered his face and he took her hand, went with her inside, and closed the door.
“Did you come just to bring me these?”
She shook her head and didn’t move her gaze from his. “I called your mother because I had to know where you were and how you were. She invited me to come see her, and I arrived this noon.
“If I asked forgiveness, Jake, it would be a lie. What I’m asking is whether there can be anything for us. I’m sorry that I hurt you. I’ve been in pain ever since you walked out of my house.”
“Let’s go in here and sit down,” he said. “I didn’t expect ever to be here with you like this, although I’ve wanted it badly. Needed you like... I went over what you told me about Farr and yourself maybe fifty times. I called Duncan and asked if he remembered it. He did; he said the press ‘horsewhipped’ you, and that he was pleased to know that you were working with me, because I wouldn’t compromise you. He recognized you, but he wouldn’t have mentioned it if I hadn’t broached it to him.
“I couldn’t ask you to withhold information, because I would have done what you did.”
“But... Oh, Jake. It cost you so much.”
His eyebrows shot up and his left hand fingered his chin. “Haven’t you been reading the papers?”
“No. I haven’t looked at a paper since I saw that exposé in The Post. I read the first sentence and threw the paper away.”
“Then you don’t know that I’ve resigned my job, and I’ve been appointed scholar-in-residence at State University?”
She nearly swallowed her tongue. “What?”
When he repeated it, she jumped out of her chair with her arms widespread, and he rose to meet her. “Thank God,” she said over and over. “I’m so happy.”
Until his arms tightened around her, being locked in them didn’t register, so great was her relief and her joy that he wouldn’t suffer because of her.
His hand moved up and down her back in gentle strokes, and she leaned back and looked into his face. “Jake. Jake!” she said, when her gaze caught his passion-filled eyes. With a violent shudder, his mouth was on her. Frissons of heat plowed through her, and the thumping of her heart turned into a mad gallop like the sound of wild horses’ hooves.
“Open. Let me in,” he said. “Oh, Allison, let me love you.”
She stepped back. “Jake, I came here to deal with my future, not to patch up our relationship, but to ensure it. I don’t want a little bit of you. I need all of you from now on.”
He sat down and settled her in his lap. “For four years, I was an undercover agent for the government—I can’t tell you which department—then I took on another, top-secret job. I was on leave for my book tour, but my boss at the department called on me whenever he needed me. I couldn’t share it with you or anyone. At the end of our cruise, you saw me facilitate the capture of a woman and two men who had shared our table. If you value my life, you will never breathe a word of this.
“You know why I didn’t tell you about Mac. He’s a part of my life that is as essential to me as breathing. I’ll still be on that stage every Friday and Saturday night that I can get there.”
She tightened her arm on his shoulder. “But what about the university trustees?”
“They wanted me to give it up, but I held to my rights, and they accepted me without restrictions. If you hadn’t published that story, all this may never have happened.”
“I’ve got some good news, too.” She told him about her new position.
“Now it’s my turn to rejoice with you. I read your piece, and it impressed me that you are a fine writer. You don’t know how glad I am that you’re working once more for a first-class paper.”
“I’m hungry,” she said. “Can we warm the crab cakes and biscuits?
“Yes, indeed. I’m having a beer with mine.” He looked at her. “What would you like?”
“Well...there’s my favorite food, but seeing as how my favorite man—”
He held up both hands, palms out. “Hold it right there. One thing you never want to do is compete with crab cakes.”
* * *
Nearly two hours later, he separated his body from hers and looked down into her face. “I had planned to say this while on one knee, but you’ve robbed me of every ounce of energy. I don’t think I can move. Allison Wakefield, will you be my wife, and marry me soon?”
“I will. Oh, I will, but I need at least a month to—”
“Make it two weeks.”
“But what about my friends and my family? Edna Wakefield will have a fit.”
“I’ll email your friends. If you tell your mother you’re marrying a writer, she’ll lose interest.”
“Heavens,” Allison said, laughing with happiness. “I didn’t know you’d met her.”
They laughed and hugged each other until moisture wet their cheeks.
“We came so close to losing this,” he whispered.
“Yes. It frightens me to think of it.”
* * *
Two weeks and three hours later, Edna Wakefield buttoned the last of the tiny pearl buttons in the back of Allison’s ivory satin and lace wedding dress. No daughter of hers was going to be married in a courthouse by a justice of the peace, she told Jake. The tiny church, which sat in the woods of a Vermont hamlet, was lighted with candles and decorated with white calla lilies. Lighted lanterns along both sides of the driveway approaching the church sparkled against the pristine white snow in which they sat.
At exactly 5:55 in the afternoon, the bells of the little church began to peal, Annie Covington took an aisle seat on the groom’s side of the church, and Edna Wakefield immediately followed and sat on the bride’s side of the church, a signal that the service would begin. Jake stepped to the altar with Duncan Banks, his best man, at his side. He turned to face the door, unwilling to wait any longer to see his bride. Connie walked in carrying yellow roses and wearing a pale yellow silk gown.
He stretched his neck looking for Allison, and at last she appeared walking between Sydney and her father, a vision in white and carrying his calla lilies.
“She’s a real beauty,” Duncan whispered.
Jake couldn’t help grinning. He needed an outlet for his joy. “Yeah, she is that.” He winked, deliberately that time. “So is Justine.” Duncan’s smile said he appreciated the comment.
“Who gives this woman to be wed?”
“We do,” said Sydney and Arnold Wakefield, Allison
’s father.
And then she was beside him, holding his hand, promising to love him forever, locking her gaze on his eyes as he spoke his vow to her.
“I now pronounce you husband and wife.”
Her smile, brilliant and sparkling, made his heart sing, and when his arms enfolded her, her lips, warm and sweet, returned his kiss.
“I love you, sweetheart.”
“And I love you, now and always.”
She took his arm, and they walked out of the church as their friends—Desiree and Rachel among them—tossed white rose in their path. Out of the church and into the rest of their lives together.
Finally, she was his wife. His for all time.
* * * * *
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ISBN-13: 9781460327166
LAST CHANCE AT LOVE
Copyright © 2004 by Gwendolyn Johnson-Acsadi
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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Last Chance at Love Page 27