by Julie Miller
Alex and Eddie were there. And Josh. And little Mark. Crispy, too. There were handshakes and hugs and tears and smiles. And in the middle of all the chaos, a soft little voice was finally heard.
“I want you to be my daddy.” Meghan gasped in openmouthed shock. But it didn’t come close to matching the pride and humility and absolute love that shone in Gideon’s wide, startled eyes. Matthew blinked at her. “And you can be my mommy.”
Gideon hugged the boy tight in his big, sheltering arms. Despite the tears that glistened in his eyes, he was laughing. And while Meghan tried to absorb the miracle, Gideon turned those beautiful eyes to her.
“Sounds like a plan to me.” He reached out and stroked the tears from her cheeks with the backs of his fingers, holding the child safe and confidently in his left hand. “What do you say, Meg? I asked this once before. Will you marry me?”
Meghan sniffed. Her heart was breaking. Her heart was hoping. “But, Gideon, you know I can’t give you children. No matter how much we love each other, that will never change.”
He looked around the circle at each expectant expression. Alex. Eddie. Matthew. Mark. “We have four boys already. How many kids do you want?”
She was stunned, but no more so than the boys. “Are you talking about adoption?”
“I can’t see my life without you. And I can’t see my life without them. Make us happy.”
The chorus of proposals was sweet and loud and impossible to resist.
“Yeah!”
“Come on, Meghan!”
“You gotta marry us.”
“Mommy.”
She’d had more than her share of hard knocks in her life. She’d been denied happiness time and again. But she was no dummy. She simply smiled and said, “Yes. I’ll marry all of you.”
Meghan was reduced to that euphoric combination of tears and laughter by the time Gideon had swept her into his embrace and she was well and thoroughly kissed. She kissed each boy. She kissed Josh. Then Gideon handed Matthew over to Alex, took her into his arms and kissed her again.
Eddie voiced one of his typical questions. “Are you guys going to be doing that all the time?”
Meg tried to put some space between them and come up with an age-appropriate answer, but Gideon beat her to it. “Yes.”
She blushed. “Well, not—”
“Yes,” he corrected her, and hugged her close again. He looked at Eddie and shared a grin that was more like a kid’s than a thirty-six-year-old man’s. “In a few years, you’ll meet a girl and you’ll be wanting to do this all the time, too.”
Eddie’s answer was emphatic. “Ooh. Gross.” Having had his fill of romance, he walked away toward one of the ambulances, with Crispy trotting merrily at his heels. “I’ll tell Dorie what you guys are up to.”
Gideon laughed, but Meghan knew how to remind him of his place. “In a few years he’ll be a teenager, and we won’t want him to be doing that all the time.”
Gideon looked stricken. Fatherhood had responsibilities as well as joys. “Can I take that back?”
But Meghan laughed and circled her arms around his neck. “You wanted to be a dad.”
He nodded. “Yeah. But more than that, I want to be your husband.”
“These boys belong to my heart.” She touched his cheek and thanked God for her miracle. “Just like you.”
ISBN: 978-1-4268-6752-1
KANSAS CITY’S BRAVEST
Copyright © 2003 by Julie Miller
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