Laura Drewry
Page 31
“Do you hate me?”
“What?” He laughed. “Why would you even think that?”
“I lied to you,” she answered meekly. “About the baby I mean, and . . .”
“Why didn’t you tell me before?” he asked softly.
“I wasn’t sure myself until you asked me that day and it was as if I just knew. I’m so sorry, Gabriel. Can you ever forgive me?”
“Tess,” he said, his voice like velvet. “I’m not going to lie to you, I was madder than hell when I first found out, but then I figured it out.”
“Figured what out?” she asked.
“You really love me.” He said it as though he had only just come to realize it. And apparently he had.
“Yes,” she breathed, snuggling closer. “I really do.”
“Tess?”
“Mmm?”
“Don’t ever do that to me again.” His voice was tight—almost as tight as the knot in his stomach.
Tess raised her head high enough to plant a million kisses along his jawline.
“I love you, Gabriel. I was trying to protect you,” she said. “I don’t know what I would do if something ever happened to you. I . . .”
“Don’t ever do that to me again.”
“But I was trying to keep you safe, don’t you see?”
“Don’t ever do that to me again.”
“Gabriel . . .”
“Don’t ever do that to me again.”
“Okay.” She laughed. “You win—even if the world is falling to pieces around us, even if you turn into a miserable old troll, even if . . .”
“Stop!” he cried, pulling her into his embrace. “Even if the world falls to pieces because I’m an old troll, I want you right beside me—not in front of me, not behind me. Beside me. You got that?”
“I got it,” she said. “I got it. And I want you right beside me—every day, every minute, every second of my life.”
“Deal.”
They lay in silence for a time, both marveling at their extraordinary good fortune. Tess’s mind kept drifting back to their baby. A more loved child there could not possibly be, and she suddenly had the urge to start preparing for his arrival. She probably had seven months or so before he was due, but one couldn’t be too organized.
She tipped her head back so she could look in her husband’s handsome face.
“What do you think we should name him?” she asked.
“Who?” he said, sounding more than a little sleepy.
“Our son, Gabriel. He’s going to need a name.”
“Our son?” he yelped, sitting up. His huge hand rested across Tess’s belly, bringing an enormous smile to his face. “This here’s a daughter, Tess, you mark my words. She’ll be as beautiful as her mother and as clear thinking and rational as her father.”
Tess laughed for the first time in days.
“Modest, too, I bet.”
“Of course.”
“But I’m afraid you’re wrong,” she said. “It’s a boy.”
“Girl.”
“Boy.”
“Tess?”
“Yes?”
“Shut up and kiss me.”
And for once in her life, Tess Kinley Calloway did as she was told without argument, without a second thought.
About the Author
Born the youngest of four girls, Laura quickly learned three important lessons: sisters are your best friends, always live in a home with more than one bathroom, and life is full of happy endings. And while Laura’s own life adventures have taken her from a small logging community in Southern British Columbia to the wilds of Canada’s arctic, she has always held fast to those ideas. She loves spending time with her family; made sure her home came equipped with two and a half baths; and continues to believe in, and write about, happy endings. She presently lives in the Northwest Territories with her husband and three sons.
www.lauradrewry.com
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Copyright © 2005 by Laura Drewry
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ISBN: 978-0-8217-7858-6