‘Jake, I—’
‘But I couldn’t accept that. Not then. But when I took Scott camping I began to wonder. I wanted to come back and settle things with Christy before I came to you again.’
‘To me?’ A ray of hope was dawning.
Jake shrugged. ‘I was embarrassed. I didn’t quite know how I was going to work things out. But I thought once I had, I could come back to you and impress you with a fait accompli.’ He grinned wryly. ‘The trouble was, by the time the fait was accompli, you were long gone.’
‘I ironed things out with Christy,’ he went on. ‘I have custody of Scott, but he spends one weekend a month with them in San Francisco, also a couple of weeks during the summer. I sent him up there for a week in October—sort of a good faith gesture, I guess. Before he left I thought I would die of missing him. But the longer he was gone I realised that he wasn’t the one I was missing. It was you, and I’d been missing you all along. I’m sorry.’
He stood like a statue then, his body as stiff and wooden as a cigar store Indian, waiting for her reaction. Only his eyes betrayed how uncertain he was.
Torey, always one to learn from past mistakes, flew to him, smiling like an angel as she tripped through the cow dung to throw her arms around him and whisper into his waistcoat, ‘It’s all right, Jake. It’s all right.’
He began to smile then, just slightly, as he bent his head, kissing her with a tenderness she had begun to think she had only imagined during all those weeks when he had been nothing more than a memory. Her fingers clenched on the soft cotton of his waistcoat, digging into the down, proving beyond a doubt that he was real—hard, lean and warm against her.
As he lifted his lips away he smiled again, so wistfully it tugged at her heart. ‘I know I can’t ever be to you what Paul was,’ he began carefully, his voice rough with emotion. ‘I—understand that. But if you still want to marry me, I love you so much I’ll take you any way I can get you.’
Torey lifted her eyes amazed. Had he finally said he loved her, after all? ‘What?’ she asked, wanting to be sure.
‘I wanted you to marry me because of me, not Scott,’ Jake said, his fingers biting into her woollen sweater. ‘But I’ll take you any way you’ll come.’
‘Jake,’ she said softly, touching her .fingers to his lips. ‘I don’t want another Paul. I loved him very much. But now I love you.’
It was Jake’s turn to stare.
Torey laughed. ‘Why did you think I proposed, Mr. Brosnan? Certainly not because I felt sorry for you! I might have told myself that was why I was doing it, but really it was pure selfishness. I loved you and wanted to marry you. I thought it was a God-given opportunity to get what I wanted and to make things right for you at the same time.’
‘Truly?’ Jake was looking at her incredulously, a marvellous happiness dawning on his features. ‘Oh Torey!’ he muttered, his voice cracking as he hauled her against him, wrapping his arms around her so fiercely she thought she’d breathed her last. ‘You really love me?’ He took a step back, searching her face to be sure.
‘Can’t you tell?’ Her fingers slipped beneath the waistcoat to rove over his flannel shirt, loosening the buttons and tugged the shirt tails out of his jeans.
‘I always knew you liked my body.’ He grinned as his hands made similar explorations under her heavy Aran knit sweater. Callused fingers were undoing the buttons of her blouse, teasing her sensitive skin as they did their work.
‘It was more than just your body,’ she assured him, though there was no doubt that it was pretty wonderful too. ‘It was your mind, your soul, every part of you. I was scared to death when I saw you in that airport. You were quite right about that.’
‘Am I that frightening?’ he chuckled, shivering under her touch.
‘Definitely. The things you did to my pulses were not to be believed. I was used to a love like I’d felt for Paul. Calm, steadying, glowing. But with you it was lightning from the start. The moment I saw you again, after seven long years, it was like being hit with a brick.’
‘You sure knew how to hit back,’ Jake said drily. ‘I thought you hated my guts, and frankly, remembering what you knew about me back then, I couldn’t blame you if you did.’
‘Oh, but...’
‘No, really. Everything you said about me was right on the mark. Once I’d left college and the midwest behind, I was a different man. Wild doesn’t begin to describe it. Every bit of sense my parents had pounded into me I gave up without another thought. God, was I an ass!’ He shook his head and Torey saw pain in his eyes as he remembered. ‘I guess it was Mick who made me see how destructive it was. After he died I grew up fast.’
‘You weren’t to blame for his death.’ Torey threaded her fingers in his thick hair and kissed him, wanting to give him comfort.
‘Not entirely,’ he agreed, his breath warm on her cheek. ‘But I had a part in it, and that’s something I’ll live with for the rest of my life. For a long time I think I put up with Christy’s bitterness because it was like punishment for my guilt. But then I saw it was hurting Scott more than me. So when she said she wanted a divorce, I didn’t fight it. I only wanted Scott and nothing else. At least until you came along.’
‘And I was such a paragon of sweetness and light,’ she mocked. ‘Screaming at you, berating you, hurling abuse. It’s a wonder you didn’t strangle me instead of finally just getting mad and yelling back.’
Jake grinned. ‘Your apology nearly knocked me off my feet. If you’d been Christy you’d have heaved a mug at me.’ He touched the scar above his eye. ‘That’s what this was.’
Torey shrugged. ‘Well, you were right. I was holding your past against you. I wanted to believe you were a rat. To defend myself, I guess. But after you so vividly called my attention to it, I had to think again. And what I thought was that you were tremendously attractive and maybe, just maybe, there was some reason for this incredible attraction I felt. So I decided to try and be friends. It was a start.’
‘You make it sound like a biology experiment,’ Jake teased, tormenting her breasts with his fingers so that she writhed against him. ‘And what, may I ask were your results?’
Torey swallowed hard, wanting the delicious feelings to go on and on. ‘I discovered that where there’s lightning, there’s fire! That day at the tidepools you nearly had me in flames.’ Not to mention now, she thought.
‘Me too. But coming home to find Christy quenched them fast enough.’ He rested his cheek on her hair. ‘I had wanted to ask you to marry me that day, to be the mother dragon in my life, but I was afraid it was too soon, what with Paul and such. Anyway, I thought we had lots of time. Then when Christy appeared I thought you’d interpret any proposal as just a means to keep Scott. I was afraid you’d think I was every bit as much a bastard as you’d imagined.’
‘Not then,’ Torey assured him. ‘I knew I was falling in love with you then.’
‘Well, I didn’t,’ Jake said. ‘And besides, there was Gino.’
‘Just a dear friend,’ Torey smiled.
‘He’d better be.’ Jake’s voice was ominous. ‘He makes me jealous as hell. He was as right for you as I was wrong.’
‘Not wrong, just unexpected. After Paul you weren’t what I had in mind.’ She grinned up at him, kissing the tip of his nose. ‘I never wanted to fall in love with a man who had women scattered about littering up his life.’
Jake hooted with laughter. ‘Women? What women? Where?’ He looked around the empty barn in amusement.
‘Lola?’ It came out tentatively, but she had to say it.
‘Lola?’ Jake looked astonished. ‘She’s just a kid. The sort of kid you were seven years ago. She needs a keeper too. Her mother is a friend of mine’s. You know what that’s like.’ He jerked his head towards the house, and Torey was reminded that his background of family and friends in Iowa were not unlike her own.
‘That’s all?’
‘Of course.’ He ruffled her hair.
‘She spent
the night with you.’
‘In Scott’s bed. Her roommates were having a wild party. I couldn’t leave her there. You know what I’m like.’ He grinned good-naturedly, and she poked him in the ribs, giggling.
‘Ah yes. St. Jake Brosnan, rescuer of damsels in distress.’
‘Damn right,’ Jake said. ‘But I’m the one in distress right now, my love. What are we going to do about it?’ He pressed her against his hips and she felt the extent of his distress.
‘Oh Jake, there are twenty-three relatives in the house!’
‘Twenty-five,’ he said. ‘I brought Addie and Scott. With so many there, they’d never miss us.’
‘Want to bet? If my mother knew you were coming out here, she’d give us twenty minutes and send out a search party.’
‘We can’t roll in the hay?’ he asked, burying his face in her hair.
‘Not today.’ She tugged on his head, turning it so that their lips met in a fiery kiss so hot and demanding that it shook her to her very core.
‘My God, you set me on fire,’ Jake rasped when they finally broke apart, dizzy and gasping, to stare into each other’s eyes with joy.
‘But of course,’ Torey whispered. ‘I’m a dragon.’
‘You certainly are. My dragon.’ He hugged her tightly, then tipped back his head and laughed.
‘What’s funny?’ she asked, sliding her arm around his waist and hanging the shovel on the wall as she led him out the door.
‘Just thinking about you taking inspiration from my books.’ Jake nestled her beneath his arm as he shut the door. They moved together through the gently falling snow towards the lighted house in the dim yard beyond. ‘Wait’ll you hear about the latest one.’
‘What is it?’ Torey’s hip was hard against his, blue jeans brushing as they measured their steps through the wet, clinging snow.
‘A picture book version of Cheaper by the Dozen.’
Twelve kids? Twelve! Torey’s jaw dropped, and Jake, grinning, took immediate advantage of the situation, turning her in his arms and kissing her, the amusement giving way to passion in his face.
Naturally Torey kissed him back, noting just before she closed her eyes and surrendered to the love they shared that the white-haired old lady and the little blond boy, not to mention the twenty-three other people standing in the window watching them kiss, heaved one giant, collective sigh of relief.
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