Never Too Late For Love

by Marie Ferrarella

  No he wasn’t. "You’re leaving for Florence," she reminded him.

  He meant what he said. "Not without you."

  "And if I don’t come?"

  He didn’t even hesitate for a heartbeat. "Then I don’t go."

  He looked as if he meant it, but it could all be just a bluff. Jack had sworn undying love just to get her to bed with him. "I had a job offer from DataLinc to go to France."

  The news felt like a sharp knife in his heart. "Turn it down."

  "And if I won’t?" She watched his face, his eyes, waiting for a glimmer of betrayal. "If I want to go to France?"

  If that was what she wanted, then that was what he wanted. "Then I’ll go to France with you."

  "And do what?" Margo challenged. Behind her, the surf roared, pounding the shore with foamy capped waves as a seagull screeched. calling to its mate. There was a storm coming, she thought.

  There was a storm already here.

  The answer came easily. "Make love with you by night. l figure that’ll more than compensate for anything I have to do by day to get by."

  She felt herself yearning to believe him, struggling not to. "You’d do that? Leave a company you’ve been with for years? For me?"

  One by one, he knocked down the obstacles. "Yes, yes and yes. Anything else?"

  She looked into his eyes and saw that he meant it. Really meant it. He was willing to make sacrifices for her and all he asked in return was that she marry him. It probably didn’t seem like such a huge sacrifice from where he was standing.

  From where she was standing, it felt like it was a sheer drop.

  But the beach was slowly getting closer.

  Margo twisted her fingers together. "You know, I don’t want to love you." She saw his eyes light up as hope entered them. "Tried very hard not to love you. But l don’t seem to have a choice in the matter." She pressed her lips together as a sob threatened to come out. "That’s what’s so scary I don’t have a choice."

  He reached for her. She didn’t have to make any confessions to him, not when they were so painfully difficult to her. He didn’t need her baring her soul, he just needed her to love him.

  "Margo--"

  She moved out of reach. lf he touched her, she knew she’d cry and she wanted to get this out. He needed to know.

  "Let me finish. Just before Melanie was born, I wrote to Jack, to let him know where I was. Part of me still thought that he would realize how much he really loved me and would come looking for me. The letter was sent back, marked 'Return to Sender.' It was in his handwriting. He hadn’t even bothered to open it. I was carrying his child and he didn’t even want to know if I was all right, if I needed anything. If the baby needed anything."

  There was a hot, dry feeling in her throat. She’d cried out her tears over Jack a long time ago.

  He listened, hating the man who had done this to her, who’d destroyed the young, loving girl she’d been. He vowed he would make it up to her.

  "I swore to myself that I was never going to be in that position again. I was never going to let a man be in charge of my heart." She turned around, raising her eyes to his. "If--if I give it to you--"

  He’d held himself in check long enough. Bruce took her into his arms. "I swear I’ll take good care of it."

  She took a deep breath. God, but it did feel good, having him hold her. Keeping the world at bay. She let herself absorb the feeling, savoring it.

  She raised her head, looking at him. "I can give you an answer to your proposal in seven languages, you know. Eight if you count the one I’m just learning." She was scared. Scared to say yes, but far more scared to say no and lose him. "Which would you like to hear?"

  The wind was toying with her hair, playing with the ends. He smoothed them back. "I don’t care, as long as the answer’s yes. Is it?"

  She threw her arms around his neck, embracing him, embracing love. "Si. "

  He grinned. "Italian, right?"

  Margo laughed. "You’re going to go far."

  "Lady, you have no idea," he promised her just before he kissed her.

  EPILOGUE

  Lance made no effort to hide his amusement as he watched his father re-tie his tie for the seventh time. "Were you this nervous when you married Mom?"

  Bruce shifted, glaring into the mirror within the small room. He could do this in his sleep, why couldn’t he tie this damn thing today of all days. Letting the ends drop, he tried again.

  "I don’t know. It was so long ago. Probably," he murmured, preoccupied. He was straining to listen for some sound that would tell him Margo had finally arrived at the church and wasn’t checking in at the local airport. "No, I knew where your mother was fifteen minutes before the ceremony started. She was in the church, getting ready." He yanked the ends in frustration. The tie drooped. "I have no idea where Margo is, or even if..."

  Standing behind his father, Lance took over. Two smooth movements later, the tie was in place. "She’ll be here."

  Bruce turned around to face his son. "I’d feel a whole better if that was her saying that."

  Lance paused, replaying the comment in his head. "There’d be no need for her to assure you of her coming if she were here, saying it."

  "Exactly." The slight knock on the door had his wide shoulders stiffening. He swung around, only to see Bess peering in. "Any sign of her?"

  Bess gave him a heartening smile. "Don’t worry, Bruce. She’ll be here."

  Margo’s face floated through his mind. Not when she finally agreed to his proposal, but before. When fears and insecurities had threatened to tear down what was being built up between them. He was a realist. "What if she’s not?"

  Unfazed, Bess, who was standing in the room, shifting her glance toward her nephew. "Then we’ll just have to hunt her down and shoot her, won’t we, Lance?"

  ·

  Lance grinned. "l think Melanie might have something to say about that." A large bang suddenly echoed through the chamber. The front doors of the church had been thrown open and then fell shut again. Lance looked at his father

  "Hear that? That’s the sound of a woman rushing to her own wedding."

  Bruce’s mouth curved. Thank God. "Better late that never."

  Bess patted his arm. Her brother was one in a million. "That woman’s got herself a great catch in you."

  Melanie rolled her eyes as she helped her mother hurried into the long white gown. The brocade skirt fell arrow straight to the floor. "You certainly like to cut things do to the wire, don’t you?"

  "lt wasn’t a wire, it was a garter." Margo could almost feel it hugging her thigh. She was almost surprised she could push the words out. Her throat felt so tight.

  Melanie stopped fussing with the skirt. "What?"

  "l was almost here when l remembered that l was supposed to have something old." Margo’s eyes met Melanie’s in the mirror. "You know, something borrowed, something blue, something old, something new. I doubled back to get this." Raising the skirt, she showed off the slightly faded, delicate blue and white garter. "Marlene Dietrich wore this in Destiny Rides Again. Aunt Elaine always teased me and said she wanted to give me that to wear if I ever finally walked down the aisle."

  As Melanie slipped the veil into place on her hair, Margo stared in the mirror as if she’d never seen the woman looking back at her. Her face was flushed with excitement. “You don’t think this is too much, do you? The dress I mean."

  "The dress isn’t too much." Standing behind her mother, Melanie slipped her arms around her waist and gave her a quick, heartfelt squeeze. She was so happy for her mother, she could cry. "It’s beautiful, just like you are, Mama. Every bride deserves to look gorgeous on her wedding day."

  "Wedding day," Margo echoed. It seemed incredible. "I was sure this day would never come for me."

  Melanie glanced at her watch. Show time. "That’s not all that’ll be coming for you if you don’t hurry out of this room. '˜The Wedding March’ is starting."

  Margo pressed her fingers to
her stomach, willing the fluttering to stop. It didn’t.

  When she didn’t move, Melanie very gently hooked her arm through her mother’s and drew her out of the room. "We can’t fit all the people in here, Mama. You’re going to have to go out to them."

  But for Margo, there was no "them," there was only Bruce.

  All through the long walk down the aisle, she kept her eyes trained on the man at the front of the church, the man who had come to rescue her heart from a cold legacy. The man she was going to spend the rest of her life with.

  She looked like a vision, floating toward him. Bruce could hardly believe that she was really here now, beside him. "What took you so long?" he whispered as she laid her hand on his arm.

  Together, they turned toward the priest. "I have no idea," she replied. "But I’m here now."

  He felt himself relaxing as happiness pushed aside the tension. "That’s all that counts," Bruce told her.

  And it was.

  * * * * *