He adjusted himself more comfortably on her, taking his weight on his elbows and stroking wet hair back from her face.
‘You’re not letting me up?’ She squinted.
He smiled again. Two in thirty seconds: world record. ‘I told you chivalry was locked in the barn for the next year.’ She frowned her confusion and he took pity on her.
He took a deep bracing breath. ‘I was looking for a reason not to love you, Bel.’
She blinked, her eyes widening.
‘My feelings were so easy to keep corralled on a day-to-day basis, but then you asked to stay and I … I panicked. I overreacted. I shoved you away.’
She sucked in a tight breath. All she could manage under his warm weight.
‘I’ve had a few days to think about what you said, about what it means. For me.’
She blinked up at him.
‘I was desperate for something to fail you on, Bel. The spoiled princess who stole my brother from me. But you came here and were so not what I expected. You fitted in immediately, you worked hard, you did all the right things with the pregnancy. You were beautiful and sexy and one hundred and ten per cent the wrong person for me, yet I still found myself totally entranced.’
She forgot all about the ice numbing her bottom.
‘Even while I was taking you in my arms at night—in fact, particularly because I was—I was always watching for a reason we couldn’t be together and kept finding none. Nothing reasonable. So I started fabricating reasons to keep my feelings at arm’s length. Your sister. Your relationship with Drew. I was just waiting for that other shoe to drop and for life to deliver the blow I knew was coming.’ He stared at her. ‘And then it finally did. In the worst imaginable way.’
The tears prickled back and threatened to freeze where they pooled.
‘The woman I loved only wanted me to keep the babies. I can’t tell you how that felt. How many old hurts and fears it fed off. I was destroyed. I wasn’t listening and I certainly wasn’t hearing you, Bel. I’m sorry.’
She just shook her head fractionally.
‘And then I used the custody declaration to destroy you right back. Apparently, that’s the man I now am.’
Desire to protect him—defend him—surged through her. ‘You were angry. Upset.’
‘I was a jerk. A-class.’
‘Well … yes … But no one’s perfect.’ Except he was perfect for her.
His eyes clouded over. ‘Perfection is hard to live up to.’
The urge to protect him from any more hurt swamped her. From the lofty vantage point of a woman in love with the better man—the best of men—it only served to show her how deep her love for Flynn truly ran. And how visible she’d felt since stepping onto that flight with him.
‘You were right when you said Drew wasn’t perfect, Flynn. He made mistakes, lots of them. But he tried to learn from them.’ She tilted her head and wished her arms were more free to wrap around him because what she was going to say might hurt. ‘I think him being so loving and warm and inclusive of me was his way of … making up … for how wrong he got it with you.’ She touched his face. ‘I think he might really have regretted how badly he handled himself when he was younger. And he was determined to get it right the second time around.’ She took a breath. ‘I think maybe you two could have found a better place again if he’d had a bit more time.’
Flynn stared at her, wide-eyed. Still cautious. Still protecting himself. ‘You believe that?’
‘I do.’
Bad choice of words, it only brought their wedding back into crashing focus. But, as she said the words, something shifted in him visibly. He filled his lungs with frigid mountain air and squeezed her hand. ‘As far as I’m concerned, Golden Boy stuffed up at least once, big-time.’
‘When?’
His warmth rained down on her from eyes so like the twins’, bored right down into her soul. ‘He picked the wrong sister.’
Bel gasped, the sudden hope doing laps in her system immediately warring with her instinctive need to protect herself. Her heart.
His eyes grew soft. ‘I should thank him,’ Flynn murmured. ‘For keeping you safe for all those years. For making you feel valued. Until I could find you.’
Her eyes swam with tears again. ‘I didn’t think you felt—’
‘I saw it happening, Bel. I was right there with you, experiencing the thing between us taking shape. Growing out of control. I fought it, every single day.’ He tucked her freezing hands into his woollen shirt. ‘Yet still I talked you into my bed and convinced myself I could have my cake and eat it: have you in my bed but not in my heart.’
He blew on her hands, then lifted his eyes to hers. ‘I was wrong. Your image is engraved on my heart. Your smile is what keeps it beating and your kisses stop it cold.’
Love swelled up and threatened to choke the air right out of her. ‘Then why …?’
‘I couldn’t conceive of a woman like you picking a man like me to love. An ex-felon. A man who drove his family apart with resentment. I was so certain you’d wake up one morning and realise the inexplicable attraction between us had run its course, that you’d tire of second best.’
‘Never.’
‘I believe that. Now.’
‘And the attraction hasn’t waned.’ She glanced down his body where it pressed so close to hers. One particularly firm place. She smiled. ‘For either of us, it seems.’
His eyes never left hers. ‘Really? I have no idea. I’ve been numb from the chest down for the past ten minutes …’
Bel had never imagined in her wildest dreams that she would laugh today. But one burbled out of her and spilled into the air, melting the frost in its path. Flynn took the opportunity to capture her smiling lips in a searing kiss which went some way to heating her icy body. She slid her hands up behind his neck, his head, and kissed him back on a half-sob.
Another thing she’d thought she’d never get to do again.
‘I love you, Flynn,’ she risked. ‘But I don’t know if I have the stamina to keep proving it to you.’
His eyes met hers seriously. ‘You don’t need to prove anything, you just need to be you.’
She wept, deep down inside. How long had she secretly wished for someone to love her just the way she was? Not who they wanted her to be, not who they thought she should be with time and attention. Her—Bel Rochester. The woman she already was.
‘Besides, it’s me who has something to prove. So that you’ll believe how much I love you back.’
Love—present tense.
Relief and joy and passion and laughter all scrambled for pole position, racing through her bloodstream, exciting her senses as Flynn lowered his mouth to hers again. They kissed as though it was the first time, as though they weren’t both half-frozen from exposure. As though their world hadn’t imploded just minutes before.
That thought slowly dragged Bel from the drugged heaven of his lips.
‘What about your family? They don’t want me here,’ she whispered close to his mouth.
‘It’s been a day of shocks all round; they didn’t handle themselves the best. But then neither did I.’
He dragged his icy nose back and forth across hers.
‘What are you doing?’
‘The Bunyip’s Reach mating ritual. I’m marking you as mine.’
Her lips cracked in a chilly approximation of a smile at the ridiculous act. ‘Mmm … sexy.’
His eyes grew serious. ‘You are the wife of their son and the mother of their grandchildren. We will work through whatever issues my parents have with how this whole thing has evolved.’
‘And if we don’t?’
‘If we don’t, we’ll leave. Start our own place.’
‘I don’t want to rip your family apart, Flynn.’
‘You wouldn’t be, they would be. Besides, we have our own family to start worrying about. Twin boys are not going to be a piece of cake to raise. Not with Bradley genes thrown in.’
An iridesc
ent heat spread through her. ‘They’ll be fantastic boys. And they’ll love and protect their younger brothers and sisters.’
‘More children—already?’
‘Just planning ahead. Someone has to help us run the property.’ She kissed his frosty lips. ‘Or it could just be an excuse to get you into bed. I assumed you’d be dead keen on that part.’
‘Gaggingly keen, believe me. After eighty-seven nights of chivalry, I’m ready for a little debauchery.’
‘You counted?’
His eyes grew sombre. ‘To the minute.’
‘Well, do you think we should get out of this snow before anything we’ll need gets frostbite?’
‘God, yes. I think there are some sleeping boys who’ll be happy to have their mum back, too.’
He shuffled inelegantly backwards and pushed himself onto numb haunches, before pulling Bel carefully onto her feet. Behind them the door to the homestead opened, warm orange light pouring out, and Alice emerged onto the porch holding Bel’s favourite alpaca quilt open in wide arms.
Welcoming arms.
Forgiving arms.
And in that moment Bel knew that there was nothing she couldn’t face with this man at her side, those babies in her arms, and the fiercest nan she’d ever known at her back.
All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.
All Rights Reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II B.V./S.à.r.l. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.
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® and TM are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.
First published in Great Britain 2012
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited,
Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR
© Lois Faye Dyer 2011
© Nikki Logan 2012
ISBN: 978-1-408-97041-6
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
Beauty and the Wolf / Their Miracle Twins Page 34