What?
She reached forward and buried her face in his knees. “Because that was the moment when I realized that I’m in love with you. Not with Paul’s memory. Not with the idea of you as family, but with you, the man who questions everything. And knows the answers. The man who would give his life for those around him. Who never gets tired of fighting the good fight. The one who accepts the worst the world has to offer, and can still see the beauty, too. The one who is so loyal he puts his brother’s happiness before his own. Who is so honorable that, out of respect for his brother’s memory, he doesn’t speak up for himself even when he has a chance at a happiness of his own....”
He swallowed. Or tried to. His throat was so dry he could hardly breathe.
“And that realization scared you,” he said, his voice sounding as though he hadn’t used it in years.
“To death. How could I love you and not be disloyal to Paul?”
Exactly.
“And then it hit me, Scott. I’m not the same person I was all those years ago. Paul’s death showed me that absolutely nothing is a sure thing. All my life I’d thought it was my circumstances that made life seem so uncertain. But the truth is, life is unpredictable. Even Paul—reliable and loyal as he was—ended up leaving me alone.”
He didn’t know what to say.
“I don’t know how long I’d have run scared if not for tonight,” she said.
“What happened tonight?”
“William and Cecilia. That vow they made. The one William reminded Cecilia to keep. To not waste the future on things of the past. I suddenly realized that’s exactly what I was doing. I will always love my memories of Paul, but life has changed me.”
“And what does the new Laurel need?” Scott asked.
“You,” she said, looking him straight in the eye. “I need you.”
He’d always known that Laurel was a miracle. An angel sent from heaven to save the Hunter men. He’d never known, until that moment, that she was sent to save him.
Once that was made clear to Scott, he didn’t continue to question it to death. There would be more talk, more searching and analyzing. He knew that. It was his way. But he’d seen the light.
That was enough.
“And I need you,” he whispered, an unfamiliar moisture gathering in his eyes. “I love you, Laurel. God knows, I’ve never stopped....”
With an energy he shouldn’t have had, Scott pulled Laurel up off her knees and into his arms. He drew her against his heart, where, he promised the fates, he would keep her forever, cherishing with his very life the gift they’d sent him.
Laying her back on that big four-poster bed, Scott started to undress her slowly, his fingers trembling as they reached the buttons on her shirt. He’d never known such desire.
“I can’t believe it’s really you,” he whispered, leaning down to give her a long, convincing kiss. Convincing to him.
“It’s me,” she said. “And you, Scott. Me and you. I think a part of me has always known it was meant to be this way.”
Scott stopped and looked at her by the dim light of the bedside lamp. “You don’t mean that.”
“I do,” she said, and there was no doubting the conviction in her eyes. “You understand me,” she said. “We’ve always thought alike....”
“Yeah.”
“It kind of felt like we were meant to be together, you know?”
Scott could die right then and go to heaven a happy man. But because the fates allowed him to remain, he stripped off the rest of Laurel’s clothes quickly, before they reconsidered.
“You are everything I imagined you to be, and more,” he told her softly, reverently as he stared down at her nakedness.
“You’re embarrassing me.” She made no attempt to cover herself up, though.
“You love it,” he told her.
Her “Oh, yeah” sent him over the edge.
Scott kicked off his shoes, then stepped out of his pants and pulled off his shirt at the same time. He turned off the light and joined her on the bed, knowing firsthand what ecstasy meant as he felt her naked body against his own.
And then, as naturally as if they’d been doing so for years, her body opened to his, inviting him in, and Scott pushed himself into heaven.
“I love you,” he whispered as the first thrust took him deep inside her.
“I love you, too. Always,” she whispered, looking him straight in the eye as his body rocked in and out of her.
She was really his.
It was the last coherent thought he had that night.
* * *
LAUREL AND SCOTT made it downstairs before breakfast the next morning.
In between the lovemaking during what was left of the night, a lot of decisions had been made.
Laurel was going back to New York, but only long enough to turn in her story, quit her job and make the necessary arrangements to vacate her apartment and move her things to Cooper’s Corner.
And say goodbye to Shane.
He was a good man and deserved to have a woman love him as completely as Laurel loved Scott.
Maureen was outside playing ball with the twins, keeping them occupied, while Clint put the finishing touches on breakfast. Seeing Scott and Laurel, Maureen called to the girls to play by themselves for a minute, then ran across to the couple.
“Thank you.” she said, pulling Laurel into her arms. “I’m so relieved everyone’s okay.”
Laurel hugged the other woman back without any of the usual reticence she felt when being touched. She wondered if it was possible to be too full, to have dreams come true too much.
And decided that she was willing to spend the rest of her life trying to find out.
Keegan came around from the back and snagged the twins up, screaming and kicking playfully, one under each arm.
“I assumed when I saw your Blazer still here this morning that you two finally figured out you were meant for each other,” Maureen said softly.
“Yeah,” Laurel and Scott said, looking at each other lovingly. Laurel couldn’t help but remember just the night before when she’d been so envious of a similar look shared by William and Cecilia.
She thought of Leslie. The thirty-five-year-old woman was proof somehow that adopted kids could belong. Even if their birth parents made mistakes, they weren’t destined to be unwanted. It was something Laurel had needed so badly to believe.
In that second, with Scott’s arms around her and her new friend smiling on, Laurel’s heart was completely filled with the miracle of love for the first time in her life. And once felt, she knew it was something she’d never be without again.
She had a home. A man who loved her. Friends who would share life’s ups and downs.
She belonged.
* * * * *
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ISBN: 9781459250017
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