“Go away!” she cried over her shoulder.
“Can’t.”
Running abreast of her, Quint made a grab for her arm when she refused to stop. He caught her forearm. Ginny tried to pull away and they both tumbled to the ground, their bodies tangling as they went down.
Quint was quick to take advantage of the situation and got on top of her. He straddled her, his legs around both sides of her body so she couldn’t get away. Ginny squirmed beneath him, trying to throw him off. She tensed when she saw the slow, lazy smile that spread along his mouth.
“I don’t suggest you do that.” Leaning over, he caught her wrists to keep her from taking a swing at him. “Otherwise we’ll be facing a whole other problem if you keep wiggling.”
“Get off me,” she ordered.
He didn’t budge. “Only if you promise not to run off like that.”
She looked as if she was debating, weighing her chances of flight. His hands tightened on her wrists, pressing them against the ground. She was trapped.
Grudgingly, she nodded. “I promise.”
Quint was on his feet in a minute. Not about to take any chances, he kept one of her wrists prisoner. He didn’t feel like engaging in another footrace just yet. She might win this time.
“You know—” he pulled her to her feet “—for a lawyer you don’t act very logically.”
Ginny tried to yank her wrist free and got nowhere. “Why, because I should have fallen to my knees because you proposed?”
Did she really think he expected her to react like that? “No, because you went running off into the night like that.” He knew she didn’t know her way around. “Do you have any idea where you are?”
“No.” It cost her to admit it, even though they both knew that she didn’t have a clue where she was.
It took effort to contain his anger and not shake her. He could have lost her. Permanently. “Do you have any idea how lost you could have gotten in a matter of minutes?”
She turned away, brushing off her clothes. Her shoulder ached from where it had made contact with the ground. “I don’t need a lecture.”
His words enveloped her. “What you need is a man to love you.”
“Jumping into bed, right,” she bit off. “That’ll solve everything.”.
He turned her around to face him. “A man to love you,” Quint repeated, emphasizing the word love, “not make love to you. There’s a difference. One leads to the other, but the order’s the important thing here. Don’t get it confused.”
She raised her chin, tossing her head. “And you’re volunteering for the job?”
He nodded once slowly. “Hand raised high in the air.”
She refused to believe him. How could she? “To love me.” She said each word deliberately as if they were somehow obscure.
There was no hesitation. “Yes.”
She didn’t know what he was up to, but she wasn’t buying it. Pushing past him, she began walking away again. “Don’t do me any favors.”
“I figured it would be mutual.” This time the words, rather than Quint, stopped her. Turning, she looked at him sharply. “The favors, I mean.” Coming closer, he studied her face, looking for a clue. “What are you afraid of, Geneva?”
She squared her shoulders, on the defensive. “I’m not afraid.”
“Yes, you are.” She wasn’t going to talk or brazen her way out of this, lawyer or no lawyer. He wanted the truth. “You bolted off that hayride like a deer with the first smell of man in its nostrils at the height of hunting season.”
“I just wanted to get away from a crazy person. Fear had nothing to do with it.” She saw he wasn’t buying her explanation. “You’re imagining things.”
“Am I?” He was willing to hear her out if she’d tell him the truth. “Then why did you jump off the wagon and run blindly off like that? That spells fear in my book.”
Ginny didn’t give a damn about his book, she wanted what was left of her pride back. “Look, I don’t know why you just asked me—”
Maybe it was a joke or a bet he’d made with someone. Or maybe he just felt sorry for her, she didn’t know, but none of that was enough of a reason for him to have done what he’d done. Hinting that he was going to propose to her was just plain cruel.
“Don’t you?” He was as calm as she was agitated, and that only made her more so. “I would have thought the reason was obvious.” Quint placed his hands on her shoulders to hold her in place. “I’m in love with you, Ginny.”
She could only stare at him. “You can’t be.”
Why wouldn’t she believe him? “I know my own mind. I know that something happened the very first time I saw you storm into my office, breathing fire, tossing that wild hair of yours around, making me want to run my fingers through it. Making me wonder what a woman like you would feel like if I held her in my arms.” His eyes soften as he looked at her. “And when I found out, then I knew.”
Ginny felt nerves pulling, taut within her. “Knew what?”
“That I wanted you in my arms forever.” Very slowly he ran his hands along her arms, emotions charging through him that were almost too intense to corral. “Now, why did you run?”
She pressed her lips together, telling herself she wasn’t going to cry because then he’d really think she was crazy. He probably did already. What sane person jumped from a moving wagon? But there was a reason for that. And he’d been right about that, too.
“All right,” she admitted finally, “I am afraid.”
He tried to read the look in her eyes and didn’t quite succeed. “Of me?”
“In a way,” she allowed slowly. The words came out in measured clusters. “Of how it would feel if I said yes and then it turned out to be a big joke.”
What Quint felt was so strong, he’d just taken for granted that she would know. He realized that he’d been wrong. He had to move slowly. But it was hard when everything inside him wanted to rush. He wanted to embrace what was happening, to let everyone in on it. He hadn’t thought that he’d have to start with her.
“It’s not—”
But she placed the tips of her fingers to his mouth. She wasn’t finished. “Or worse, that it’s not a big joke, that you’re serious.”
He took her hand from his lips and held it in both of his. The expression on his face was earnest. “I think you just lost me.”
She tried very hard to explain, to let him into the jumble in her mind. It wasn’t easy explaining fear, or letting him see this part of her.
“That you’re serious for now. For tonight, maybe even for a day, a month, a whole year. And then you’ll change your mind.” She closed her eyes, pressing back the tears that suddenly wanted to come. “You’ll leave because you can’t stay. Because you want to be somewhere else, with someone else, someplace other than with me,” she whispered.
Moved, Quint gently took her face in his hands and looked into her eyes. He understood now, understood that he was confronting the whole woman, and part of that confrontation involved the little girl who’d been abandoned by her father, who had periodically been deposited in a string of foster homes whenever her mother got the wanderlust, or tired of her and used the excuse that she couldn’t properly care for her any longer. The little girl who’d endured one strange home after another, passed from one to the other like so much unwanted laundry. The girl who’d been determined that her sister wouldn’t have to put up with the emptiness that came of knowing you were being abandoned.
All those things had gone into forming her, into making her the woman that he now loved. The woman who was afraid to believe in that love.
He did his best to set her at ease, to make her trust him.
“I’m not like your mother, or your father, or anyone else who’s been in your life before, Ginny.” He looked into her eyes and spoke to her soul. “I love you. It’s a fact of life. A fact of my life. Hopefully, a fact of your life.
“And I’m not going to change my mind. Not in an hour, or a day, or
a week, or the thousand weeks that’ll follow that. Ask anyone. I make up my mind and it stays made up.”
She wanted, oh so much, to believe him. “And your heart? Does it stay made up, too?”
Taking her hand in his, he placed it over his chest. She could feel it beating hard. Excitement built within her.
“It stays made up, too. And it’s made up now. I can’t make you stay, Ginny, not if you want to go. Not if you don’t feel the same about me as I do you. But that doesn’t change the way I feel about you. If you walk away, I’ll still go on loving you.”
“But why, why do you love me?” She needed reasons, to know.
Love couldn’t be explained, not really. Quint knew that, but he did his best because she needed to hear reasons.
“Because I just do. Because you’re kind. Because you could have walked away from your sister so many times and you didn’t Because you have love in your heart. Because you’re a fighter and you survived even when the odds were against you. Because of the spark that came into your eyes when you took on my parents’ fight and made it your own.
“And because—” his voice softened “—when I hold you, when I kiss you, there’s nothing left of this earth but you and me. Nobody’s ever made the world disappear for me before, Ginny. And nobody ever will again.”
He was making her a promise. And she believed him. “Nobody’s ever said anything like this to me before.”
“Good.” He brushed the hair away from her face, wanting just to look at her. “I like being the first. So, what do you say?”
She bit her lip. “I’m still afraid.” But her eyes were the eyes of a woman who was conquering her fears.
“I’ll be there with you, every step of the way,” he promised her. Taking her into his arms, he held her to him, his words feathering through her hair. “Through the vows, the kids, the grandkids—”
Maybe she was getting hysterical, she thought. If she was, it felt good. Laughter bubbled up inside her. “Wait, wait for me to catch up.”
“I’ll wait, Ginny.” He grew serious. “The rest of my life if I have to.”
“You won’t have to.” She threaded her arms around his neck, leaning into his body. This was where she was meant to be. Drawing her courage to her, she told him what she knew was in her heart, what she’d been afraid to let free. “I love you, Quint.” She let out a sigh, then looked at him. “That’s just about the bravest thing I’ve ever said.”
He understood. It was brave because she’d put her heart at risk. “Nothing sexier than a brave woman, I always say.” His mouth curved into a confident smile. It was going to be all right. “Marry me?”
“Try and stop me.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” He had other dreams, he thought as his mouth found hers. And those were just about to begin.
* * * * *
Watch for Morgan’s story,
A MATCH FOR MORGAN,
coming to Silhouette Yours Truly
in March 1999.
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eISBN 978-14592-6049-8
THE LAW AND GINNY MARLOW
Copyright © 1999 by Marie Rydzynski-Ferrarella
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Silhouette Books, 300 East 42nd Street, New York, NY 10017 U.S.A.
All 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 incidents are pure invention.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and TM are trademarks of Harlequin Books S.A., used under license. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.
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Table of Contents
Cover Page
Table of Contents
Dear Reader
Dedication
Dear Reader
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
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10
Books by Marie Ferrarella
Copyright
The Law and Ginny Marlow Page 13
