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Maybe leather or corduroy would be best I thought studying several swatches by holding them up against the wall.
My new rocking chair would arrive in a couple of days and I didn't want the fabrics to clash with each other. Gage was silent and I turned to him and saw an arrested expression on his face.
“But, Helene said orange was your favorite color ….”
“It probably was when I was three years old,” I smiled and gave his arm a squeeze to let him know I appreciated his effort to make me comfortable in his house. What other man would redo a room in his home in the most violent shades of orange for a woman he has never met?
So much had happened in the last year. I was more in love with Gage than ever and we were enjoying all the time alone at his country house.
We left the Torvannen house as soon as Rosco was able to travel. We were all surprised when he made a full recovery.
Helene went back to Paris and Laurent returned to his mysterious 'government' job. I heard from him about once a month. He never said where he was or what he was doing, but I was glad that he checked in because I worried about him.
Patty married a Captain Kirk lookalike and moved to Las Vegas. The couple were
expecting their first child and were fighting over whether to name the baby something Klingon or Vulcan. When I told Gage he laughed and said he thought they should choose something Borg instead.
Leah decided to go back to school to get a degree in Psychology. She hoped to provide couples counseling someday, a crazy idea I thought, but of course, I kept that to myself.
I heard from a friend in the mail room at Whitley, Small, et. al., that Lillian was being WARLOCK’S BRIDE JENNIFER RINEHART 132
investigated on charges of fraud and money laundering along with her oh-so-eligible fiancé, Martin.
It turned out that Martin's import export business was mostly importing drug money and filtering it through his family's defunct furniture business. Lillian was acting as his go between and they had both had all their assets seized when the D.E.A. busted them after a year long undercover operation.
She had been placed on administrative leave at the firm and the Oregon State Bar was conducting a separate investigation that was likely to culminate in her being disbarred. I can't say I didn't derive some small amount of pleasure from hearing what happened to Lillian. I'm not an angel after all. Obviously, I have to work on that.
Guy Small ran off with one of the bicycle messengers and no one had heard from him in months. Finding out he was gay and defied his father for the first time in his life made me almost like him.
My neighbors in St. Johns benefited from a mysterious new landlord who lowered
everyone's rent by fifty percent and fixed the elevator so that it would go all the way to the third floor and back again. I was delighted to hear that with the money they saved they were all able to afford taxi rides to appointments and shopping.
Gage and I settled into his house in England. We made frequent trips to London, a city I had grown to love, and we adopted a small, partially bald dog we found hiding in the barn.
Salty, we named him, spent most of the day following Harrison around the house, too lovelorn to understand that Harrison didn't like dogs. But I caught him feeding Salty pieces of bacon and cheese whenever he thought no one was looking.
I kept in contact with Morgan. She was as cheerless and serious as ever but together we had started a rescue service for young women who were in danger from predatory covens. The ten bedroom dower house on Gage's property had been turned into a women's shelter and Helene was splitting her time between her apartment in Paris and the shelter helping out with the women and children there.
I wasn't surprised when she decided to sell her apartment and move into the house to take over the running of it full time. She thought it would be a few months to get everything settled in France and then she could leave.
Gage and I still weren't married. We had a long talk after leaving Oregon and he assured me that as long as I would stay with him, he was content. Also, to my surprise, he said that if we never had children, he didn't mind. I loved him all the more for saying it especially after seeing his gentleness and longing when he held one of the little girls from the shelter on his lap and read her a bedtime story. He would make a great dad someday.
I was brought back to the present by Gage's impatient sigh. “When are you going to be done in here and what's the rush? I hear you've been working in here most of the day.”
I sighed as I looked at him over my shoulder, “Well, there really isn't any rush, I have almost six months to get this done. I just wanted to do it myself while I still could.”
I smiled as I watched him puzzle over my words. I rubbed my hands across my still flat belly and saw as his eyes widened in dawning realization.
“A baby?” He asked with a disbelieving expression, his eyes flashing from my face to my belly and back again.
I nodded proudly. With a whoop of glee he scooped me up into his arms and twirled me around once before setting me carefully back down. His hands slid gently over my abdomen and WARLOCK’S BRIDE JENNIFER RINEHART 133
an expression of joy filled his eyes.
“Are you feeling okay? Shouldn't you be lying down or at the doctor's office?” His face was anxious as he said this and I smiled.
“I feel fine.”
“Really,” I said firmly when he still looked worried.
“Marry me?” My head jerked up at his serious tone. With a delighted grin I watched as he knelt before me. With one hand on my belly and the other reaching for my hand, he waited for my answer. His face was strangely vulnerable as I met his gray eyes with my teary green ones.
“Yes, I will!”
And just like that, we were engaged, finally.
The End
