Birthright

by Nora Roberts

  “The hell it is.” He started to jerk her around, remembered her shoulder, then stepped in front of her. “I didn’t give it back to you, the way you were looking for. This time I will.”

  “It’s stupid because I never stopped loving you, you big jerk. No you don’t.” She threw up a hand, slapped it against his chest to ward him off when she saw the gleam in his eyes. “This time you ask.”

  “Ask what?”

  “You know what. You want me all the way back, then you do it right. You get down on one knee, and you ask.”

  “You want me to get down on my knees?” He was sincerely horrified. “You want to see me grovel and beg?”

  “Yes, I do. Oh yeah. Assume the position, Graystone, or I walk.”

  “For Christ’s sake.” He spun around, paced away, muttering to himself.

  “I’m waiting.”

  “All right, all right. Damn it. I’m working up to it.”

  “I got shot tonight.” She fluttered her lashes when he looked back at her. “I nearly drowned. That could’ve been it,” she added, tossing his own words in his face. “And somebody’s wasting time.”

  “You always did fight dirty.” Scowling, he strode back, seared her with one look, then knelt.

  “You’re supposed to take my hand and look soulful.”

  “Oh, shut up and let me do this. I feel like an idiot. Are you going to marry me, or what?”

  “That’s not the way to ask. Try again.”

  “Mother of God.” He huffed out a breath. “Callie, will you marry me?”

  “You didn’t say you love me. And I figure you have to say it ten times to my one for the next five years to even the score.”

  “You’re really getting a charge out of this, aren’t you?”

  “The biggest.”

  “Callie, I love you.” And the smile that warmed her face loosened the tightness in his chest. “Damn it, I loved you from the first minute I looked at you. It scared me to death, and it pissed me off. I didn’t handle it well. I didn’t handle it well because for the first time in my life, there was a woman who could hurt me. Who mattered more than I could stand. That really pissed me off.”

  Moved, she reached down to touch his cheek. “Okay, you’ve groveled enough.”

  “No, I’m going to finish this. I got you into bed, fast. Figured it’d burn out. Didn’t happen. Yanked you into marriage. Figured everything would level off then. Seemed logical. Didn’t happen either. And that—”

  “Pissed you off.”

  “Damn right it did. So I messed things up. I let you mess them up. And I walked away because I was damn sure you’d come running after me. Didn’t happen. I won’t ever walk away again. I love who you are. Even when you drive me crazy, I just love who you are. I love you. I’m racking those up, aren’t I?”

  “Yeah.” She blinked at tears. “Doing good. I won’t walk either, Jake. I won’t expect you to know what I need or want. Or assume I know what you’re feeling or thinking. I’ll tell you. I’ll ask you. And we’ll find the way.”

  She bent down to kiss him, but when he started to rise, she pushed him down again.

  “What now?”

  “Got a ring?”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “A ring’s appropriate. But lucky for you, I happen to have one.” She pulled the chain from under her shirt, lifted it off and spilled it, and her wedding band, into his hand.

  He stared at it with emotion storming through him. “This looks familiar.”

  “I didn’t take it off until you showed up here. I asked Lana to bring it with her when she got the dry clothes from the house.”

  It was warm from her body, and if he hadn’t already been on his knees, seeing her wedding ring would have dropped him on them. “You wore this the whole time we were separated?”

  “Yeah. I’m a sentimental slob.”

  “That’s a coincidence.” He tugged a chain from under his shirt, showed her the matching band. “So am I.”

  She closed her hand over it, used it to nudge him to his feet. “What a pair we are.”

  He closed his mouth over hers, with his hand fisted over her ring at the small of her back. “I wanted to prove I could live without you.”

  “Ditto.”

  “We both proved we could. But I’m a hell of a lot happier with you.”

  “Me too. Oh God.” Despite the pain in her shoulder, she wrapped her arms around him. “Me too. It’s not going to be Vegas this time.”

  “Hmm?”

  “We’ll find the place, have a real wedding. And we’re buying a house.”

  “Are we?”

  “I want a base. We’ll figure out where. I want a home with you. Someplace we can try to plant roots.”

  “No kidding?” He framed her face, then simply laid his forehead on hers. “So do I. I don’t care where, we can stick a pin in a map. But I want a home this time. Callie, I want kids.”

  “Now you’re talking. Our own tribe, our own settlement. This time we build something. This is a good spot.” She let out a long breath. “We’ll find one just as good. We’ll find ours.”

  “I love you.” He kissed each of her dimples. “I’ll make you happy.”

  “Doing a good job right now.”

  “And you love me. Crazy about me.”

  “Apparently.”

  “That’s good.” He took her hand, strolled with her back toward the car. “Because there’s this one thing. About the wedding.”

  “No Elvis impersonators, no Vegas. Nohow. We’re taking this seriously.”

  “Absolutely serious. It’s just the wedding is sort of, superfluous, seeing as we’re still married.”

  She stopped dead in her tracks. “Excuse me?”

  He opened the chain, slid her ring off. “I never signed the divorce papers. See, you were supposed to come after me, hunt me down and stuff them down my throat. That was my scenario.”

  He opened his chain, took his ring off as she gaped at him.

  “You didn’t sign them? We’re not divorced?”

  “Nope. Here, put this back on.”

  “Just one damn minute.” She curled her fingers into her palm. “What if I’d fallen for somebody else, planned to marry somebody else? What if?”

  “I’d have killed him, buried him in a shallow grave. And comforted you. Come on, Cal, let me put it back on your finger. I want to go home and sleep with my wife.”

  “You think this is funny, don’t you?”

  “Well, yeah.” He gave her that quick, dazzling grin. “Don’t you?”

  She folded her arms, narrowed her gaze. Tapped her foot. He just kept grinning.

  Then she stuck out her hand. “You’re so lucky my sense of humor is as warped as yours.”

  She let him slide the ring on, then took his and did the same. And when he swept her off her feet, carrying her through the gate as a groom might a bride over the threshold, she laughed.

  She looked over his shoulder at the work yet to be done, the past yet to be uncovered. They’d dig it out, she thought.

  Everything there was to find they’d find. Together.