My Only One
Page 18
“Now,” he said, as he sat down on the chair, “we can talk. If Dr. Belov wasn’t with me, I wouldn’t have had to wear this uniform at all.”
Abby shook her head and reached out. Instantly, she felt Alec’s cool, dry hand around hers. “Is this real? Are you here, or am I going crazy?”
He ached to take her into his arms, to make torrid love with her. Exercising steel control over his hungry urges, he gently cradled her hands as he shifted, their knees barely grazing each other’s. “I’m here,” he whispered, “and this is real. We’re real, Abby.”
Shaken, her voice wobbly, “I didn’t know you were coming.”
“I didn’t, either, not until the last moment. I’m sorry I dropped into your life like this.” He brushed her cheek. “I didn’t mean to shock you.”
Abby felt the strength of his hands around hers, his thumbs caressing her flesh as if to try and take her shock away. “How did you get here?”
His smiled disappeared and he held her eyes that sparkled with unshed tears. “You remember I was working for that admiral in Kamchatka last year?”
“Yes.”
“By becoming his assistant, I got some leverage to finally get to Moscow on special assignment. My old friend Misha Surin and his son, the colonel, were instrumental in helping to form a permanent Bureau of Oceanography at the Kremlin. Colonel Surin is running the bureau. He’s been assigned the best marine biologist in the Soviet Union to work with him on oceanographic concerns and issues.”
He leaned down and kissed her hands. “The bureau’s reason for coming into being is partly glasnost and partly because our own marine scientists, such as Dr. Belov, who has just come aboard the Seafarer, can help all endangered ocean species, not just whales. I’ve been working behind the scenes for the past four month with twenty countries negotiating an agreement to begin studying mankind’s pollution of the oceans and the effects it’s having on all life-forms.” A slow smile came to his mouth. “Abby, I’ve been assigned as the public affairs officer for the bureau. I’ll be working out of the Soviet embassy in Washington.”
She stared at him, going more deeply into shock.
“Abby? Do you understand what all this means?” Her eyes were dazed, and she didn’t answer. “It means I’ll be living in the United States. This all came about in the past two weeks. I tried to call you, but Susan told me you were already here in Mexico. I managed to talk Colonel Surin into letting me escort Dr. Belov here and to stay with him until his return to the Soviet Union two months from now.”
A deep, ragged sigh pulled from Abby as she digested his words. “You’re going to be living in D.C.?”
“Right now, the Soviet Embassy is searching for an apartment for me. By the time I leave the Seafarer, the apartment will be ready. I will have to fly to New York often, to meet with U.N. delegates, but my office will be in the Soviet Embassy itself.”
“My God…”
He tried to read her eyes, the varied emotions reflected in them. Fear started to stalk him. Over the months, had Abby’s caring, or possibly love, for him died? His mouth grew dry. “I know I’m not the best letter writer. I didn’t want to tell you about the bureau for fear that if the idea failed, you would be disappointed.” He reached over, sliding his hand along her jawline. “And more than anything, I didn’t want to hurt you any more than you’d already been hurt by my leaving, Abby.”
A shuddering sigh worked through her as he continued to stroke her cheek. “This is a dream,” she whispered, closing her eyes, “a dream…”
“A dream come true.”
Tears leaked from beneath her eyelids, and Abby tried to brush them away.
“No,” Alec said in a hushed voice, “let me kiss your tears away.” He moved from the chair to her bunk. Dr. Belov be damned. Alec couldn’t wait any longer to claim the woman he loved. “Come here,” he told her, “come here and let me love you.”
*
THE GENTLE ROLLING MOTION of the Seafarer reminded Abby of a mother rocking her child in her arms. A soft smile pulled at her mouth as she slowly awakened in Alec’s warm, strong arms. How long she’d slept after making love with him, she didn’t know. She lay the length of Alec, her leg entwined with his, her arm across his flat, hard belly. She could feel the moistness of his breath against her temple, and never had she felt so complete as now.
As the Seafarer continued to gently rock, Abby felt Alec stir languidly at her side. She looked up, wanting to watch his face as he awakened. Those rebellious black strands of hair were on his unmarred brow once again. Coming out of sleep, he looked boyish, some of the strain that was always hovered around his mouth and eyes gone. Following her urge, she pushed those strands back into place with her fingers.
Alec slowly opened his eyes. What he saw made his heart contract with such fierce love that he thought it was possible to die from utter happiness. Abby lay beside him, her hair a thick mass of crimson around her head and shoulders. The joy, the utter joy in her dancing, sparkling sapphire eyes sent a ribbon of fierce protectiveness throughout him. This was the woman he wanted for his wife, his mate, for the rest of his life.
Shifting, Alec propped himself on one elbow and settled Abby on her back. Her welcoming smile, the way she slid her arms around his neck and brought him down close enough to kiss him slowly and thoroughly gave him the necessary courage to speak of what lay in his heart.
His gut felt tight. It was fear sitting in his belly. Fear that Abby didn’t love him as he loved her. When he spoke, his voice was rasp. “The past seven months have been a special hell,” he admitted. “I read a great many poems during that period, and I found that you and I were reflected in many of them. I understood as never before that poetry is one way to try to heal one’s self.” Alec held her shimmering gaze. “I fell in love with you, Abby. I think, looking back on it, from the moment I saw you through the binoculars from the helicopter.” He gave a little shrug. “My love for you hasn’t diminished with time, only multiplied. I didn’t tell you the last time we were together because I wasn’t sure if you loved me. I don’t know if you do even now….”
With a stunned little cry, Abby digested his admission. And then she threw her arms around him. “Oh, Alec! I do love you. I’ve always loved you!”
He rolled onto his back and she fitted beautifully on top of him. “You love me?”
Tears came to her eyes. “With every breath I take.”
Whispering her name, Alec wrapped his arms around her, all the tension, all the fear dissolving in that instant. Kissing her eyes, he took away her tears. Kissing her mouth, he shared his fierce need of her, reminding her on another level of just how much he loved her. Her laughter spilled over them as she kissed him eagerly in return.
Laughter bubbled up in Alec and he simply held her after their kiss. “You’re mine,” he said. “You were always mine.”
“Yes, always,” Abby murmured, content to remain on top of him, feeling the strength, the hardness of his body against hers.
“Then, when we return to Washington, I will court you properly.”
Abby raised her head. There was a glint in Alec’s eyes she’d never seen before. It sent warm waves of expectation through her. “Court?”
“In the Soviet Union, a man courts the woman he loves in hope that someday she will consent to marry him.”
Drawing in a tremulous breath, Abby stared down at him. A lazy smile tugged at his mouth and confidence gleamed in his eyes. “Court.”
“Yes.”
“Marry?”
“Yes.”
“Oh…”
“Marriage is held sacred in my country. We don’t live together like you do here in America, Abby. I don’t think it proper that we do that. I think we need time to explore and find out about each other. Courting is a good way to do it, don’t you think?”
Dizzy with joy, Abby laughed. “I think it’s wonderful, Alec! It’s just that in this day and age, courting sounds so outdated.”
“Old-fashioned,�
� he reminded her archly, running his hands down her long, beautiful back. “And you are old-fashioned by nature. I’ve seen it many times.” He glanced at his uniform blouse. “And if you looked in the breast pocket of my blouse, you’d find the gold locket with your hair inside it. I’ve kept it with me always.”
Touched as never before, Abby nodded. She laid down on Alec, nestling her head on his shoulder, her hand resting at the juncture of his neck and shoulder. “I missed you so much. I never realized what loving and then losing you would do to me.”
“Well,” he said huskily, “those days are over.”
“I just can’t believe it, Alec. You’re really going to live in the United States.”
“For most of the year, yes. I’ve also got a small apartment in Moscow. There will be times when I’ll have to fly there for weeks, or perhaps at the most, a month, at a time.” He smiled over at her contented-looking features. “I’m hoping we can arrange our schedules so that you can go with me.”
Abby nodded. “We’ll work something out.”
“And your whales and dolphins will continue to get Soviet backing. Dr. Belov is anxious to meet you. He’s our whale expert.”
“Those poor scientists probably think I disappeared from the face of the earth!”
Grinning, Alec kissed her. “No, I don’t think so.
“Oh?”
“I told them on the way over here that we were engaged to be married and I hadn’t seen you in seven months. They might be some of the most brilliant oceanographic scientists in the world, but they are men and they understood without it being said that you weren’t going to be available to them very much today. Tomorrow, perhaps, but not today.”
Giggling, Abby said, “You’re very clever, Captain Rostov. But am I ever glad you are!”
As Alec lay there, Abby warm and alive in his arms, he closed his eyes. “Every day,” he promised her, “will be special to us. The thaw between our countries has been more than just words or deeds. Glasnost is about all the people of the world.”
Abby nodded, touched deeply by his perceptiveness, his innate goodness toward all life. “In a way, we’re a symbol of things, good things, to come, Alec.”
“Love transcends everything,” he promised her thickly, and gently he began to show her in a silent language that transcended foreign tongues and all political barriers what he meant.
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About the Author
LINDSAY MCKENNA
A homeopathic educator, Lindsay teaches at the Desert Institute of Classical Homeopathy in Phoenix, Arizona. When she isn’t teaching alternative medicine, she is writing books about love. She feels love is the single greatest healer in the world, and hopes that her books touch her readers’ hearts.
Look for Lindsay McKenna’s upcoming books–UNFORGIVEN, available October 2006 from Silhouette Nocturne, and BEYOND THE LIMIT, available December 2006 from HQN Books.
ISBN-13: 9781460334324
MY ONLY ONE
Copyright © 1990 by Eileen Nauman
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