“You rushed her into making a decision.”
Chase had another argument poised and ready, but he’d recognized early on that there was nothing he could say that would alter June’s opinion of him.
“I don’t think we’re going to be able to talk this out,” he said, not bothering to disguise his disappointment. “I’d never keep Lesley here against her will, that much I promise you. You’ve raised a wonderful woman and I love her more than my own life. I can’t offer you any greater reassurance than that.”
His words were greeted with silence.
“You and your husband will always be welcome here, especially after we start our family.”
She turned and glared at him as if he’d said something offensive, but Chase was tired of trying to decipher this woman’s thoughts.
“If Lesley wants to visit you and your husband in Montana, she can go with my blessing,” he added. It went without saying that he wouldn’t be welcome. “I apologize for making an idiot of myself earlier. I don’t blame you for thinking ill of me, but I’d hoped we’d be able to put that behind us and start again. Perhaps before you leave, we’ll be able to do that.” He switched gears, turned the vehicle around and drove back to the house.
Lesley was knitting in the rocking chair when he walked inside. She glanced up anxiously, but must have read the defeat in his eyes, and the disdain in her mother’s, because she sagged against the back of the chair.
“What are you knitting?” June asked, revealing some enthusiasm for the first time in hours.
“A sweater for Chase. One of the ladies in town sells yarn, so while I was there I picked up a pattern and everything else I was going to need.”
“You met Thelma?” Chase asked, claiming the recliner next to his wife.
“I had tea with all the ladies,” Lesley informed him. She was trying not to smile. Her mouth quivered and the need to kiss her felt nearly overwhelming.
So she’d gone into town on her own. Chase should’ve realized she was too anxious to meet the others to wait for him to introduce her.
“It’s stuffy in here,” June announced.
“There’s a chair on the porch,” Chase suggested. If his curmudgeon of a mother-in-law wasn’t standing guard over them, he might be able to steal a few minutes alone with his wife.
“I think I’ll sit out there for a while.”
“Good idea,” Chase said with just a smidgen of glee. To his credit, he didn’t lock the door behind her.
“What happened?” Lesley asked in a breathy whisper the instant her mother was out the door.
“She thinks I seduced you into moving up here with me.”
Lesley batted her long lashes at him. “You did, didn’t you?”
“I’d certainly like the opportunity to do so again,” he said, waggling his brows suggestively. “I’m not going to last another five days without making love to you. Maybe not even another five minutes—”
“Chase!” Lesley whispered, as he moved toward her. “My mother’s right outside.”
“She already thinks I’m a sex fiend as it is.”
“You are!”
Chase chuckled, but his humor was cut short by a piercing scream from the front porch. Never in his life had Chase moved faster. Lesley reacted just as quickly. Her knitting needles and yarn flew toward the ceiling as they both raced out the front door.
June was backed against the front of the house, her hands flattened over her heart. Even from several feet away, Chase could see she was trembling.
“What happened?” he demanded.
June closed her eyes and shook her head. Luckily Lesley was there to comfort her. She wrapped her arms around her mother and gently guided her toward the door.
“Something must have frightened her,” Chase said. He debated going for his hunting rifle, then decided against it. Whatever the danger had been, it’d passed.
“It was…huge.” The words were strangled-sounding.
“A bear, Mom. Did you see a bear?” Lesley’s eyes widened with fear, but her mother shook her head.
“It must’ve been a moose,” Chase speculated. He recalled the first time he’d come nose to nose with one. It was an experience he’d rather not repeat.
“No.” June shook her head again.
“A wolf?” Lesley pressed.
“No,” his mother-in-law moaned. Lesley led her into the house and urged her down in the rocker while Chase went for a glass of water.
“It was a…a spider,” June said, gripping the glass with both hands. “A black one with long legs. I…I’ve never liked spiders.”
Judging by June’s reaction, that was an understatement.
“A spider?” Chase whispered. The woman had sounded as though she’d barely escaped with her life.
His wife shrugged and rolled her eyes.
“Suggest she go to bed and rest,” he said in hushed tones.
Lesley’s lips quivered with the effort it took to suppress a smile.
“Maybe you’d better lie down,” Lesley said in a soothing voice.
“You’re right,” June murmured, clearly shaken by the encounter. “I don’t usually overreact like this. It’s just that this spider was so big. I didn’t expect there to be spiders here in Alaska, of all places.”
“We all have a tendency to overreact under certain circumstances,” Chase said, using the opportunity to defend his own behavior earlier in the day. “Later we realize how foolish we must have looked to everyone else. People generally understand and forgive that sort of thing.” As far as sermons went, he felt he’d done well. He was no TV evangelist, but he figured he’d got his point across. He only hoped June had picked up on his message.
“I do feel like I should rest.”
“I’ll check out the room first,” Chase offered, “and make sure there’s nothing there.” All he needed was for June to interrupt him and Lesley. He didn’t know how well his heart would stand up to another bloodcurdling scream.
“Thank you,” June whispered as he hurried out.
When he came back to signal that all was clear, Lesley accompanied her mother to the bedroom. After five minutes Chase was glancing at his watch, wondering how long this was going to take.
Another ten minutes passed before Lesley returned to the living room. “Mom’s resting comfortably. I gave her a couple of aspirin to settle her nerves.”
“I need something to settle my nerves, too,” Chase said, reaching for her and pulling her onto his lap.
“Chase.” She put up a token struggle.
“Kiss me.”
“I…I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Considering what I really want, a kiss seems darn little. Don’t be stingy, Lesley, I need you.” If they’d been alone, he’d have had her in bed fifteen seconds after they got home. As it was, he’d been forced to sit through an uncomfortable dinner and then deal with her dragon of a mother before and after the spider attack. A kiss was small compensation.
He nibbled at her ear. He’d settle for kissing her. It was all he wanted right now, just enough to satisfy him until he could tell her all that was in his heart.
He could feel her resistance, the little there was, melt away.
She turned her head until their lips met. The kiss was slow and deep. It demanded every shred of stamina he had to drag his mouth away from hers. By then, Lesley’s arms had circled his neck and she was sighing softly. She laid her head on his shoulder and worked her fingers into his hair.
Now was the time to tell her. He forced his mind from the warmth of her body pressing against his, her moist breath fanning his neck.
“When I spoke to your mother…” The words wouldn’t come. Maybe this would be easier after they’d made love.
“Yes?” Lesley lifted her head, curiosity brightening her eyes.
“I told her something I’ve never told you.” Their eyes met and her mouth widened with an enticing smile.
“I love you, Lesley.” There it was, out
in the open for her to accept or reject. His heart was there, too, along with his dreams for their future.
Lesley tensed, her hands on his shoulders. “What did you just say?” Her voice was barely audible.
“I love you.” It sounded so naked, saying it like that. “I realize blurting it out might make you uncomfortable, but I didn’t think it was fair if I told your mother how I felt and said nothing to you.”
She was off his lap in a flash. Tears glazed her eyes as she backed away from him.
“I was sure of it when I thought you’d left me,” he explained. “I’d tried to reach you by phone and when I couldn’t, I had Pete go to the cabin. He told me the truck was gone and that Jim had flown you into Fairbanks. I didn’t know what to think. Now it seems ludicrous to leap to the conclusions I did, but at the time it made perfect sense.”
“I see.” One tear escaped the corner of her eye and rolled down the side of her face.
“Say something,” he pleaded. His heart was precariously perched at the end of his sleeve. The least she could do was let him know if she was about to pluck it off and crush it beneath her feet.
“I knew when we got married that you didn’t love me,” she said, without looking at him. “When we were in Victoria—I knew you didn’t love me then, either.”
“Don’t be so sure,” he returned, frowning. He understood the problem, had always understood it. Tony. She was in love with her former fiancé and that wasn’t likely to change for a long time.
Her head snapped up. “You were in love with me on our honeymoon?”
He shrugged, unwilling to reveal everything quite so soon. He wished she’d express her feelings for him.
“Were you?” she asked again.
Chase stood and rubbed his hand along the back of his neck, walking away from her. “Does it matter?”
“Yes.”
“All right,” he muttered. “As near as I can figure, I loved you when we got married. It just took me a while to…put everything together.” He shoved his hands inside his pockets. This wasn’t going as well as he’d hoped.
“I tried to reassure your mother, but that didn’t work,” he continued. “Tony’s got her convinced you married me on the rebound and that it was a mistake.”
“I didn’t.”
Now it was Chase’s turn to go still. He was afraid to believe what he thought she was saying. “You aren’t in love with Tony?” he asked breathlessly.
“That would be impossible when I’m crazy in love with you.” She smiled then, the soft womanly smile that never failed to stir him. Her love shone like a beacon.
Chase closed his eyes to savor her words, to wrap them around his heart and hold on to the feeling. It happened then, a physical need, a craving for her that was so powerful it nearly doubled him over.
They moved toward each other, their kisses fuel to the flames of their desire.
“Chase,” Lesley groaned between kisses, unbuttoning his shirt as she spoke. “We can’t.… Mother’s room is directly down the hall from us. She’ll hear.”
Chase kissed her while trying to decide what to do.
“The cache,” he said, grateful for the inspiration. It wasn’t the ideal solution, but it would serve their purpose.
Lesley’s legs seemed to have given out on her and he lifted her into his arms, pausing only long enough to grab the quilt from the rocking chair.
He gathered her in his arms, holding her close with a fierce possessiveness.
“I love you.” Each time he said it, the words came more easily.
“I know.” She spread a slow series of kisses along his jaw.
“Your mother…”
“Don’t worry about Mom. She’ll come around, especially when she’s got grandchildren to spoil.”
“Children,” Chase said softly.
“Is this a new concept to you?”
“Not entirely.” He grinned and she smiled back.
“Good.” Her teeth caught his lower lip. “Soon I hope,” she said a moment later. “How soon?”
Lesley raised her head and her beautiful dark eyes gazed down at him. “No time like the present, is there?”
Chase sucked in his breath. He’d thought they’d wait a year, possibly longer, to start their family, but he couldn’t refuse Lesley anything.
“Will I ever grow tired of you?” he wondered aloud.
“Never,” she promised.
Chase instinctively knew it was true.
Epilogue
“Grandma, Grandma.” Three-year-old Justin Goodman tore out of Lesley’s grasp as they stepped into the small airport and he ran into the waiting arms of June Campbell-Sterne.
June hugged her grandson and lifted him from the ground. “Oh, my, you’ve gotten so big.”
Justin’s chubby arms circled his grandmother’s neck and he squeezed tightly.
“Justin’s not the only one who’s grown,” Chase said, slipping his arm around Lesley’s thickened waist.
“You would have, too, if you were about to have a baby,” Lesley reminded her husband.
Chase chuckled and shook hands with Ken Sterne.
“Good to see you again,” Ken said. “June’s been cooking for three days. You’d think an army was about to descend on us.”
“Hush now,” June chastised her husband. “How are you feeling?”
Lesley sighed. How did any woman feel two months before her delivery date? Anxious. Nervous. Eager. “I’m okay.”
June put down her grandson and kissed Chase on the cheek.
His eyes met Lesley’s and he gave her a know-it-all look. It had taken time, but Lesley had been right about the effect grandchildren would have on the relationship between her mother and her husband. When they’d first met, four years earlier, her mother had been convinced Chase was some kind of demon. These days he was much closer to sainthood.
“How’s Twin Creeks?” Ken asked, steering the small party toward the baggage area.
“The population has doubled,” Lesley informed him proudly. It had started soon after her arrival. Pete had gotten married the following spring and he and his wife already had two children and another on the way. Even Jim had married, which surprised them all. A widow with four children had found a place in all their hearts.
It seemed there was a baby being born every few months. The community was thriving. Lesley believed Chase was the one who’d put everything in motion; his venture into Seattle to find himself a wife was what had started the process. Soon the other men working at the pump station were willing to open their lives.
Chase, however, was convinced that once the other men saw what a wonderful woman he’d found, they’d decided to take their chances, as well.
Whatever the reason, there were fifteen more women residing in Twin Creeks. Ten of them had apparently made it a personal goal to populate Alaska.
She placed one arm around her husband and smiled softly to herself. How different her life would have been without him. Each and every day she thanked God for that crazy billboard she’d seen on her way to the store.
BRIDE WANTED.
Their marriage was meant to be—because he’d chosen her although she hadn’t answered his ad. And he’d let her know in a million ways since that she was the bride he wanted.
ISBN-13: 9781460375563
BRIDES AND GROOMS BOX SET
Copyright © 2014 by Harlequin Books S.A.
The publisher acknowledges the copyright holders of the individual works as follows:
MARRIAGE WANTED
Copyright © 1993 by Debbie Macomber
BRIDE WANTED
Copyright © 1993 by Debbie Macomber
GROOM WANTED
Copyright © 1993 by Debbie Macomber
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or s
tored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and ™ are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office and in other countries.
www.Harlequin.com
Brides and Grooms Box Set: Marriage WantedBride WantedGroom Wanted Page 54
